We monitor the Humber Windfarms with our AISWatch service and captured the collision today between Solong ( cargo ship in green) and the Stena Immaculate ( oil tanker in red).
You can watch the AISWatch replay of the incident in 3D here:-
Australian and French vector (ENC) charts are now available for SeaNav.
The French charts include live tidal stream information up to 7 days ahead, especially important for the northern coast and channel. Here is an example for the Golfe du Morbihan in Britanny where PocketMariner’s Captain has personally experienced the very fast tidal flows :-
The free version of SeaNav has demo routes which let you try all the advanced features such as AIS (collision detection), Weather, Wind and Depth displays, Tidal Streams, Augmented Reality and of course the charts for free. New demo routes have been added for France and Australia. The demo route for Australia is from Mooloolaba on the Sunshine Coast:-
You can get SeaNav for iPhone, iPad and Apple Silicon Macs free from the AppStore here now:-
There is a great short video by “East Coast Sailing” which recommends our Boat Beacon & SeaNav apps, and includes a very novel and useful way of using a SeaNav route to plan and explore the weather (wind and waves) on the route using full screen Windy on a laptop. Well worth the watch.
You can now track, record and replay races with Boat Beacon on Android and iOS using groups and the following web page:-
https://boatbeaconapp.com/ais/race/MYGROUPNAME
Where MYGROUPNAME is your group name. The group hashtag name is anything you like up to 20 capital letters (no spaces). Set your group name in Boat Beacon/Settings/My Trip Details.
The initial view shows the last know position of all boats in the group. Click on “Start race” to show and track live positions. A race timer displays how long the race has been running for. Click on “Stop race” to end and save the race information to a local file.
When you stop the race two timestamped files are exported to your local desktop, a .kml file that can be used to view the tracks in Google Earth and a .geojson file which can be re-loaded up to the web page to replay the race using the “Choose file” button.
When a previously recorded race is loaded the following controls appear
A slider to fast forward and back through the race and tracks. A Playback speed slider to set the speed of the playback and a Play/Stop button. Click the Play button to start replaying the race from the slider position. There is also a checkbox top right “GPS Tracks” to turn the tracks on and off.
Here is the PocketMariner YC page – currently both boats ashore.
https://boatbeaconapp.com/ais/race/PMYC
There is a recorded track you can download to your desktop and load up to try here ( N.B this was a cycle test track with one “test” boat ):-
PMYC_2024-04-06T07_04_39Z.geojson
We are looking for early adopters to gather feedback on what other features or improvement could be made to make the new Group Race feature useful. Please let us know if you try it and how you get on by emailing help@pocketmariner.com with the subject “Group races”.
We are also looking at the possibility of tracking yachts and dinghies during club races using inexpensive small GPS trackers like the one below as an alternative to having the Boat Beacon app and are looking for a volunteer Yacht club to try this with.
The basic idea is for the tracker and sim card to be cheap enough for a club to have enough of these devices to hand out to all race participants who don’t have Boat Beacon so they can follow the tracks of all participating yachts and dinghies on screen at the club house and review the race afterwards.
Our tests of the trackers show they can run for around 12 hours on one charge with position updates every 5s (12m accuracy at 5 Knots). We have sourced non-expiring IoT data sim cards which work on all networks with enough data pre-installed for 5 million fixes. We are now looking to try with real races and need a volunteer Yacht club based in the UK. We will supply the trackers for the trial at cost and the service for free. The raw cost per GPS tracker device including the lifetime sim card is around £75. If you are interested please contact help@pocketmariner.com with the subject “Race Trackers”.
Boat Beacon must be in Sailing mode to maintain the AIS feed when it is in the background ( e.g. when you are viewing the Aqua Map chart) on your device.
The primary purpose of AIS is monitoring and alerting for potential collisions. Boat Beacon’s AIS service has two key advantage, instant ship details and over the horizon detection ( out to 30NM). With VHF AIS only the MMSI number, position and speed appear initially and it can take up to 6 minutes for the ship names and type details to be received. With Boat Beacon the names, size and type are available instantly with position so you can call them up by name over VHF radio and check their intentions. VHF AIS receivers can only see as far as the visual horizon which is typically about 12NM whereas Boat Beacon’s multiple shore antennas at high elevation can provide coverage out to 30NM in popular areas.
Boat Beacon has configurable options for collision detection distance, time and alerting in Settings.
You can also configure collision avoidance alert parameters in Aqua Map’s settings:-
As the new boating season starts we have added a new, unique and useful feature for our popular Boat Beacon app – “Hey Siri, Man Overboard”
Boat Beacon now supports several Siri voice commands which you can use with your device or on your Apple Watch (requires iOS 12 or later and WatchOS7 or later). This lets you use Boat Beacon’s features hands free. The current list of voice commands are:-
You can add the commands to Siri from the Boat Beacon app in settings or directly in the Siri App itself. They work directly with Siri without having to mention “Boat Beacon” in the command. You can also customise the commands to respond to your own preferred phrases or language.
Tap the Add to Siri button in Boat Beacon settings to see the list of commands that are active and more that you can add. “Drop anchor” and “Start sailing” have been added in the screenshot. To add another command just tap its “Add to Siri” button. Once added you can ask Siri to do them at any time on your device or your Apple Watch.
You can also edit the commands that have been added by tapping the “Added to Siri” button next to them and add additional speech commands to launch them. For instance add “On board” as an addition/alternative to “Start sailing. You can type the phrase or enable dictation and speak it. Useful also for setting phrases in other languages or using alternative phrases that Siri finds it easier to understand.
You can view and delete the commands in the Siri Shortcuts app on your phone. Once added the commands work automatically on your Apple Watch, no more set up required. If you want to see them in the actual Siri app on your Apple Watch as well then you can set “Show on Apple Watch” in the Shortcut settings in the Siri app on your phone.
Try it now. Add “Man Overboard” and then say “Hey Siri, Man Overboard” to your iPhone/iPad or your watch. It will sound an alert, mark the position and start tracking it for you.
Say “Man Overboard” again to clear the alert. N.B. This will still leave Boat Beacon in sailing mode.
There is a User guide in the app and online here:-
Our ship tracking network uses a global network of shore and ship-based radio stations, which receive signals from the AIS system that ships use to broadcast their positions as they travel. Our receiver stations share the ship positions with our cloud-based data server, which pushes them onwards and out to our apps and web services.
We are continuously working on increasing the coverage of our real-time AIS receiver station network. During the last three months we have added more than 100 new AIS stations across 5 continents bringing our live ship coverage to over 80,000 ships. We have supplied the AIS receiver for free for many of these sites. New volunteers are always welcome to join our AIS Network.
Here is a list of the most recent stations we have set up and a snapshot of our global coverage Q1 2022
If you are interested in adding coverage for your area, please read our Cover Your Area information – we can often provide the equipment free of charge.
Get live AIS ship positions around you in the OpenCPN app on Windows, Mac, Android and RPi without the need for an AIS receiver. Boat Beacon can now share its real time AIS feed from our global AIS aerial network via NMEA with OpenCPN on the same device or on the same Wifi Network. Boat Beacon acts as a “Virtual AIS Receiver” and is the first and currently only app out there that offers this . The Boat Beacon AIS Share feature is free to try. If you find it useful you can use it any time when you are out boating for a small monthly or annual subscription via IAP. You can get the latest version of Boat Beacon from the Apple App Store here and Google PlayStore here. This is a step by step guide on how to configure Boat Beacon AIS Sharing on iOS (Android guide here) with OpenCPN running on a Windows PC or Mac. Boat Beacon and OpenCPN must be running on the same Wifi network or device. The guide uses Boat Beacon’s demo mode so you can try for free at home away from the coast and without having to purchase an AIS sharing subscription.
1. Launch Boat Beacon and go into Boat Beacon settings and turn on “Demo Mode”, then turn on AIS Sharing. It will show the IP address (192.168.7.111 in this case) and default TCP port number to use 5353 and will be orange ( not connected). Remember the IP address for use later in OpenCPN. N.B. If you are not in the UK the demo mode will be centred on San Francisco bay in the US.
2. Tap Done top left and go back to the chart view. This will position the map on a virtual boat in the Solent ( or San Francisco Bay). All the other boats in view are real and live. Tap the sailboat icon bottom left to start sailing the demo route.
3. Now switch to the OpenCPN app on your PC ( or Mac) and position the map on the same demo location as Boat Beacon, Solent ( or San Francisco Bay).
On windows click the Spanner icon to open the Options Dialog which has 6 tabs, as seen below. On Mac click Preferences under OpenCPN top left in the toolbar.
Tap Connections, Add Connection
Select Network, select TPC for the protocol, enter the Address (192.168.7.111) and DataPort number (5353) from Boat Beacon. You can enter a User Comment (e.g. Boat Beacon AIS) so you can distinguish this connection from any other connections you add. Leave everything else as default for now.
Tap Apply to save and create the new connection and you should see this with the new Boat Beacon connection enabled:-
The Settings are persistent, meaning that settings entered in one session will still be there on restart. The live AIS data from Boat Beacon will then display in OpenCPN.
Please note Boat Beacon will use your GPS position ( in non demo mode) to fetch and share the AIS data from (not the displayed map position) so OpenCPN will need to be centred on your GPS location too.
Notes:
Fill out the Name as “Boat Beacon” ( or whatever you want to call the connection), the Host as 127.0.0.1 and the Port Number as 5353 and make sure the protocol is set as TCP.
Tap “Save” top right and go back to the map view. You should now see live AIS boat and ship icons on the Navionics map. You need to have “Display AIS targets” enabled in the Map Options in Navionics. 
Fill out the Name as “Boat Beacon” ( or whatever you want to call the connection), the Host as 127.0.0.1 and the Port Number as 5353 and make sure the protocol is set as TCP.Tap “Save” top right and go back to the map view. You should now see live AIS boat and ship icons on the Navionics map. (You need to have “Display AIS targets” enabled in the Map Options in Navionics. )
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