Crowley's dispatch office gets its AIS data as a live feed from marine exchanges in different ports. "We dial into their IP. It's less than a 30-second delay," Hoggarth said.
Crowley uses two software packages for its AIS electronics. One comes from Transas , and the other is Coastal Explorer from Rose Point Navigation . Both display AIS information on electronic charts.
Coastal Explorer is now available from West Marine! It's not in all their stores yet, but it is on their web site and will be in the next catalog!
Today I was aboard the NOAA Rainier for a short cruise around Lake Washington. The Rainier is primarily used for hydrographic survey operations along the Pacific Coast and in Alaska. NOAA calls her "the most productive coastal hydrographic survey platform in the world."
While I already knew that Coastal Explorer was used aboard the Rainier, I didn't know that it was the ONLY electronic charting system used aboard!
The Rainier is frequently out performing surveys in areas that haven't ever been surveyed before, or at least not in a VERY long time. I was told that sometimes a small survey vessel is sent into an uncharted area to perform a quick survey with its multibeam swath sonar system and the resulting data is turned into a GeoTIFF image which is then loaded into Coastal Explorer and used as a primitive chart to get the Rainier safely into the area in order to finish the survey work.
Many thanks go out to the crew of the Rainier for their hospitality and the opportunity to sail with them!
Steven gave an introductory class on using Coastal Explorer 2009 at the Queen City Yacht Club in Seattle tonight. Over 80 people showed up, which is about twice our normal class size! Most people broght their own laptops and were able to go along with Steven as he demonstrated various features.
Rose Point periodically offers these training classes which are free of charge. The next class will be at the Mercer Island Community Center on Thursday April 9, 2009. For more information or to reserve a seat, please send an email to christine@rosepointnav.com or call us at (425) 605-0985. All classes are mentioned on our main Events page.
Several of us went out on the Lady Laura today to compare several electronic heading sensors and do some final radar testing. After hooking everything up, we didn't really have time to calibrate all of the heading sensors, but we did mess around with the radar quite a bit while using the Vector G3 GPS Heading Sensor from ComNav (since it doesn't require any calibration).
The heading sensors we are testing include the Maretron SSC200, the Airmar H2183, the Elproma ECS1, and the ComNav Vector G2. More information about the tests will be posted when we're done.
The radar worked great!
Tim Flanagan over at Navagear is writing for Mad Mariner and his first article is all about his initial experiences using AIS with Coastal Explorer 2009. Check it out...
"After years of relatively quiet growth, the Redmond software developer is taking several big steps designed to raise its profile and grab market share in the small but competitive world of navigation software and products."
This picture is from a page about Cartographic Automation on the NOAA webiste. That's Coastal Explorer running on the monitor at the top of the picture!