Appeared in spring 2017, the Nomad to Digital Yacht was the first, and the only one, portable AIS transponder. I carried out a detailed test the following summer, reported on this blog (¹). We feared that this excellent device would be abandoned, because it has been unavailable for several months, but not at all ! Right now it is reborn in a new and improved version : Nomad-2. Read more …
Category : Security
R-Mode, future alternative to Positioning System
Global navigation satellite systems GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite System), have become the primary source of Positioning, Navigation and Timing (PNT1) for ships and marine operations. GNSS is also used for the automatic identification system (AIS2). Unfortunately, GNSS is recognized to be vulnerable to jamming and spoofing, intentional or not, that may result in the loss of positioning information, or, still worse, inaccurate positioning information. Read more …
Sargassum, North Atlantic calamity
During this period of major departures towards the southern islands before reaching the Antilles, It seems useful to me to relaunch this article which went unnoticed in the heart of summer.
Sargassum (sargassum) are brown algae that grow in the Sargasso Sea, off the coast of Florida and the Bahamas, where they get their name from. Some floating species then drift in a long belt that sometimes extends for thousands of kilometers on the surface of the sea depending on ocean currents and winds.. Many browsers have unfortunately encountered it. Read more …
XB-8000 new WiFi AIS transponder for mobile devices [Update]
Vesper Marine, company established in 2007 in Auckland (New Zealand), specializes in the design of devices for AIS data broadcasting. Their latest product, XB-8000, is a Class B AIS transponder certified NMEA2000® compact, low consumption, responding to the yachting market and small professional units. It was essentially designed with WiFi transmission in mind to navigation applications developed on tablets and smartphones.
[Updated] After the acquisition of Vesper Marine by Garmin, this device is discontinued since February 2023. The brand name is also removed.
COLREGS: Still Fit for Purpose ? [Update]
We can only observe, for three decades, the phenomenal increase in global maritime commercial traffic, The recent proliferation of maritime drones, for scientific and miscellaneous research purposes, automated and remotely submarines civilian, Military, and even for traffickers usage, and soon the inevitable coming into service of fully unmanneded merchant ships. This evolution is directly linked to the multiplication of satellites communication and positioning means allowing remote control of mobiles at sea.
Even with the lockdown during the Covid-19 pandemic, maritime traffic never stops. Marine Traffic View
Cyberattacks and boating
Garmin was the victim of a cyber attack that began on 23 last July and lasted several days. The resulting outage disrupted many of its online services.
Navionics customers could no longer access the Navionics server via their login credentials. L’application Navionics Boating, the Navionics chart installer and chart viewer have all been impacted. products could no longer be purchased directly from the Navionics website. Chartplotters could still be used as standalone devices during this Garmin outage, but the maps could no longer be downloaded or updated. Read more …
Nautical documents on electronic media [Update]
(Article original 27 June 2018)
Since the publication of the division D240 replaced, applicable from 6 May 2019 (see my previous article), it is now official that mandatory nautical documents can be taken on board in digital form.
[Update 24/08/2020]
GPS accuracy [summer brief]
I'm always being asked - and have been for ages - how much confidence we can put in the GPS on our tablets and smartphones. Probably at the risk of repeating myself, I persist in asserting that our mobile devices are provided with the most accurate GPS receivers that can be found in civilian use, especially for recreational boating. Read more …
Are electronic charts prescribed in France ? [Update]
This question comes up to me from time to time, and as no one is supposed to ignore the law, I feel obliged to make my contribution to the edification of the crowds (of boaters) by providing a collective response.
Manual or electronic navigation, which one to choose ?
Man Over Board
Credit: SNSM Bandol
Sailors have always been haunted by falling into the sea. Even with a trained crew, the operation of recovering a crew water fallen is risky, Already with the engine, even more with the sail. During my training years in Glénans Sailing School, Each boarding was an opportunity to systematically practice this maneuver, under sail, striving to come "die" heave to windward of the unfortunate, fortunately materialized by a buoy moored in a bucket as drift anchor. But that was not the real problem. It was above all not to lose sight of the crew, because come back to its fall position "reckoning" was virtually mission impossible. And still today, with our sophisticated electronic means, It's not as easy as you might think… Read more …