Comment by rkangel | Hacker News Reader

Comment by rkangel | Hacker News Reader

Can someone please explain to me how a ship hits another ship that is showing full AIS? I have no understanding of what it's like on the bridge of a ship like that and would appreciate some insight. Surely they have a radar plot of themselves and their vector with the other ship, with a point of closest approach readout (ideally connected to an alarm). As a recreational sailor on a 28' yacht that's what we have, and monitoring that in shipping lanes is the priority. Can someone with understanding explain how this (to me) basic precaution might not happen on a professional naval ship with multiple bridge crew?

For me, lets ignore the whole 'should the navy show AIS', and 'the ship was difficult to see because of lighting', not identifying a collision AIS vector seems like a single egregious failure.

I agree, this looks like a failure of the bridge crew.

Any modern radar can be configured to show CPA based on AIS and on the radar tracks. They can also be configured with an audible/visual alert. The radar was either ignored or misconfigured, both of which are bridge crew problems.

Even my $150 marine VHF radio (which is about average cost/features) on my private boat has an AIS receiver and will scream like a bleeding goat if we're on a potential collision path with any AIS devices within a selectable range. You actually have to disable this feature manually as it is on by default.

There is zero reason in 2018 for any commercial or military boat operating under it's own power to collide with anything carrying an AIS beacon. This problem was solved in 1983 with the invention of AIS and all commercial boats have been required to have it since the mid-1990s.

> "The Sola TS became concerned about the situation. However, because the Ingstad wasn’t showing automatic identification system (AIS) data, initially neither the Sola TS nor the traffic station on shore could identify the frigate to warn it of the imminent danger."

That doesn't answer the question (why no one on Ingstad saw the tanker on AIS)

Yes, but the Sola TS was showing AIS data, so how come the Frigate didn't see it on their plot?

Bad training. Seeing as I see the training “engineers” are getting nowadays in Spain I am not surprised at all these events happen.

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