I’m sure this is not a new thing, but I just found out about it, and I think it’s pretty neat!
Not the ones that turn off their transponders! For example, the Chinese squid jigger mother ships, the Chinese krill dragnet ships, the Chinese illegal salvage ships plundering war graves, and of course, the Chinese and Russian transship tankers smuggling sanctioned oil in international waters.
There is a group of people on bluesky tracking the russian shadow fleet, they are often trying to fake their registrations, which cannot be confirmed ofc.
https://sketchy.boats/ https://bsky.app/profile/pa.nton.cx https://bsky.app/profile/lloydslisted.bsky.social
Edit: and this is how it’s going regarding the stopping of sanctioned and false flagged oil tankers: https://www.lloydslist.com/LL1154431/Baltic-shadow-fleet-stand-off-continues-as-Russia-warns-of-tanker-raids
if i were NATO, i would have fucked up russia’s business long ago and snatched a few loads of free crude too.
I had a lot of fun with that so when I was in Malaga. Sat in the beach for hours with a book, a bottle of chilled rose and grilled fish takeaway from a beach side restaurant.
Identifying all the boats that trundled by and their destinations was great fun. We even saw an unlisted navy vessel.
I think you can only see the ones that are close enough to a coast that they get picked up by the AIS receivers.
I started playing this game called Sky Cards and it’s kind of like this but for airplanes. So far, I like it!
Pirates on their way stealing a crate of shitty iphones
Mildly interesting indeed!
It’d be even more interesting if an interface like this would estimate the carbon emissions per scheduled trip for these ships.
Surely one could estimate the impact based off of the ship class and distance.
Come to think of it, that’d also be interesting for a flight radar kind of website.
Trivia time!
Yes, over a certain size. AIS class A transponders are mandatory on ships over 24meters. Smaller than that, and many people use them anyway because it’s convenient. Many recreational boats use class B with lower transmit power.
Anyone can operate an AIS transponder in receive-only, enabling you to receive the data yourself. This is how sites like that operate - Many volunteers who receive and forward the NMEA string to the site. Hell, if you have one of those cheap USB-SDRs you can roll your own at minimal cost. Decoding the relevant NMEA strings (AIVDO and AIVDM, readable at 38400 baud) is a bit of a pain in the ass, as it’s built around a 6-bit ASCII table. But I managed to do it with a perl hack once upon a time, so it’s highly doable.
NB: While not legal, it’s very easy to disable an AIS transponder temporarily. War ships often do this.
Tumbleweed
I’m glad you asked; A more reliable method for establishing position is by sending a position request via DSC (VHF channel 70 or MF 2187.5kHz), as that’s a lot harder to disable. You’re gonna need an ROC or GOC to do this legally, though. As well as a MMSI, come to think of it.
Source: I used to work with maritime comm systems, including installation of both VHF radios, MF radios, and AIS transponder. I have a GOC.
NB: While not legal, it’s very easy to disable an AIS transponder temporarily. War ships often do this.
import memeify memeify.memeify(source='Paw Patrol turns off body cam', image='Russian warship', text='*Turns off AIS*')This guy transponds!
I just got a hackrf and it has an AIS tool built in. It’s real neat, I’ve got to play with it a while. It plots them on a map, but it’s extremely low res. My city is like 4 pixels. I’d really like to be able to fix that somehow.
I’ve also noticed a lot of the information it reports seems wrong. Like the same boat can be reporting anchor down and 5 knots. And even more are under way with engine but 0.0 knots. I’m not a boat captain but that doesn’t seem right.
It’s still endless fun just reading the names of the boats as they pass
The ship state (at anchor, etc) is a manual setting that the bridge crew will have to change. Same goes for destination. And bridge crew has enough on their plates already, so updating it isn’t exactly a priority. That’s why you often see “Ch 16” set as destination, as it’s basically shorthand for “If you really need to know, ask us on VHF Ch 16”.
As for receiving AIS data, if you’re able to decode the data, it’s easy to plot it yourself. AIS messages (AIVDO is the one you’re interested in) consists of several messages, and most of them contains the ships position. Every so often, the ships name is transmitted (The MMSI number is the primary identifier).
Well that’s a bit of confusion cleared up, thanks! I did actually notice I’d get some information and then a little later the name would show up too. I figured it was just bad reception missing the full message, but you’re saying they’re sent separately? I guess I’ll stop fiddling with my antenna
The fact they just put their contact info for destination is hilarious to me. I should get a radio license.
Yeah, your antenna is fine. AIS contains more information than can be fit into a single packet, so it’s spread out over several. Every packet contains the MMSI of the ship, which you can use to link every packet together. If I remember correctly, there are three or so packet types. Position and speed is sent relatively often. And static info such as name and other info that doesn’t change a whole lot is sent much more infrequently.
Maritime radio license is easy to get. An ROC which covers the basics is a day or two. It’s basically just a course on how to properly operate a VHF. GOC covers a lot more (telex, inmarsat, EPIRBs, etc) and basically certifies you as a radio operator for any ship. It takes about a week.
Works for all counties except the following, who consistently disable AIS and LRIT for various reasons: China, Russia, Iran and Senegal.
So while the International Maritime Organization requires these devices be enabled, the aforementioned counties just ignore it when disabling AIS suites their purposes (Illegally changing flags during voyage, poaching, etc).
Link to the site?
Also you can do the same thing with planes.
https://www.flightradar24.com/There is app for that, and icon kinda look similar to bitwarden. Not much to say, just find it kinda interesting and want to share
That IS mildly interesting. Huh.
Yes this is it, my bad
So stick it up in the post!
Sweet. Was just discussing such sites…
The other day I was wondering if flight paths over large stretches of water routed along popular cargo ship routes or anything of that nature?
…Except for the billionaires that lobbied to make tracking their ecological devastation illegal.
Any ship using a transponder. It’s the ones that don’t that are really interesting 😉
Or the ships that spoof their location so they can sell sanctioned oil
I was perusing that map recently. Was kinda funny seeing a bunch of ships with clearly Russian names like “Admiral Yuri Dolgoruky” or “Cosmonaut Eugene Ponasenko” under Mongolian flag, of all others Yeah, the landlocked country. I guess there’s nothing wrong with landlocked country owning ships, but I just could’t get this meme out of my head
“Flag of convenience”. It’s like when a corporation is headquartered in the Caiman Islands.
My favourite meme is Hungary once being run by an admiral.
Mongolia hasn’t had a navy since the 1300s has it
The lake is on the Russian border, so the Mongolian government operated vessels to serve in a similar capacity as the US Coast Guard does on the Great Lakes.
TIL, thought this were only available for plane.
Also good to know Ever Given is no where near a canal now.
It’s also available for satellites
My boat to Santorini was cancelled and I had to show the local office my proof on www.vesselfinder.com before they would believe me and helped me reschedule.
The were talking about a normal minor delay but the ship was still in port, 3 hours away.
There are some really cool ships sailing around the Mediterranean.
Just look at Club Med 2
What a blast from the past!!! I worked on that ship for 4.5 months back in 2003 when it was the MSY Windsurf. Played the piano in the Lounge. Thanks for the smiles my friend!!! :)
We were driving to Katapola and saw these 5 masts appear. Never expected to see this beauty on Amorgos.
These are some of the most bizarre typos I have ever seen. Cool comment though.
My autocarrot started changing English to Dutch indeed.
They’re probably Dutch. Schip is Dutch for ship.
Oh ok. Makes sense.
Yeah, learned about this from the WhatsGoingOnInShipping youtube channel, which is useful if you’re ever curious about something going on in international shipping.
And they told me I shouldnt even tell people where the cruise ship I was working on cruised around, even though it would be on the passenger itenerary. “Loose lips sink ships!” 🤦♂️
It cruises around Hawaii, btw.
