Innovative cruisers develop and build AISWatchMate

'Undersail in Fiji 2005' Jeff Robbins Click Here to view large photo

So many off-shore cruisers have similar stories, most sharing common threads. We all start out with some form of "the dream", arm chair sailing lured by adventure, the magic of the sea, visions of idyllic tropical destinations, exotic new cultures, travel and the ultimate sense of freedom to let life as we currently know it go, for a new exciting encounter by sea.

My husband, Jeff Robbins and I, set "the plan" as we called it, into action in 2001 when we sailed away from the inland waters of the Pacific Northwest in our 40' sloop Vesper. We set aside our careers taking up the mantra 'we can make more money, but we can't make more time'. "Do it now, don't wait", a veteran sailor friend told us. We wanted to maximize our good health and energy to make the experience happen sooner rather than later.

We formulated our "two to ten year plan", remaining open to the fact that life aboard may not work out as we'd hoped - we wanted to give it a good go for at least the first couple of years. We'd agreed to reassess the plan on a regular basis, continuing on as long as we could and wanted to, and as long as we were still enjoying the journey.

We'd spent many years prior to departure preparing ourselves for our new life at sea. At the time we were not yet boat owners, but chartered yachts from the local fleet. We learned everything that we could about boats and sailing. Our home life found us with piles of library books ranging from yacht design, storm tactics, sail trim, boat systems and maintenance, to first hand accounts & tales of cruising sailors. We signed up for adult education classes on coastal and celestial navigation, attended weekend safety classes and seminars and surrounded ourselves with as many knowledgeable people and as much information as we could absorb. We found Vesper in 1998 and began preparing her for our offshore departure.

Safety was key and an underlying foundation of our preparation and planning. This included not only the boat itself and its handling systems, but measures to assure staying on board and maintaining a safe watch at sea. As a two-person, short handed sailing vessel we listed our highest priority safety concerns as collision and MOB and undertook measures to prevent them.

Collision avoidance was key. As we all know, large ships move fast, have limited maneuverability, can't always see smaller vessels or sadly, aren't always looking for them. Regardless of how vigilant you stand watch, the most prudent watch keeper will still occasionally find themselves looking at a ship on the horizon wondering
'how did I miss that?!?"

Ships appear quickly whether sailing along the coast or on the open ocean. Given their mass and speed, they can't stop without planning for this event well in advance. Sailors hold these behemoth vessels with great respect and most identify with an underlying fear of being run down ranking high on the safety checklist.

This and the tragic yachting accident of the Melinda Lee in New Zealand in 1996 motivated us to purchase a radar detector prior to our departure. The unit was to pick up radar signals of nearby ships, sound an alarm and illuminate a light on the display to show the relative position of the vessel. Sadly it did not prove to be effective despite testing and communicating with nearby vessels known to be running their radar, verifying the installation, troubleshooting and confirming these issues with the manufacturer. We sailed on, standing watch and keeping the best lookout we could for marine traffic on our journey.

Since our departure, our voyage has taken us north on the inland waterways of the Inside Passage of British Columbia to Alaska and eventually as far south as Panama, before crossing the Pacific in 2003. We are slow movers, preferring to stay in a region or country longer to get to know the locals and experience their culture.

Since arriving in New Zealand in 2003, we have sailed north to the islands during the winter, but have maintained our slow steady path. We tend to stay the entire season in a given island nation.

Though the "coconut milk run" across Pacific to the South Pacific islands does not typically entail large numbers of shipping vessels once you've left the coastal waters of North and South America, collision avoidance remains high on our watch keeper's safety checklist regardless of where you are. We've been surprised when after days or weeks at sea feeling totally alone in the world we see a ship nearby. We stand a 24/7 watch aboard Vesper, keeping 3 hour watches between 1800 and 0600 hours and slightly more flexible watch times during daylight.

Whenever we sight a ship on the horizon we use all the tools we have - our eyes, binoculars, radar, radio, sometimes the second opinion of each other - to assess the situation. Which way is he headed? How close will it come? Are we on a collision course, or will we pass safely?

As interested cruisers, we bought an AIS (Automatic Identification System) receiver a couple years ago intrigued by the new system and its potential benefits for marine safety. AIS transponders, made mandatory by international regulations, transmit data on position including course, speed, lat/lon as well as a variety of data about the ship including the vessel name, call sign, rate of turn and many others. The data is sent every few seconds over two dedicated digital marine VHF frequencies. It made sense that receiving this information could provide valuable navigational data of these large vessels to the recipient - all within VHF range.

We soon found out that just a receiver was not going to provide much information - you also needed some way to interpret and display the data. We started evaluating what products were available and in particular how alarm features worked for given systems.

It was through this process of evaluation and not finding what we were looking for that we built a stand alone collision warning display and alarm, initially solely for use on Vesper. Several cruising friends expressed interest in our project and soon after the AISWatchMate was born. Designed by sailors for sailors, the unit is easy-to-use, has ultra low-energy consumption and most importantly, prioritised alarms based on closest point of approach (CPA).

The CPA is the minimum distance you and the ship are predicted to come if you both maintain your current course and speed. Alarms based on CPA are target specific and alert you well in advance if you are predicted to pass dangerously close. It will also tell how much time (TCPA) will elapse before you get that close.

Additional features include filters to eliminate false alarms, receipt of AIS transmitted safety messages and aids to navigation, customisable alarm parameters and four alarm profiles to easily tailor the unit to your sailing environment. The AISWatchMate is ideally suited for offshore and for short-handed crews.

We have sailed with the AISWatchMate for over a year now, testing it in busy harbours and offshore from Panama across the Pacific and in New Zealand. We will always stand a proper watch and never let our guard down when it comes to collision avoidance, but use of prioritised AIS data provides an extremely helpful tool to help sort through the marine traffic that matters, in particular when navigating in busy shipping areas.

AIS is invaluable as a tool and the use of this technology can increase your situational awareness and bring improved safety at sea including collision avoidance.

For more details about the travels of Jeff and Deirdre on Vesper, please visit their website at www.sailvesper.org.

Additional information about the AISWatchMate can be found at www.aiswatchmate.comor www.vespermarine.com.

+64 (0)27 420 6265

by Deirdre Schleigh

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