I’m noticing more navy ships actually broadcasting AIS signals lately, including surfaced subs and a LHD.
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The Navy has said that the Fitzgerald was on a routine transit IIRC, to Yokosuka. In that case the info from the captain/crew of the Crystal that Fitz “starting moving” while under observation by the Crystal is likely incorrect.
Seems the most likely scenario is more or less parallel courses till the Crystal made it’s turn off Mikomoto Shima which, if the Fitz maintained course would have put the two ships on converging courses.
AIS displayed on an ECS, particularly with radar overlay, is the most useful collision avoidance tool.
Turning off AIS is a risky, even reckless, thing to do. For a great many watchstanders, if you don’t show up on AIS with your name and predictor line displayed, then you simply don’t exist. AIS should never be turned off without a very good reason for doing so.
It would be a very rare occasion when there might be a good reason to turn off AIS off the coast of the United States or Japan.
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In the Singapore Strait and South China Sea some small vessels, notably tankers loaded with MGO, does turn off their AIS to avoid attention from pirates.
BTW; In one case a couple of years ago it was reported that a tanker was hijacked “in Singapore Strait” because it had “disappeared from radar” (i.e. not showing up on Marine Traffic) at a position off Batam. Actually she was boarded by pirates somewhere near Tioman Island in the South China Sea while enroute to Vietnam.
In reality the Master had switched off AIS to mask his position shortly after leaving Singapore waters. If a vessel of any size should “disappear from radar” in those waters, the VTS Operator would have raised an alarm, since it would have had to suddenly sink to do so.
The reason why the media is confusing AIS and airplane tracking systems with “radar” may be because one of the most popular and publicly available sources are called “Flight Radar”.
I would agree that this is a good idea in general. There is no compelling reason that I can think of in most normal circumstances where running with AIS turned off enhances safety.
The issue of “security” is usually way overblown. Any naval vessel should be able to broadcast an AIS signal that simply identifies it as a naval vessel, or even just a generic “vessel” if need be. It needn’t be specific (DDG, FFG, CG, CVN, etc.) to type or class. Of course it may be assumed by a potential or real enemy that any such signal may or must be a naval vessel. So what? The ships are not exactly invisible.
I don’t see how the USN can justify operating in busy shipping lanes without it, unless we are at war or nearly so. A ship lost from action due to an unnecessary and easily-avoidable collision is of no use to anyone and, in fact, becomes a significant burden. So the whole security argument falls apart quickly in the face of these results.
Could OOD’s not be authorized to turn on the AIS, at least temporarily, when designated minimum-CPA parameters would be breached? This shouldn’t be so difficult.
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This is like a bad navigation virus, spreading from pilothouse to pilothouse, and it really needs to stop.
I agree that AIS should, in general, always be on. But if my mate ever tried to justify his or her failure to detect an otherwise-visible and/or radar contact with the bullshit excuse that they weren’t showing up on AIS that mate would be very lucky if all I did was make them take a time-out at the Navigation Re-Education Camp for Incompetent Seafarers. My inclination would be to fire them, and I f that sounds harsh it’s surely meant that way.
Incompetence? Laziness? Inattentiveness? There is absolutely no excuse for this attitude to be accepted or allowed to spread. None. However, I’m well aware that it exists. So shame on us all for collectively mis-using the technology that is supposed to help us avoid one another.
AIS can fail at any time. It’s just another radio device. It’s range is sometimes more limited than what it typically is, and “contacts” will at times drop-out without warning.
Dependence on AIS for primary or near-primary collision-avoidance is a clear indication of a serious competence or attention-span problem. That’s a red-line-in-the-sand issue for me. Radar/ARPA remains primary, and for good reason: you control your own radar, independent of what the other vessel(s) does or does not do, or how well (or not) their equipment is working.
So the Crystal does not get a pass in this case just because the Fitzgerald was running without AIS.
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I believe you will find that “starting moving” may be a translation error. Others have translated it as '‘changed movement’ (the Japanese is not clear whether the ‘change’ was course or speed or both).
Regarding Navy AiS. Just remember that Navy does in fact consider themselves at war, with the potential to be attacked anywhere (eg Cole, etc). This is certainly debatable, but one can make a case that (1) Navy should be able to avoid collisions without AiS and (2) painting a big target on their ships in time of war is undesirable.
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I agree with you, but . . . We must recognize reality. First, human nature is such that an over-reliance on useful gizmos does in fact develop, especially for the kids who have never sailed without it. Second, on too many vessels there is only one person actually watching, and that person too often does have additional duties, in the form of an overabundance of paperwork, including chart corrections, ISM papers, emails from the office demaninding this or that right now, etc. These additional duties are commonplace and certainly interfere with keeping a good watch.
Operating without AIS is high risk. A risk that should not be undertaken without a very compelling reason to do so.
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The most useful tool for collision avoidance is the officer’s brain. Not to say that AIS is a fine tool, it is. So is radar when properly used. ARPA and VHF radio are as well when those are properly used. So is looking out the window and well done visual bearings along with the various visual signaling devices that have been mentioned on the forum recently. Any of our fine technological tools can be misused to the extent that the misuse can cause a collision if one or more officers make mistakes due to fatigue, distraction, lack of knowledge, poor procedures, or just plain messing up.
A don’t have a problem with naval vessels leaving AIS off and doubt that simply transmitting AIS data will prevent an incident like this from occurring again.
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As usual, it all depends on how you define any given word, in this case “reality.”
If the reality is, as you state, that to not broadcast an AIS signal is to be essentially invisible to the typical OICNW then that war is probably lost. Once the mindset has taken root on the bridge or in the pilothouse that “I’m busy doing other stuff, so I look at the screens now and again and that’s good enough” (not putting words in your mouth, tugsailor, just paraphrasing a known-to-exist way of looking at watch duties) then you’re riding on luck. You can sometimes travel for amazing distances on luck. Years, decades and more. But it’s a very bad practice that I won’t tolerate.
I will not cut kids slack because they’ve never known a time without AIS. They’ve also usually got most everything else they truly need, tool-wise, with the possible exception of a designated lookout (the industry and regulatory agencies are responsible for the undermanning). If they were not trained to function without it then I explicitly educate them. If they can’t absorb and implement that knowledge, if they’re fully addicted to AIS, or a plotter, or whatever and cannot readily be rehabilitated then they have to go.
I cannot stress enough how dangerous this mindset is: if you don’t appear as an icon on a monitor with a predictor line and full course/speed/cpa information available in a bubble then you don’t exist. That is positively insane, either to think it or accept it on their vessels.
Everyone should think long and hard about that one.
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Which makes it even more absurd that the crew of a vessel that considered they were liable to be attacked at any moment would miss the fact that a well lit and very large vessel transmitting an AIS data stream they should have seen long before the collision would allow themselves to be rammed. And rammed without even bothering to call the captain … it’s a good thing they didn’t consider themselves on a pleasure cruise up the bay.
The “security” card is horsecrap. Is Fleet Week a national secret until the ships drop their visibility cloaks and enter port? It is no secret that Navy ships come and go regularly along the shipping channels all over the world and concentrate near Navy bases. Bad guys are not quite as stupid as the admirals who decided turning off the AIS would keep the ships safe.
Until the Navy can declare every bit of land on the planet with an ocean view a “keep out - security zone” anyone who wants to can take out a Navy ship anytime they want to with a man carried missile they probably got from some Bumfukistan militia we gave it to in order to protect the assets of some campaign contributor.
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I was always taught, still believe and pass on to crew, that the most useful collision avoidance tool is the “Mk.1 Eyeball”. Preferably aimed through the bridge windows, not just at the computer games on the screens!0
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Again, I agree with you. I’m not worried about the watch on my vessel, or yours, its those other guys I worry about.
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Not too many secrets left when this sort of thing is published.
The text describes make up of these units in a more detailed manner than I imagined would be broadcast.
Wouldn’t there be a way to embed some code in a Navy ships AIS system so that the info is picked up by surrounding ships in range BUT be excluded from any shore stations (NON-official VTS ones) or satellites picking it up where it could be displayed on the internet?
As a few others have mentioned and I alluded to in a previous post, people are drastically over-thinking the AIS issue.
I loved it when AIS came out, very handy. But, we don’t ‘need’ some new techno-tool or AIS upgrade. There’s nothing wrong with the advances in technology helping the officer on watch, but we better be able to safely navigate at all times should one of our favorite tools fail or give us misleading information.
AIS is a source of navigational information and can assist in tracking a target (position updates are in-frequent, depending on speed and rate of turn).
Now, if a Navy vessel is operating stealth (no AIS, no lights and virtually no radar signature) then it is that Navy vessel’s sole responsibility to avoid other vessels in the area.
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Let’s get the facts straight.
- It is the Fitz starboard deck house on top of a long superstructure say 8 meters above waterline that is damaged by a contact by the Crystal port focsle bulwark say 10 meters or more away from the centreline.
- Crystal struck Fitz at about 45° angle.
- The Crystal bulbous bow is then always far away from the Fitz underwater hull side (inboard slooping) and will not touch anything.
- Fitz main deck and hull side down to the waterline are undamaged.
- The only ‘evidence’ of any Fitz underwater damages is a photo showing a square (!) hole in the plate with some external beams fitted.
As far as I am concerned a ship (Crystal) striking another ship (Fitz) in a collision do not rip open a square hole in the underwater shell plate.
It is quite easy to permanently repair hull damages. Just crop away and replace the damaged frames/stiffeners/internal bulkhead and hull plates. I have done such repairs many times.
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Negative. No action or lack of action by another vessel will completely remove another vessel’s responsibility to avoid a collision. Otherwise, large vessels could cruise with impunity and not worry about running down some poor sap trying to fish. There are multitudes of fishing vessels the world over with a much smaller radar cross-section than a destroyer and unfortunately many operate with no lights. None of that will remove from an officer in charge of a navigation watch responsibility to avoid a collision.
Oh for Christ sake you are thick. You are making a big deal out of the shape of the patch, yet you basically state the reason the patch isn’t oval shaped.
Just as with permenant repairs it’s a hell of a lot easier to make a temporary patch that’s square than with lots of curves.
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