Originally Posted by
tiger beetle
I'm not at all convinced that an AIS transponder, at the current price point, should be a requirement of the SSS TransPac race. When the bulk of the fleet already has one then it probably should be made a requirement. An AIS receive-only device comes in at a much lower price point and there is a fair bit of value to the skipper, and perhaps a receiver should be a requirement - I'd possibly lean in that direction, though I'd want to know more about the display capabilities for such a receiver.
>> I would agree, at $1400 it should not be a requirement for SSS or OYRA, but there are units down to $599. Rather than a requirement maybe SSS could accommodate two position reporting systems ? Assuming they become a requirement at all.
The one place that an AIS can behave like a tracker was demonstrated by Nereida's position reporting via ExactEarth's satellite AIS receiver and associated web page - I believe that ExactEarth sponsored this tracking, and it worked out fairly well at picking up her Class B transponder. I have no idea what the cost would be to hire Exact Earth to do this for all boats in the fleet, and I know that cost to equip all boats witih an AIS transponder is significant.
>>> This was precisely my point. If you have AIS it can be used for tracking out to Hawaii. There are at least two firms supporting AIS LEO Sat. tracking. Orbcomm is launching a 17 satellite galaxy and expect to have full coverage in 2013. Several sats are up. I have contacted them and VesselTracker to see what costs would be for fleet tracking. They can filter the data stream by MMSI number so the data stream received is only vessels of interest.
For the race I would fall back to what we have done in the past - share positions between skippers via an SSB radio roll call (this has value to the skippers, they know where the other boats are and get to talk through problems if they choose to), and race committee provides trackers if race committee is willing to pay for the trackers. If trackers are too expensive, then forego trackers.
>> in the past the RC had contestants pay, as I recall about $300 or so.
- rob/beetle