An excellent iPad app is Marine Traffic at $3.99, and if you don’t have AIS this could be useful to have. The app is a community service project hosted by the University of the Aegean, Greece. Volunteer base stations around the world equipped with AIS receivers use PCs to load the AIS info to the app via the internet. The app displays the data on a very good quality map (not a marine chart), for most worldwide coastal regions, e.g. all of coastal USA (the limitation being VHF radio range). The map can be zoomed in or out and has excellent zoomed-in detail. An option is to display the information on a satellite map, which then includes features in the sea. Any vessel using AIS is displayed on the map as an icon with the vessel’s name, and by clicking on the icon a pop-up appears showing considerable detail about the vessel, and in most cases one or more photos. You can display the vessel’s track on-screen, but not the current course and speed (although the pop-up displays the vessel’s max and cruising speed).
You can activate another pop-up which will list all vessels using AIS within about 10 miles from your position, showing their actual distance and bearing. Then you can display more details about those vessels if you choose to.
There is also the option to filter out different classes of vessels.
The map also displays many (but not all) navigational aids, and by clicking on their icon a pop-up appears with their details, and in many cases photos.
Wind direction and strength can also be overlaid on the map both for the present and for the forecast next 24 hours in 3 hour increments.
You can also track vessels out of range of your own AIS, in fact anywhere in the world that is covered by the app.
Your constantly updated position is displayed on the map, but your position is not being advised to AIS equipped vessels.
Now here are the disadvantages. The app is not displaying the information from the AIS transponder in real time, as an AIS receiver does. It is being relayed through the internet, and is several minutes behind real time (the app says up to maximum 1 hour behind real time but I’ve not found this to be so, and typically just a few minutes). Also you must be able to go on-line.
This is not a substitute for AIS, nor is it supposed to be used for navigation, but if like me you don’t have AIS this is an excellent second best, a useful back-up or portable system, and a means of tracking out-of-range vessels. See marinetraffic.com for more details.
I don’t have any connection with this app other than being a user.
You can activate another pop-up which will list all vessels using AIS within about 10 miles from your position, showing their actual distance and bearing. Then you can display more details about those vessels if you choose to.
There is also the option to filter out different classes of vessels.
The map also displays many (but not all) navigational aids, and by clicking on their icon a pop-up appears with their details, and in many cases photos.
Wind direction and strength can also be overlaid on the map both for the present and for the forecast next 24 hours in 3 hour increments.
You can also track vessels out of range of your own AIS, in fact anywhere in the world that is covered by the app.
Your constantly updated position is displayed on the map, but your position is not being advised to AIS equipped vessels.
Now here are the disadvantages. The app is not displaying the information from the AIS transponder in real time, as an AIS receiver does. It is being relayed through the internet, and is several minutes behind real time (the app says up to maximum 1 hour behind real time but I’ve not found this to be so, and typically just a few minutes). Also you must be able to go on-line.
This is not a substitute for AIS, nor is it supposed to be used for navigation, but if like me you don’t have AIS this is an excellent second best, a useful back-up or portable system, and a means of tracking out-of-range vessels. See marinetraffic.com for more details.
I don’t have any connection with this app other than being a user.
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