Más sitios interesantes
We’ve been in contact with Eugenio, the webmaster of this site, with tons of information about Navys from many countries. It is particularly interesting checking the description of so many warships. Eugenio keeps a track of all the visits of warships to Málaga, where he lives. Following the visits there is a technical description of the equipment, including electronics, of most of those ships.
We were specially amazed to see all the equipment on board of the Gettysburg, a Ticonderoga class Warship.
Resumen de situación AIS
Ben, from Panbo, has written a very complete article on the situation of the class B transponder, the worries of the boaters and authorities, as well as some of the advantages and inconvenients of the system, focusing on the situation in the US.
It is written in english, and we encourage you to read it.
Más argumentos
The forum of LTP keeps on teaching us day by day.
In this case it is to give us more arguments to carry AIS on board. One of the participants in the forum includes statistics from the German Federal Bureau of Maritime Casualty Investigation. A total amount of 548 accidents were studied and the conclusions about the causes of them all are explained in the following graph:
If the two main causes of maritime accidents are collisions ship2ship and ship2object, it seems credible to state (at least in the first case) that AIS could be a definite help in colision/accident avoidance, in spite of this year being specially cruel in terms of maritime accidents in the Spanish coasts.
In the second case, let us remind you that AIS is able to transmit virtual targets, or coming from a coastal radar station, meaning that even if the object itself is not carrying an AIS (AtoN or similar) it could be transmitted as a target by the coastal AIS stations to the boats in the surroundings.
Aquada
It may be another of those cases where the news is only some more buzz.
But, Aquada is starting to do some noise in the specialized media (more specs here), and it is even possible that it may actually…… WORK!!.
Among boaters there are many different profiles. It would be interesting some research to know how many boaters would actually buy this kind of vehicle.
After all, if you have a boat that you simply use a couple of times a year, it wouldn’t be too weird buying one that besides can turn into a car, thus saving the price of the berth. We’ve read somewhere that aquada may be retailing in the USA for as little as $85000.
Sounds like an interesting market, and it could even help freeing some space in our marinas in the mid/long run.
Lo especial de navegar
More and more people are trying to escape from the I wake up-I work-I get back home-I sleep routine. In a world where you can find trash in the top of the Everest, there are fewer and fewer corners of the world where you can find real tranquility, where you can actually meet yourself, think about everything with a totally different perspective, visit different countries and cultures; become a little bit a kind of an antique explorer, so to say.
Getting on a plane and finding the same McDonald’s in a forgotten town in Asia is not the kind of experience that let’s you find perspective.
Sailing is in the opinion of this post’s writer one of the only activities that still lets you find real new situations and actual time for yourself. Even when people sail in groups they may not talk to each other for hours. Sometimes they just need time for themselves, although everybody that likes sailing actually likes it for very different reasons: the challenge, navigation, the electronics, etc…
Our friend Cristina has started her project to sail during the next few years around the world. We are very happy for her since she is getting closer to a long time desired dream. More and more friends are preparing similar projects and we’d like to talk about them during the different stages of their preparation.
May be by explaining their experiences in their blogs we’ll be able to share a little bit that feeling of freedom. Needless to say, we’ll join our friends in as many stages of their trip as we can and we’ll try to share the experience from this blog with you.