Bananabender said..
IMO the major reason 90% of boats do not have ais etc. is because to transmit one needs to get a radio licence , mmsi etc. and people just can't be bothered. Perhaps if a licence was not required boat manufacturers would instal such as standard. I notice that quite a few boats have the NEBO app. as well as or In lieu of ais. It cost nothing tracks and transmits locations of anyone with it . I know of one boat club that uses it when they go on group voyages to keep track of each other and for family at home to follow them . Mind you I don't think they travel between dusk and dawn .

Bananabender said..
IMO the major reason 90% of boats do not have ais etc. is because to transmit one needs to get a radio licence , mmsi etc. and people just can't be bothered. Perhaps if a licence was not required boat manufacturers would instal such as standard. I notice that quite a few boats have the NEBO app. as well as or In lieu of ais. It cost nothing tracks and transmits locations of anyone with it . I know of one boat club that uses it when they go on group voyages to keep track of each other and for family at home to follow them . Mind you I don't think they travel between dusk and dawn .

julesmoto said..




Thanks that's what I was afraid of

Chris 249 said..






But it's not "essential safety equipment". People have sailed yachts for many decades without it and lived to tell the tale. When was the last yacht run down around Australia, for example?

Yes, Jessica Watson hit a ship but it was in broad daylight IIRC so there was no need to rely on AIS. That was 14 years ago. It's not "stupidity" to think that it is not "essential" to have something to guard against an incident that occurs about once every 14 years around here, and not even very often around France.

Getting run down by a ship an incredibly rare event, and therefore simple logic (and proper risk analysis) states that it should be considered as such, and a partial cure for an extremely low risk is not "essential".

In the USA, which has areas with dense fog and dense shipping, a study of 11 years of sailing deaths showed NO deaths through poor visibility, which is the only time AIS is anything remotely like "essential". In contrast there were 17 deaths from people intentionally getting off yachts (ie to get a dinghy or clear a prop) and 64 deaths from falling overboard.

So AIS is clearly NOT essential - there seems to have been NO deaths that AIS could have prevented in that extensive US sample of over a decade. And the reality is that time and money are limited, and therefore the rational approach is to concentrate on addressing the problems that DO cause deaths - and among yachties that is overwhelmingly going over the side, capsizing, and probably the usual health issues. Even getting hit by a prop caused more deaths among yachties, so a proper evidence-based logic-driven approach may well ignore AIS in favour of putting in a propguard.

As yachties, overwhelmingly our actual significant risks seem to going overboard and not getting enough exercise. It is more logical to address those problems than the vanishingly small risk of getting run down in conditions where an AIS could have been the difference between an accident occurring or not.