Did you know Amver is on Facebook? If you haven't connected with us consider adding us as your friend.
You can connect with us here. We use Facebook to recruit new vessels, connect with the shipping community and to share Amver stories with our friends. It's amazing how many shipping people and groups there are on Facebook and we hope to connect with as many of you as possible.
What social networking sites do you use? Can you access social sites while underway?
What are you reading this summer? As the beach season comes to a close there is still time to fit in a good book. Here are some of Amver's favorites.
Pirate Hunter-The True Story of Captain Kidd, by Richard Zacks. A fascinating book highlighting the life and times of Captain Kidd. While non-fiction, it reads like an adventure novel.
The Amver office is taking a bit of a holiday. Don't worry, the routine day to day tasks will continue, ships can still enroll, and lives will still be saved. Some of the staff is just taking a little rest and relaxation.
Some of our readers are at sea for months at a time. How do you unwind or relax? Where is your favorite holiday spot?
Peter Bray, a British adventurer, was trying to set a world record by rowing single handed across the Atlantic Ocean when he sent a distress call to search and rescue authorities. While the nature of his distress is still being determined, Rescue Coordination Center Falmouth requested Amver data to assist in their search and rescue efforts.
It turns out, however, the James Cook is not enrolled in the Amver system! Perhaps some Amver blog readers would like to email the ship operators here and encourage them to enroll in Amver? Let's see how the collective efforts of social media can work to get the ship enrolled.
We will keep you updated as we learn more about the ongoing rescue efforts.
Photo credit: Fotolia
Editor's Note: Within a few hours of this post the James Cook enrolled in the Amver system! Thanks to all of you who may have emailed the vessel operators!
21 additional ships have enrolled in Amver this past week. We are happy to see our rolls increase. Soon we will have 20,000 participants! Thank you for supporting Amver. If you don't know how to enroll check this out. If you need an Amver's users manual you can download it here. If you are an international rescue coordination center and you don't know how to request Amver data you can learn how here.
Welcome new Amver participants:
BW GDF SUEZ BRUSSELS
FOUR WIND
WG MAGELLAN
WARNOW MASTER
CMA CGM FLAUBERT
DARYA LAKSHMI
EFFY N
SUNSET
CPO ENGLAND
TAG 5
ZEUS LEADER
SHROPSHIRE
OCEAN CHARGER
FREE ENVOY
GENCO PIONEER
NORD OBTAINER
KASTAV
COS INTREPID
MCP BALNKENESE
AMANDA
OSNABRUCK
Many of the Amver awards have been mailed. The remainder of the 2008 Amver awards are scheduled to be mailed at the end of August.
Tradewinds and Lloyds List report authorities have arrested up to eight suspects related to the missing Russian ship, Arctic Sea. The missing ship was located off the coast of West Africa on Monday.
According to news reports the suspects included Russians, Estonians, and Latvians. The Russian Navy has transferred the suspects from the Arctic Sea to a Russian naval vessel. The suspects ordered the crew to turn off all navigational and ship tracking equipment reported Lloyd's List.
What Tracking Equipment Did They Have?
The Arctic Sea most likely had two types of tracking equipment. We know the vessel was not enrolled in Amver. The first type of tracking equipment the Arctic Sea likely had is an Automatic Identification System, or AIS. What is AIS? According to the United States Coast Guard Navigation Center,
Picture a shipboard display system (e.g. radar, ECDIS, chart plotter, etc.) with overlaid electronic chart data that includes a mark for every significant ship within radio range; each as desired with a velocity vector (indicating speed and heading). Each ship "mark" could reflect the actual size of the ship, with position to GPS or differential GPS accuracy. By "clicking" on a ship mark, you could learn the ship name, course and speed, classification, call sign, registration number, MMSI, and other information. Maneuvering information, closest point of approach (CPA), time to closest point of approach (TCPA) and other navigation information, more accurate and more timely than information available from an automatic radar plotting aid, could also be available. Display information previously available only to modern Vessel Traffic Service operations centers could now be available to every AIS-equipped ship.
In addition to AIS, the Arctic Sea may have also been reporting through a newly implemented International Maritime Organization scheme called Long Range Identification and Tracking, or LRIT. While still a new program, LRIT will allow flag states, port states, or coastal states vessel position information for security and safety purposes. How does that differ from Amver? You can read that debate here.
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