Marine Traffic site
 

I like to keep track of ships going to and from the Port of Esbjerg - just in case of some photo opportunities :D
- but every time I do a google on ships names, I keep coming across this little site, www.marinetraffic.com

It is loaded with information, like live world map of ships - and all kind of other naval stuffs - current position. Holding mouse cursor on an icon, tells ships name and speed.
Cool, isn't it?

If you make an account on the site, you can create your own list of ships, you want to keep track of...

Live map view, 2011-12-3, 16:39:
http://i189.photobucket.com/albums/z...ipsLiveMap.jpg



Have a very extensive photo section as well, here's a sample..

http://photos.marinetraffic.com/ais/...photoid=394569

Have a nice weekend!
Jan :salute:

www.marinetraffic.com

Awesome site, Jan! :rock:

Thanks for the link. :sunny:

Well known site already, but thanks for sharing :) Side effects - It does not cover all the areas of the globe, especially any near to Somali :haha:

Bookmarked. Thanks, Jan. :up:

All positional data, speeds and so on come from the ships' own AIS transponders, which operate on a VHF frequency that I can't remember right now. That basically limits the system's range to line of sight, which can be anything from a few kilometers up to 60-100km. Coastal station that receive the AIS transmissions and forward them to be published on the internet don't exist everywhere either.

I'd also imagine skippers are pretty keen to turn AIS off altogther in high-threat areas :arrgh!: