HOW TO USE THE AIS SHIP POSITION MAPS

This page is designed to work with Internet explorer because most people are using it. It will work with other browsers but some of the items will not be displayed correctly. If you haven’t already sussed it: mouseover the balloon icon for the ship name and click on the balloon icon for ship information.

You can move the map by left click, hold down and drag or double click anywhere on the map and that point will now be become centred. You can also use the small navigation panel in the bottom right hand corner. You can change the style of the map by clicking on Map, Satellite or Hybrid in the top right hand corner of the map. The satellite image is not live.

Each balloon icon represents a ship. They are colour coded according to the type of ship. The ships may take a while to appear and the map may take a while to zoom and pan if you are using a slow Internet connection. Ensure your java is enabled. The balloon colour will only be correct if the ship’s AIS equipment has been programmed correctly. Ships with ‘Sailing Vessel’ or ‘Pleasure Craft’ programmed into the AIS equipment will not be shown on the maps except on the ‘Solent with sail+pleasure map’. As not all pleasure craft owners are diligent when programming their equipment, so this is not foolproof. Ship positions are uploaded every 10 seconds except at times when my Internet connection is busy, I’m doing system maintenance or my system has crashed! The time of the last position upload is shown just below the bottom right of the map. The last position upload is plotted on the map every 10 seconds as shown by a countdown timer at the bottom left of the map. When the the ships are being plotted, all functions will be inhibited for a few seconds. Although the map covers the whole world, I only display ships within 30 miles of Southampton Dock Head. The line extending form the ship icon is its heading, and the length of the line is proportional to the ships speed. If a ship has a heading line but does not move on the map when the positions are updated then I have not received any recent reports from that ship and its position will be incorrect. It will be deleted from the map in 15-30 minutes. Ship positions from other users (usually the more distant ones) are updated when I receive the shared information and may well be 5 - 10 minutes out of date.

Three main shipping channels are overlaid on the maps:

Blue:   Main channel to the east
Grey:   North channel
Grey:   Portsmouth channel

The red mark on the main channel is the Nab Tower. Deep draught container ships, large cruise ships and large tankers keep to the nab deep water channel but other ships often pass west of the Nab Tower or far east of the tower. Cross Solent traffic does not always keep the channels when tide and shipping traffic allow. Sometimes larger ships will deviate from the channel to pass north of Ryde Middle.

The ferry routes are part of the Google Map and they may be out of date.

The mouseover function on the map will be temporarily inhibited during the plotting period - i.e. when the countdown timer is displaying 0 seconds. If after a while the map doesn’t display properly, or there are obvious errors on the page, then click the manual refresh at the top of the map - if you are lucky it might clear any displayed errors. You can view the AIS maps continuously for 30 minutes before timing out. This is to stop people leaving the map running and consuming excessive server bandwidth. You can get another 30 minutes by clicking the button on the time expired page.

Mouseover the ship icon for the name of the ship. Click the ship icon to display an information flag. Always check the ‘Received’ time in the information flag - this time is the last report I have received from this ship, and may be much older than the last upload time, especially if the ship is on the edge of my reception area. The ship positions are updated every 10 seconds but because slow moving ships may transmit their AIS data at intervals longer than this, not all ships will move. Ships that are traveling fast or have a high rate of turn will transmit their AIS data more frequently. Sometimes when two ships are very close together, you have to zoom right in to separate them. Even then if they are very close together you might not be able to separate them, and you will have to click on the ship list below the map to bring up the information flag. If the ships don’t move, wait for a few ship position updates and if the ships still don’t move or if no ships are displayed then the site is broken. Check the last upload time against the current server time - if all is working properly there should be no more than a minute or two difference between them. Sometimes the fault occurs due to the hosting company server which is beyond my control. Please e-mail me or phone me (01983 611638) if you notice any malfunction and I will try and fix it.

These photos are of ships with AIS that have passed through the area during the current year. If possible I will post new pictures a day or two before the ship enters the area. I include ships that transit the Solent, or enter the area to anchor or berth. I do not include ships that transit the area south of the Isle of Wight. Unless they are large, pleasure craft will not be included. Click on the folder to see ships beginning with the letter you have selected. Click on the thumbnail to see an enlarged image (you will have to use the bottom scroll bar to scroll across the picture). Click the button bottom left of the pictures to return to the thumbnails or folders. You can also open the pictures in a new window.