I’m sure many people saw this over at Instapundit, and maybe it’s not as cool as Sketch2 below, but I spent a while messing with this today and thought it was fascinating ... MarineTraffic.com, with a live GoogleEarth map of marine shipping worldwide.
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Rick Mc Leod says:
Sort of a pirate’s dream, really.
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November 7, 2009, 6:46 pmCurt Fischer says:
So is this just a really weird time to be looking at the map, or do ships never go into the open ocean?
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November 7, 2009, 7:37 pmDave Hardy says:
1) I read somewhere that the Somalian pirates may be using this — hard to venture a hundred miles from shore and just hope to run into cargo ship (while not running into a warship!). Guy on shore with internet linkup and satellite phone to relay bearings.
2) I think the data is relayed via land-based radio systems. If that’s the case it’d explain why ships in mid ocean do not show up.
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November 7, 2009, 8:22 pmPJens says:
In the same idea, check out http://www.flightaware.com
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November 7, 2009, 8:30 pmMark N. says:
I also wondered that, and elsewhere on the site they explain that the data’s sourced by volunteers setting up computer-hooked antennas to monitor the standard frequencies on which large ships are required to periodically broadcast their current position. Presumably the volunteers are mostly/exclusively located on land, so only coastal waters have data coverage.
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November 7, 2009, 8:59 pmIan Argent says:
The base stations have a nominal 40 nm range of reception per the FAQ.
The transponders tehy are picking up are legally required on large vessels; and are also receivers. This website may be of marginal use to pirates, but were it to go down it wouldn’t inconvenience them. Reception range is a function of height above water for both the receiver and transmitter.
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November 7, 2009, 9:22 pmronbo says:
Zoom in on the eastern Med. There’s a certain country that appears to have not only no seaports but no cities at all. But at least it shows up on the map with its actual name. Progress!
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November 8, 2009, 12:02 amPatHMV says:
ronbo... Looks like Google Maps of Israel went dark because Hamas was using the service to help with its targeting. Apparently, Google did the right thing and took down the maps of Israel.
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November 8, 2009, 12:45 amMark N. says:
That seems a bit strange— surely Google Maps was not the one and only source of detailed maps of Israel on the internet?
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November 8, 2009, 2:24 amMark says:
If you go over to live Google Maps now, there’s a full road map of Israel. I’d speculate that MarineTraffic is using an old dataset.
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November 8, 2009, 12:21 pmNowMDJD says:
The maps don’t show any ships in the Red Sea or in the NW Indian Ocean near Somalia. My guess is this is because of piracy.
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November 8, 2009, 6:04 pm