Sea Traffic Control

[Penny Whistle]

I have goods arriving by sea in a container on board the One Frontier, which is soon to dock in Algeciras before proceeding to Southampton. I'm using VesselFinder (Flight Radar for ships) to monitor its progress. The ship was originally scheduled to dock in Algeciras on 31st December, when it was still off the west African coast. It's been hanging around to the east of Gibraltar for the last day or so but is now moving again towards Algeciras. I guess there's more uncertainty surrounding arrival times than there is for aircraft but is it normal for such a vessel to have to hold for a day or more before docking, and is there a "Sea Traffic Control" function at each port to call them in? In this case, given that Algeciras and Gibraltar are so close to each other, do they need to coordinate or is it left up to the individual ships to maintain their distances from each other ? I see that both ports have anchorages, but One Frontier didn't use one of them - why would that be ?

So many questions.

[FlyVintage]

Not a useful reply to your question, but a few years ago I similarly tracked progress of the ship delivering my car from the USA to Blighty, only for it to totally disappear for a few days in the Atlantic Some days later it reappeared off the coast Norway

[Simpo Two]

'A day or so' may be due to the tide if the ship needs high tide to dock and there are others taking up the space at the quay.

[Penny Whistle]

Simpo Two said:

'A day or so' may be due to the tide if the ship needs high tide to dock and there are others taking up the space at the quay.

Good point, though the tidal range seems to be less than a metre. But the container terminal quay does look rather limited size-wise.

[hidetheelephants]

Larger ports generally have traffic control or Vessel Traffic Services, once pilots embark at the port limit(generally at the seaward end of the navigable channel where it becomes open sea) everything is directed by them. Not sure how well Gibraltar and Algeciras play together given recent nonsense but I imagine they are supposed to coordinate. Ship masters remain responsible for their own vessel's safety regardless. Anchorages are often a bit of a free for all, masters may have a preferred anchorage on regular routes.

Simpo Two said:

'A day or so' may be due to the tide if the ship needs high tide to dock and there are others taking up the space at the quay.

Very few european ports that are tide-dependent these days, really only minor harbours or oddities like very large ore carriers with dedicated port facilities.

[deeen]

To answer a couple of bits, all major ports have port/harbour control. In open water, ships use "rules of the road". Some busy shipping lanes ask ships to identify themselves, but then the ships contact each other if necessary rather than being directed by "control".

As to delays, most major ports require large ships to take local pilots on board, and they will need dock facilities ready to unload and service them, it's not just the parking space being empty!

So my guess for the delay would be logistics, waiting for everything to be available, to minimise time alongside.

Either that or delay in paperwork for permission to dock, evidence of cargo, etc.

[hidetheelephants]

deeen said:

the ships contact each other if necessary rather than being directed by "control".

I hope they don't given playing "after you, Claude" on VHF, especially in non-native languages, is a leading cause of stupidity-assisted collision. The COLREGS give everyone simple rules to follow.

[Simpo Two]

hidetheelephants said:

I hope they don't given playing "after you, Claude" on VHF, especially in non-native languages, is a leading cause of stupidity-assisted collision. The COLREGS give everyone simple rules to follow.

I'll go for 'fk this, I'm the biggest ship so I'm going in first'

[Penny Whistle]

Given today's developments in the area, I panned over to look at the vessels around Venezuela. Not surprised that no military vessels show up, presumably they have their "IFF" transponders switched off, but I am surprised to see that so many of the other vessels are shown but not identified (other than the type of craft).

I guess this leads to the question "how are they tracked?" When One Frontier was crossing the Indian Ocean it went for several days with no update to its position, only reappearing when it approached South Africa. So it wasn't satellite tracking - but surely it's not shore-based .. is it ?

[deeen]

hidetheelephants said:

deeen said:

the ships contact each other if necessary rather than being directed by "control".

I hope they don't given playing "after you, Claude" on VHF, especially in non-native languages, is a leading cause of stupidity-assisted collision. The COLREGS give everyone simple rules to follow.

Yes, the rules of the road come first, the primary rule being "Don't crash"!

My point was that there is no equivalent to "air traffic control" in open water.

Probably much easier with GPS now, but there were times when ship to ship contact was useful, because changing course and speed is not a matter of a few seconds, as it is on the road... sometimes the vessel giving way would confirm it was planning an adjustment to go astern of you, or they were changing course for a shipping lane, etc. It was also useful because all ships listen on the same radio frequency, so everyone would know what they were doing.

[davepen]

Penny Whistle said:

surely it's not shore-based .. is it ?

Standard AIS is, and installed around harbours. Some space based transponder now exist, but the likes of Vessel Finder charge extra for the service.
https://www.vesselfinder.com/satellite-ais

Other service providers show the satellite data:
https://www.marinetraffic.com/en/ais/home

I'd imaging the USN would have their USA/Nato IFF on, but not their AIS transponders.

[Scotty2]

A company called SRT Marine do tracker and warning systems.

https://srt-marine.com/

[Condi]

davepen said:

I'd imaging the USN would have their USA/Nato IFF on, but not their AIS transponders.

Depends where and what they're doing.

The US aircraft carrier which was involved in a bump in the Red Sea/ entering the Suez canal (?) didn't have it's AIS on, and a lot of the commentary afterwards was that given how busy the water was, and it was not on combat operations, it should have been declaring it's position. I can't remember whether the escort had their AIS on either, if not they certainly turned it on afterwards. Bit late then though.

[hidetheelephants]

Not sure it would have made any difference, it was the carrier that caused the accident, the skipper got his jotters not long afterward.