Hello Sailor!

That's clearer.

 

That's excellent. I did spot an oddity, though: a bright turquoise
arrow, apparently en route between Southampton and Weston-Super-Mud.
Wrong 'un, I thought, especially when I hovered me mouse over it -
going at 72 knots, it was. So I clicked on it and the reason for the
SAR prefix was revealed: Search and Rescue helicopter ;-)

 

There's a 97m long tanker (the 'Yongtaida68') due west of Ecuador on
the equator doing 75.6 knots. I'd love to see that in the flesh.

 

You've been looking for that for 45 minutes, haven't you?

 

No! Was just wizzing across the map & it stuck out as being the block
furthest from large chunks of land.

 

Which why when planning slack times I'd get several different quotes
and then arrive early anyway. Not forgetting that most calculators are
GMT, not that I've made that mistake oh no.

 

<turns to audience>

Do we believe him, children?

<turns back>

One for the globe-hoppers:

http://gizmodo.com/5055160/24-hour-air-traffic-around-the-world-blows-mi
nds-eyeballs

This is just lovely.

 

Krusty spoke:

About an hour ago the Humber Pride was in the Humber destination Goole,
ETA 13th July 2011 - gone now, must have sunk.

--
Rob_P
UKRM(at)indqualtec.co.uk
uppercase(d) BBIWYMC#1 BOG#11? MRO#31 IBCDBBB#1(kotl)
FJ1200, CCM130 Benelli Cabriolet (gone)
Looks like Rab C Nesbit.

 

Diving of the Norfolk coast I work from Immingham as the standard port
but I still have my own tidal stream tweaks between the diamonds to get
slack water right.

But nothing wrong with arriving a tad early and wait till the tidal
stream is tolerable to dive in.

 

hmmm. The FAQ says transponders have been required since 2004, but a
quick perusal of my home port shows many ships unmarked.

 

Required only on vessels over 10 metres, AIUI. Don't have to be switched
on when in port AFAIK.

 

The FAQ says over 299GT. Still, there are many ships without
transponders. The site shows 21 transponders in the port of San Diego,
CA, but there are hundreds of boats over 10 metres, and dozens of
large vessels.

 

UKHO are a bunch of cuntbubbles and can go **** themselves

http://www.weather-watch.com/smf/index.php?topic=42213.0

"WXTide you will find uses the Proudman Labs data" so fuckoff you
clueless cunts.

<breathes deeply> Ahhh, that's better....

 

You can see the oil tankers at anchor off of Southwold and Lowestoft
awaiting for the price of oil to go up further before they unload. Some
will keep updating their ETA to today's date some don't bother or remove
that data from the data transmission.

A couple[1] of years ago there were 20 to 30 big tankers off shore there
waiting for the price to go up. A new trade for the small coastal
tankers sprung up. They would take on 'small' quantities from the super
tankers to ferry ashore to the oil terminals to pay for the upkeep of
the super tankers.

So no change there. Not a 'real shortage'[2] of oil, as we are told, but
the dealers forcing the price up.

[1] For the pedantic out there it was about the latter half of 09.
[2] Making the situation worse by exploiting it.

 

Same here.

Alright for you retired types. I've got the choice between crossings at
hideous times, missing races or taking extra leave. So 4am out and 11pm
back it is.

 

Some ports have better coverage than others. Coverage for the websites
relies on collaboration of enthusiasts.

The vessels use dedicated hardware on board for detecting each other so
the accuracy of the information on the t'internet isn't important to them.

For instance, my employer has an aerial and provides data for one of the
subscription based sites in return for use of the service for free.

In our case, it works fine for the harbour and approach itself but the
aerial isn't in a great place so it loses sight of vessels a few miles
from the fairway bouy and slightly better coverage can be provided by
some of the free sites by Johnny and his rooftop VHF aerial on the cliffs.

 

I'm booked to arrive in Douglas at dawn on the 4th (first race day) and
leave Douglas around midnight on the 10th (last race day).

If I had half a brain I might have booked the return boat for the
Saturday. But I don't, so I didn't.

I don't think any of the regulars have booked crossings yet, if at all.

 

I had to cancel my booking. Events have conspired against going this
year.

 

You haven't knocked her up again, have you?