Guard Vessels, APRA, Dazzle, & a Digital Diamond

摘要

I am sure that many of you, like myself, enjoy keeping track of shipping in your local area, if you live close to the coast, you can receive data received from the Automatic Identification System (AIS) transmissions. Alternatively -perhaps for those of you who live away from the coast - you could use one of the internet sites available, for example, the two accessible at these URLs: www.marinetraffic.com www.vesselfinder.com From time to time, you will see vessels showing up as 'guard' vessels. This month I will provide information on their role, and on why many are fishing trawlers. The role of guard vessels is to protect any vulnerable sub-sea or surface installation, including exposed cables and pipelines, from the dangers arising from fishing activities or other marine traffic movements. They are utilised during the installation, construction and decommissioning phases on a wide range of oil and gas, renewable, and cable lay projects, for example, pipelines and cables; wellheads; manifolds and other sub-sea structures; various offshore sites during installation, operational and decommissioning phases; and renewable energy installation operations such as wind farms.