NOAA satellites aid in the rescue of 295 people in 2010

Cospas-Sarsat Programme - The First Generation

From NOAA

In 2010, NOAA satellites were critical in the rescues of 295 people from life-threatening situations throughout the United States and its surrounding waters.
The satellites picked up distress signals from emergency beacons carried by downed pilots, shipwrecked boaters and stranded hikers, and relayed the information about their location to first responders on the ground.


 
NOAA’s polar-orbiting and geostationary satellites, along with Russia’s COSPAS spacecraft, are part of the international Search and Rescue Satellite Aided Tracking system, called COSPAS-SARSAT.
This system uses a network of satellites to quickly detect and locate distress signals from emergency beacons onboard aircraft and boats, and from smaller, handheld personal locator beacons called PLBs.

Alaska had the most people rescued last year with 77, followed by Florida with 37, and West Virginia with 17, who were aboard a downed Army Reserve helicopter.

“With each rescue, the COSPAS-SARSAT system performs the way it was intended — as a real, life-saving network,” said Chris O’Connors, program manager for NOAA SARSAT.

When a NOAA satellite finds the location of a distress signal within the United States or its surrounding waters, the information is relayed to the SARSAT Mission Control Center based at NOAA’s Satellite Operations Facility in Suitland, Md.
From there, the information is quickly sent to a Rescue Coordination Center, operated by either the U.S. Air Force, for land rescues, or the U.S. Coast Guard, for water rescues.

Now in its 29th year, COSPAS-SARSAT has been credited with supporting more than 28,000 rescues worldwide, including more than 6,500 in the United States and its surrounding waters.

2010 SARSAT Rescue Highlights

Of the 295 saves last year, 180 people were rescued from the water, 43 from aviation incidents, and 72 in land situations where they used their PLBs.

• In a joint U.S. Coast Guard-Navy operation, a man was rescued from his capsized boat, 250 miles off of Cape Hatteras, N.C.
• Although not included in the 295 count, Abby Sunderland, a California teen attempting to set a new record for youngest solo sail around the world, was rescued when she activated her emergency beacons. A storm took her mast — which also left her satellite phone inoperable — and left her boat adrift in the southern Indian Ocean over 2,000 miles from shore. Hers is among the non-U.S. rescues in 2010; those numbers will officially be released later this year.

By law, owners of emergency beacons are required to register them with NOAA at: www.beaconregistration.noaa.gov

That registration information often helps provide better or faster assistance to people in distress. It may also provide information about the location of the emergency situation, how many people need assistance, what type of help may be needed and other ways to contact the owner.
Links :

• YouTube : Why a Personal Locator Beacon
• Blog Marine GeoGarage : NASA develops enhanced search and rescue satellite system

AC45 wing-sailed catamaran under sail in Auckland

From AmericaCup

New Cat Class Centerpiece of 2011-2012 America’s Cup World Series

Auckland’s Viaduct Harbour (position on the Marine GeoGarage) showcased a glimpse into the future of the America’s Cup with the debut of the wing-sailed AC45 catamaran.
The forerunner to the next generation of America’s Cup boats, the AC45 made its maiden voyage, the first of many sea trials planned over the coming weeks.

“Thanks to the efficiency of the New Zealand boat building industry and a huge effort by our team, the first AC45 is now ready for sea trials just a mere four months after this exciting new multihull class was first conceptualized,” said Tim Smyth, co-construction manager for Core Builders Composites of Warkworth, New Zealand.

The AC45 will be the centerpiece of the 2011-2012 America’s Cup World Series, which will start mid-2011.
The high-tech carbon fibre catamaran is the first in a fleet of the new 45-foot one-designs that will be tested by America’s Cup teams before racing on the America’s Cup World Series circuit.

The AC45 is an essential element of the vision for the 34th America’s Cup, which will feature 72-foot catamarans raced on San Francisco Bay in 2013.
Focused on creating more on-the-water excitement for both the teams and the fans, the AC45 is designed for both speed and close racing.
While capable of closing speeds of up to 30 knots, the AC45 was designed to remain nimble enough to handle the tight race courses planned by America’s Cup Race Management (ACRM).

“The biggest challenge with multihulls is learning how much to anticipate.
With the AC45 being a big, powerful multihull capable of tripling the wind speed, your reactions and skills are accelerated.
It’s all about being ahead of the cycle,” said Oracle Racing skipper James Spithill.
“I think the AC45 will enable all teams to advance to hard-core race mentality very quickly.”

The AC45 was designed by the Oracle Racing design and engineering team, which developed the catamaran on behalf of the America’s Cup community.
At task was designing a boat that would not only meet the racing criteria, but could also fit inside a 40-foot container, which is the shipping vessel for the America’s Cup World Series.

“The boat was designed for all-around performance so it can be sailed in wide range of conditions, and that means the next America's Cup will see races start on time,” said Ian Burns, Oracle Racing design coordinator.
“Plus it’s a regatta boat, meant for lots of racing, so quick assembly and disassembly was a must to accommodate an active competition schedule.”

The AC45 had to be robust enough to sail through a wide wind range, from 5 to 30 knots, as well as survive in the event of collisions, which are foreseen as teams learn to adapt to multihull closing speeds.

Utilizing the same technology used in the aerospace industry, the hulls are built in carbon epoxy with honeycomb cores, making them extremely stiff and light structures.
The sandwich construction involves two carbon skins less than 1mm thick laminated over an ultra-light honeycomb core.

“The new America’s Cup is for those who are hungry for a challenge and the AC45 is really a fresh take on the multihull,” said Vincenzo Onorato, President, Mascalzone Latino.

“We plan to run tight race courses that will force boats to engage with each other, creating really close racing situations. Multihulls are very fast boats and will therefore reach the course boundaries sooner, so races will become a true test of skill and strategy, not just speed,” said Iain Murray, CEO, America’s Cup Race Management and Regatta Director.
“The AC45 will fast-track teams to state-of-the-art wingsail technology and crew technique in the first season, and will greatly prepare them for the AC72.”

Links :

• AmericaCupMedia : AC45 production in NZ
  
• YouTube : New America's Cup AC45 wing-sailed catamaran : first sailing session in Auckland / AC 45 Day 2 - clocked at over 27kts /
  

Global piracy costs billions, says study

Somalian Piracy Threat Map 2010 evolution from 2005 to 2010 (full resolution)

From BBCNews

Maritime piracy costs the global economy between $7bn (£4.4bn) and $12bn (£7.6bn) a year, a study says.

The report, compiled by US think-tank One Earth Future (Oceans beyond Piracy), calculated the amount from the costs of ransom, security equipment and the impact on trade.
The majority of costs came from piracy off Somalia, it says.

IMB Piracy Map 2010 (ICC Commercial Crime Service)
LIVE Piracy Map 2011

Although the costs are said to be difficult to assess, one researcher estimated they had increased roughly five-fold since 2005.
Despite an international effort to patrol waters, the number of reported incidents of piracy has risen over recent years, and the areas in which they operate has grown.

UKHO Q6099 Anti-Piracy planning chart (download)
showing transit corridor through Gulf of Aden
(position in the Marine GeoGarage)

'Treating the symptoms'

The study, launched at the offices of UK think-tank Chatham House, said there had been some 1,600 acts of piracy, causing the death of over 54 people, since 2006.

Looking at the problem in three regions - the Horn of Africa, Nigeria and the Gulf of Guinea, and the Malacca Straits - the report suggests that the biggest costs arise from re-routing ships to avoid risky areas, which is estimated at between $2.4bn and $3bn.
Meanwhile, about $2bn is spent on naval operations off the coast of Somalia each year.

"Some of these costs are increasing astronomically," said researcher Anna Bowden from the Colorado-based One Earth Future Foundation, which conducted research for the study.
"What is even more concerning is that all these are simply treating the symptoms. Almost nothing is being done to treat the root cause."

At the start of this year, around 500 seafarers from more than 18 countries were being held hostage by pirates around the world.
Somalia has been ravaged by internal conflict for two decades, and pirates have flourished amid the lawlessness.

Links :

• Chatham-House : Piracy in Somalia
• BBCNews : Pirates seized record 1,181 hostages in 2010 - report
  
• AllAfrica : Somalia, pirates or protectors ?
• OceanusLIVE : Real-time secure collaboration
  
• Marine GeoGarage blog : 2009 worldwide piracy
  

My love affair with the manta ray

Swimming with a Manta Ray- Shark Therapy - Big Sharks- BBC Wildlife

From TheGuardian

Twenty-two years after first learning to dive, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall finally gets up close and personal with his hero animal.

Everyone interested in wildlife dreams of an encounter with their hero animal.
It might be an elephant, a leopard or a golden eagle.
For those of us who love the underwater wilderness, it might be dolphins, sharks or a giant octopus.
For me, obsessed with fish since I caught sticklebacks and kept them in a jam jar as a four-year-old, it's long been manta rays.

I learned to dive 22 years ago, in weekly sessions at a swimming pool in Swiss Cottage, north London.
The most exciting things to see, apart from the black lines along the bottom of the pool, were matted balls of hair and the occasional discarded corn plaster.
But from day one I was dreaming of swimming with mantas.

Since then, practically every foreign holiday I've taken has involved diving.

I've dived in the Red Sea, in Thailand, in the Seychelles, in Madagascar, Mauritius and Tanzania.
And I've dived on countless dive sites where seeing mantas was considered to be an occasional unexpected bonus – but always a long shot.
And not once did I win the manta lottery.
I've dived with sharks, played with octopuses and even snorkelled with whale sharks and basking sharks.
They have all thrilled me.
Not that I need the company of charismatic submarine megafauna to make a dive feel worthwhile.
Seeing tiny wrasse busying themselves in the tentacles of sea anemones, or a velvet swimming crab waving its claws at me from its hidey-hole in a Dorset wreck is quite enough to send me back to my land world feeling privileged and content.
But the manta itch has never been far away, and whenever I've arrived at a new destination, I've tentatively inquired whether mantas have been seen there in recent days/weeks/years/ever, often to be told, "You should have been here yesterday/last week/last month."

I went to the Maldives for the first time last September, to film pole and line tuna fishing as part of my new Channel 4 series, Hugh's Fish Fight.
The story of mantas is relevant to the story of how tuna gets in a tin and ends up in a supermarket near you.
This is partly because the vast majority of tinned tuna is caught by a method called purse seining.
This involves huge boats putting out several kilometres of net, to surround a shoal of skipjack tuna.

It's highly effective – even more so when the boats use something called a FAD.
A FAD is a fish aggregation device, which sounds pretty hi-tech, but in fact usually consists simply of a floating raft or a giant buoy, or collection of buoys, anchored to the sea floor.
By simply being present in the open ocean, and an object of curiosity for passing marine life, FADs attract fish – including large shoals of skipjack.
Unfortunately, they also attract many species that are not the target of the tuna fishermen, but will be caught in their nets anyway.
Such casualties are called by-catch.
Where FADs are used (and they are now used in the vast majority of fisheries that supply the UK with tinned tuna), the amount of unwanted by-catch increases from 1-2% of the catch to around 10%.
Of particular concern to marine conservationists are the numbers of sharks, turtles and rays caught by this method.
And oceanic manta rays fall victim to them, too.

By contrast, pole and line fishing is a remarkably clean method of catching tuna.
By targeting a feeding shoal of skipjack, and presenting small, shiny hooks on a short line attached to a long pole, hardly anything except the tuna is ever caught.
Turtles, sharks and rays are almost never killed.

What's remarkable about the Maldives is the way it has taken control of its marine resources and begun to manage them carefully for the benefit of the national economy and the local people.

Foreign purse seining boats (most are owned by companies based in France and Spain) were banned from Maldivian waters by the country's first democratically elected president, Mohamed Nasheed, within months of his coming to power in late 2008.
The Maldives' tuna resource is now exclusively fished by local boats using the pole and line method.
This sustainable approach has encouraged supermarkets such as Sainsbury's, Marks & Spencer and Waitrose to reject the purse-seined tuna, and its controversial by-catch, and stock only pole and line-caught tuna.
The pole and line-caught product is boldly labelled, and fetches a premium price – around £1.50 a tin, compared with 50p-£1 for the standard purse-seined tin.
But the conscientious fish consumer is catching on and pole and line tuna sales are growing all the time.

There's only one other fish species that could arguably run the tuna close in its importance to the Maldivian economy – and that's the manta ray.
Divers, who perhaps like me have begun to lose patience, or hope, for a chance encounter with a manta or two elsewhere in the world, book dive holidays in the Maldives on the understanding that seeing mantas is almost guaranteed – at least on certain sites at certain times of year.
More than $8m a year are spent on manta dives and manta safaris, and that doesn't include hotel bookings and "live-aboard" boat accommodation.

And so I tumble over the side of the dive boat, above a reef that is known to be a manta cleaning station, where mantas come to have little parasites nibbled off them by obliging wrasse.
I'm told that manta rays were seen here this very morning, and the day before, and every day before that for several weeks.
I try not to think about probabilities, and to resist the mental torment that is so easily induced by the word "almost".

We swim down to a reef that is no more than 15 metres below the surface.
It's pretty enough.
There is plenty of fish life, including some engaging sweetlips, a plump, friendly reef fish with a stunning tiger-cross-leopard pattern of spots and stripes, yellow on brown.
There's an almost preternaturally relaxed turtle that, when I get within touching distance, looks dolefully at me as if to say, "You're not really here to see me, are you?"
But right now, there's not much else to look at.
Or so it seems, in the glaring absence of manta rays.
I'm in danger, I think to myself, of undermining my own mantra, that "there's no such thing as a boring dive".
But try as I might, I just can't get engaged with the lovely local fauna.
I'm too busy scanning the edge of my vision for some shape, some sign, that the biggest ray in the world is about to join us on the reef.

It doesn't happen.
And I get to the point where I think there's clearly been a mistake.
We're on the wrong reef. It's just too ordinary. Why would a manta come here?
It's simply impossible to conceive of a creature of that size, and of that fabulousness, deigning to visit us on this very ordinary patch of rock and coral.
After 45 minutes of this anguish, my air is running low, and it's time to head slowly up to the surface and return to the boat.
My weak grin fails to hide my disappointment from my dive guide and the crew.
"Nice turtle…" I manage to mutter as I climb up the ladder.

I am jinxed.
Punished for some past act of fishy hubris.
Perhaps I shouldn't be such an enthusiastic catcher and eater of fish.
Perhaps I should never have imprisoned those sticklebacks in that jam jar…
That night, I drink too much whisky. Descending to my cabin, I hear every creak and rattle of the gently rocking boat. It's too hot. I can't sleep. Where is my manta?

The next morning as the sun comes up at 6.30am, we're approaching the same reef.
The usual pre-dive banter is absent as we pull on our gear.
I back-roll into the water, working on an absence of thought, a total lack of anticipation, a readiness to focus on whatever comes my way, rather than straining to seek out something that simply isn't there.

The sun's still low, and down on the reef it's a little gloomier than it was the previous afternoon.
I start to make friends with the sweetlips.
As they hang above their favourite rock, I'm trying to engage their wary eyes with a little waggle of my finger.
Behind them I notice a flutter of smaller fish rising off the reef, and I turn my attention to them.

I see it before I see it: a sultry, grey ghost-shape beyond the limit of clear vision.
I'm still unpixellating it into the manta I so desperately want it to be, even as it reveals itself to be exactly that, with a slow beat of its extraordinary pointed wings that brings it effortlessly within a few metres.
Ridiculously big, and impossibly graceful, it banks and turns within touching distance, just slowly enough for a dozen little cleaner wrasse to nuzzle up to its underside and start flitting around its broadly latticed gill-rakers, to take up their symbiotic task.

And then another looms into the light above the reef. And another.
Soon, I am in a slow-motion vortex of six of these flying paradoxes of bulk and beauty, each one the size of three big dining tables bolted together, yet each as graceful and weightless as a kestrel in a light breeze.

No one is sure if mantas have been coming here for hundreds, thousands or hundreds of thousands of years, but the latter is a distinct possibility.
Right here, right now, though, these creatures are impervious to my presence.
And that is the essence of the thrill of being with them.
It's a joy of a different order from playing with clever marine creatures such as dolphins and seals.
Self-awareness is erased in the moment, lost in the pure pleasure of observing without influence the perfect action of a wondrous, unknowable being.

Links :

• TheTelegraph : Maldives, diving with Manta rays
• BBCNews : Manta ray's secret life revealed
• YouTube : Rare Footage of Stingray, (Andrea Queen of Mantas, BBC2) / Manta rays in the Maldives, National GeoGraphic)

Canada CHS update in the Marine GeoGarage

Cap aux Meules (chart 4956)

58 charts have been updated for Canada (CHS update published January 03)

• 1202 CAP ETERNITE TO SAINT-FULGENCE
• 1235 POINTE AU BOISVERT TO CAP DE LA TETE AU CHIEN
• 1313 BATISCAN TO LAC SAINT-PIERRE
• 1315 QUEBEC TO DONNACONA
• 1316 PORT DE QUEBEC
• 1430 LAC SAINT-LOUIS
• 1510A LAC DES DEUX MONTAGNES
• 1510B LAC DES DEUX MONTAGNES
• 3001 VANCOUVER ISLAND JUAN DE FUCA STRAIT TO QUEEN CHARLOTTE SOUND
• 3442 NORTH PENDER ISLAND TO THETIS ISLAND
• 3443 THETIS ISLAND TO NANAIMO
• 3461 JUAN DE FUCA STRAIT EASTERN PORTION
• 3462 JUAN DE FUCA STRAIT TO STRAIT OF GEORGIA
• 3493 VANCOUVER HARBOUR WESTERN PORTION
• 3494 VANCOUVER HARBOUR CENTRAL POSITION
• 3550 APPROACHES TO SEYMOUR INLET AND BELIZE INLET
• 3602 APPROACHES TO JUAN DE FUCA STRAIT
• 3679 QUATSINO SOUND
• 3681 PLANS - QUATSINO SOUND
• 3921 FISH EGG INLET AND ALLISON HARBOUR
• 4001 GULF OF MAINE TO STRAIT OF BELLE ISLE
• 4011 APPROACHES TO BAY OF FUNDY
• 4016 SAINT-PIERRE TO ST JOHN'S
• 4017 CAPE RACE TO CAPE FREELS
• 4025 CAP WHITTLE TO HAVRE-SAINT-PIERRE AND ILE D'ANTICOSTI
• 4026 HARVE-SAINT-PIERRE AND CAP DES ROSIERS TO POINTE DES MONTS
• 4047 ST PIERRE BANK TO WHALE BANK
• 4115 PASSAMAQUODDY BAY AND ST CROIX RIVER
• 4116 APPROACHES TO SAINT JOHN
• 4117 SAINT JOHN HARBOUR AND APPROACHES
• 4141A SAINT JOHN TO EVANDALE
• 4141B GRAND BAY TO EVANDALE INCLUDING BELLE ISLE BAY
• 4202 HALIFAX HARBOUR POINT PLEASANT TO BEDFORD BASIN
• 4203 HALIFAX HARBOUR BLACK POINT TO POINT PLEASANT
• 4233 CAPE CANSO TO COUNTRY ISLAND
• 4281 CANSO HARBOUR AND APPROACHES
• 4307 CANSO HARBOUR TO STRAIT OF CANSO
• 4420 MURRAY HARBOUR
• 4456 BAIE PIASHTI TO PETITE ILE AU MARTEAU
• 4522 TILT COVE AND LA SCIE HARBOUR (APPROACHES TO LA SCIE HARBOUR)
• 4529 FOGO HARBOUR SEAL COVE AND APPORACHES
• 4530 HAMILTON SOUND EASTERN PORTION
• 4659 PORT AU PORT
• 4701 SHIP HARBOUR HEAD TO CAMP ISLANDS
• 4817 BAY BULLS TO ST MARY'S BAY
• 4820 CAPE FREELS TO EXPLOITS ISLANDS
• 4821 WHITE BAY AND NOTRE DAME BAY
• 4844 CAPE PINE TO RENEWS HARBOUR
• 4847 CONCEPTION BAY
• 4848 LONG POND
• 4862 CARMANVILLE TO BACALHAO ISLAND AND FOGO
• 4863 BACALHAO ISLAND TO BLACK ISLAND
• 4864 BACK ISLAND TO LITTLE DENIER ISLAND
• 4865 APPROACHES TO LEWISPORTE AND LOON BAY
• 4905 CAPE TORMENTINE TO WEST POINT
• 4920 PLANS CHALEUR BAY SOUTH SHORE
• 4956 CAP-AUX-MEULES
• 5001 LABRADOR SEA
• 5031 ST LEWIS SOUND AND INLET
• 5045 DOG ISLANDS TO CAPE MAKKOVIK

So 692 charts (1647 including sub-charts) are available in the Canada CHS layer. (see coverage)

Note : don't forget to visit 'Notices to Mariners' published monthly and available from the Canadian Coast Guard both online or through a free hardcopy subscription service.
This essential publication provides the latest information on changes to the aids to navigation system, as well as updates from CHS regarding CHS charts and publications.