Monday, March 10, 2014

Appeal to search missing Malaysian flight

The Beijing-bound Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 disappeared on March 8 over the South China Sea between Malaysia and Vietnam after it lost contact with the ground controllers.
There are still no clues about the whereabouts of the missing plane.

 Malaysia Airlines said it was working with authorities who activated their search and rescue team to locate the aircraft.

The route would take the aircraft from Malaysia across to Vietnam and China.
(New York Times)

The Boeing 777 was traveling smoothly in clear weather at about 35,000 feet, when it vanished from radar screens.
Its last known location was captured on Flightradar 24, a popular aircraft live-tracking site, over the South China Sea/Gulf of Thailand almost due north of Kuala Terengganu in Malaysia approximately 45 minutes after take off.

 NGA nautical chart of the area in the Marine GeoGarage
Last detected signal was reported to be 120 Nm from east Kota Baru.
Vietnam navy said plane may have crashed 153 miles off Tho Chu island. 
The bathymetry of this SE Asia area shows an extensive shallow water.
Given the relatively shallow depth of the Gulf of Thailand, the possible crash area, the flight-data recorder (or "black box") and cockpit voice recorder should be located fairly quickly -- a key difference between Malaysia 370 and the similarly baffling Air France 447, which went down in 2009 in the middle of the Atlantic at a depth of 4,000 meters.

 An multinational air and sea search has now been launched,
with this area being the current area of interest.

Last known position of flight MH370 : 06°55'15" N / 103°34'43" E
Other ref : Flightaware

 View of oil spills seen from a Vietnamese air force plane on Saturday in the search area for a missing Malaysia Airlines jetliner carrying 227 passengers and 12 crew members.
Preliminary investigations into the whereabouts of flight MH370 are said to be narrowing on the possibility of a mid-air disintegration.

A photo taken by personnel on board a Vietnamese search aircraft in an undisclosed area on March 9 shows possible debris from the missing Malaysia Airline.
Vietnamese officials said they believe the object is one of the plane's doors, according to local news media reports.

GeoSage, a developer in image fusion and spectral transformation analysis, is suggesting that Landsat-8 satellite imagery might come to rescue in this case.
www.geosage.com/Special/Landsat8_Flight370.pdf
However, there are no readily available maps for the vast and empty ocean.

Though satellite imagery (Landsat-8) acquired for the same day can be rapidly explored.
It would be a good opportunity to explore whether the timely Landsat-8 satellite imagery has captured something for the surrounding ocean region where the plane was reportedly missing.
Luckily, there are three scenes captured on the same day for the surrounding ocean region. Unfortunately, no imagery is available for the main suspect area.

Nevertheless, given the surprisingly lack of any information and useful maps, the Landsat-8 scenes that are now processed (at 15m-resolution) might still be useful for the swift search and possibly rescue exercises.
At least, with the satellite imagery the search can be more targeted and one can exclude large areas without any traces at this stage.

Want to help find the Malaysian Airlines flight?
So spend a few minutes on this website reviewing satellite images :
 Tomnod : crowdsource satellite imagery to look for Malaysia Airlines Flight
with images captured by Digital Globe on Sunday 9 March.
DigitalGlobe is enlisting the crowd to scan and tag images of more than 1,200 square miles of ocean for any visible evidence that could help locate the Malaysia Airlines 777 aircraft that went missing this weekend.
The Longmont-based earth-imagery company deployed its FirstLook service on Sunday, directing two of its five satellites to snap photos of the area in the Gulf of Thailand, where investigators suspected the plane may have crashed, and then activated its crowdsourcing platform, Tomnod.

A lot of ocean to cover, they need a lot of eyes.

Links :

Canada CHS update in the Marine GeoGarage

As our public viewer is not yet available
(currently under construction, upgrading to Google Maps API v3 as v2 is officially no more supported),
this info is primarily intended to our B2B customers which use our nautical charts layers
in their own webmapping applications through our GeoGarage API.

53 charts have been updated (February 28, 2014) in the GeoGarage platform :
    • 1312 LAC SAINT-PIERRE
    • 1512A OTTAWA TO / À LONG ISLAND
    • 1512B LONG ISLAND TO / À BECKETTS LANDING
    • 1512C BECKETTS LANDING TO / À SMITHS FALLS
    • 2025A BOBCAYGEON TO/AU BALSAM LAKE
    • 2025B BALSAM LAKE
    • 2025C BALSAM LAKE TO/AU LAKE SIMCOE
    • 2282 OWEN SOUND TO/Â CABOT HEAD
    • 2283A OWEN SOUND TO/À GIANTS TOMB ISLAND
    • 2283B OWEN SOUND TO/À GIANTS TOMB ISLAND
    • 2300 LAKE SUPERIOR / LAC SUPÉRIEUR
    • 3000 JUAN DE FUCA STRAIT TO/À DIXON ENTRANCE
    • 3001 VANCOUVER ISLAND ÎLE DE VANCOUVER JUAN DE FUCA STRAIT TO/À QUEEN CHARLOT
    • 3441 HARO STRAIT BOUNDARY PASS AND/ET SATELLITE CHANNEL
    • 3462 JUAN DE FUCA STRAIT TO/À STRAIT OF GEORGIA
    • 3545 JOHNSTONE STRAIT PORT NEVILLE TO/À ROBSON BIGHT
    • 3564 PLANS JOHNSTONE STRAIT (HAVANNAH CHANNEL AND/ET CHATHAM CHANNEL)
    • 3602 APPROACHES TO/APPROCHES À JUAN DE FUCA STRAIT
    • 3603 UCLUELET INLET TO/À NOOTKA SOUND
    • 3724 CAAMANO SOUND AND APPROACHES / ET LES APPROCHES
    • 3726 LAREDO SOUND AND APPROACHES
    • 3737 LAREDO CHANNEL - INCLUDING / Y COMPRIS LAREDO INLET AND / ET SURF INLET
    • 3741 OTTER PASSAGE TO BONILLA ISLAND
    • 3742 OTTER PASSAGE TO/À MCKAY REACH
    • 3795 LANGLEY PASSAGE
    • 3908 KITIMAT HARBOUR
    • 3912 KINGKOWN INLET
    • 3955 PLANS PRINCE RUPERT HARBOUR
    • 3956 MALACCA PASSAGE TO/À BELL PASSAGE
    • 3957 APPROACHES TO/APPROCHES À PRINCE RUPERT HARBOUR
    • 3958 PRINCE RUPERT HARBOUR
    • 4013 HALIFAX TO / À SYDNEY
    • 4015 SYDNEY TO/À SAINT-PIERRE
    • 4023 NORTHUMBERLAND STRAIT / DÉTROIT DE NORTHUMBERLAND
    • 4045 SABLE ISLAND BANK/BANC DE L'ÎLE DE SABLE TO/AU ST. PIERRE BANK/BANC DE S
    • 4209 LOCKEPORT HARBOUR AND/ET SHELBURNE HARBOUR
    • 4230 LITTLE HOPE ISLAND TO/À CAPE ST MARYS
    • 4240 LIVERPOOL HARBOUR TO/À LOCKEPORT HARBOUR
    • 4302 STRAIT OF CANSO
    • 4328 LUNENBURG BAY
    • 4335 STRAIT OF CANSO AND APPROACHES/ET LES APPROCHES
    • 4377 MAIN-À-DIEU PASSAGE
    • 4384 PEARL ISLAND TO/À CAPE LA HAVE
    • 4462 ST. GEORGE'S BAY
    • 4617 RED ISLAND TO/À PINCHGUT POINT
    • 4826 BURGEO TO/À FRANÇOIS
    • 4855 BONAVISTA BAY SOUTHERN PORTION / PARTIE SUD
    • 4862 CARMANVILLE TO/À BACALHAO ISLAND AND/ET FOGO
    • 4911 ENTRÉE À/ENTRANCE TO MIRAMICHI RIVER
    • 4912 MIRAMICHI
    • 5471 INUKJUAK ET LES APPROCHES AND APPROACHES
    • 6258 MONTREAL POINT TO/À KETTLE ISLAND
    • 7777 CORONATION GULF WESTERN PORTION/PARTIE OUEST
      So 690 charts (1665 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.
      See also written Notices to Shipping and Navarea warnings : NOTSHIP

      Sunday, March 9, 2014

      Drones over dolphin stampede and whales off Dana Point and Maui



      Captain Dave Anderson of Capt. Dave's Dolphin and Whale Safari in Dana Point, California, at great personal risk, has recently filmed and edited a 5-minute video that contains some of the most beautiful, jaw-dropping, footage ever taken with a drone from the air of a huge mega-pod of thousands of common dolphins stampeding off Dana Point, California, three gray whales migrating together down the coast off San Clemente, California, and heartwarming close-ups hovering over a newborn Humpback whale calf snuggling and playing with its mom as an escort whale stands guard nearby, filmed recently in Maui.

      According to N.O.A.A. Southern California has the greatest density of dolphins in the world.
      We have pods up to 10,000 strong stretched out for miles like the wildebeests of Africa. Over 400,000 common dolphin alone. We also have the largest concentration of blue whales on earth.

      Capt. Dave explains, "This is the most beautiful and compelling five minute video I have ever put together. I learned so much about these whales and dolphins from this drone footage that it feels like I have entered a new dimension! I have not been this excited about a new technology since we built our underwater viewing pods on our whale watching boat. Drones are going to change how we view the animal world. Wow!"

      Capt. Dave had to film this off a small inflatable boat, launching and catching the quadcopter drone by hand where a miss could mean injury to him from the four propeller blades or loss of the drone.
      He actually lost one drone on takeoff when it nicked his small VHF radio antenna on the 14 foot rigid inflatable he was filming from and it went into the water.
      Alone six miles offshore Capt. Dave, without thinking, dove into the cold, late-January waters off Dana Point to retrieve the valuable footage taken on a flight a half hour earlier that morning.
      "I had my hat and glasses on, I was fully clothed with long-johns on to keep warm and my cell phone and wallet in my pocket," Captain Dave explained.
      "It was a stupid move, but the copter started sinking so fast it was my only hope to get the amazing footage I had just shot".
      Since then he has attached flotation to the skids, which would save the footage, but every flight over the water still risks the DJI Phantom 2 quadcopter with a small GoPro HERO3 Black camera on it, as the $1,700 rig is not waterproof and the skids will not keep it upright on the ocean.

      "I get so nervous every flight over the water now, after the accident, my hands start shaking," explains Capt. Dave. "My wife says no more drones if I lose this one. But she said that before I lost the other one. Now that she's seen what it can do, I think she's just as hooked as I am".

      "This technology, that offers such steady footage from the air for such a low price and is so easy to fly, is new. This was a ten or twenty thousand dollar copter a few years ago and flying those took a great deal of skill. I can't wait to see what footage this year will bring with this drone, getting a different perspective on the amazing sightings we already have off Dana Point. There is debate in many states right now about making use of these drones illegal. People are justifiably concerned about invasion of privacy. But it would be a shame to have this new window into a whale's world taken away."

      Entanglement in fishing gear takes the lives of nearly 1,000 dolphins and whales ever day around the world. Captain Dave formed Orange County's first whale disentanglement group in 2008 and has been involved in disentangling several whales, including a gray whale named Lily, whose disentanglement in Dana Point Harbor made national headlines.
      He authored the award-winning book, "Lily, A Gray Whale's Odyssey", which won eight awards in 2013 including the prestigious Benjamin Franklin award for Best New Voice from the Independent Book Publishers Association.

      A Special Note From Captain Dave:

      Attention any would be whale videographers: please only attempt this if you are extremely familiar with whale behavior as it is illegal to do anything that causes the whales to change their normal behavior with big fines- and the authorities do watch YouTube.
      Different areas have different laws on approaching whales.
      I am a whale watch captain with nearly 20 years of experience.
      All laws were obeyed by us during filming.
      In Maui we sat watching whales from a distance for hours before they moved closer to us.
      You can never approach them there closer than 100 yards.
      The Mom and calf as you can see in the film were completely undisturbed by the small drone.
      NOAA is currently reviewing drones and may create laws or guidelines for using them around whales.

      Saturday, March 8, 2014

      After the keel walk, the mast walk






      Alex Thomson does the best ever marketing stunt that involves sailing for Hugo Boss
      Fure that with just that photo, Hugo Boss will get more media coverage
      than an average America’s Cup campaign.

      Solo round the world yachtsman Alex Thomson performs a daring feat on board his high-speed yacht, Hugo Boss : He climbs up the 30-meter high mast of the moving vessel and dives into the ocean.

      This is not the first stunt we've seen from Alex - two years ago he completed the "Keel Walk", a stunt that has become famous throughout the world

       It seems like a kind of strange behaviour... 
      Does everybody walk on the mast? 
      A new game for this summer ?
      source : Compass Magazin

       or the Captain of the QM2 standing on the bulb of the ship
      photo James Morgan

      Links :

      Friday, March 7, 2014

      Germany BSH update in the Marine GeoGarage

      51 charts have been updated :

      • D3-1   Ansteuerung von Helgoland   50000
      • D4-1   Die Weser von Robbennordsteert bis Bremerhaven und Nordenham   25000
      • D5-1   Die Weser von Nordenham bis Farge, part 1   25000
      • D5-2   Die Weser von Nordenham bis Farge, part 2   25000
      • D6-1   Die Weser von Farge bis Bremen. Nur Pläne.  Plan A: Farge bis Osterort   25000
      • D6-3   Plan C: Häfen von Bremen   12500
      • D7-1   Die Jade, innerer Teil   35000
      • D32-1   Falshöft bis Holtenau   50000
      • D33-1   Ansteuerung der Kieler Förde   12500
      • D34-1   Häfen von Kiel   12500
      • D35-1   Neustädter Bucht   25000
      • D35-2   Plan A: Hafen von Neustadt   10000
      • D37-1   Dameshöved bis Wismar   50000
      • D41-1   Die Schlei von Schleimünde bis Schleswig, part 1   25000
      • D41-2   Die Schlei von Schleimünde bis Schleswig, part 2   25000
      • D42-1   Nord-Ostsee-Kanal, part 1   50000
      • D42-2   Nord-Ostsee-Kanal, part 2   50000
      • D44-1   Elbmündung   50000
      • D44-2   Plan: Cuxhaven   12500
      • D46-1   Die Elbe von der Oste bis Brunsbüttel und Krautsand   30000
      • D46-3   Plan B: Hafen- und Schleusenanlagen von Brunsbüttel   15000
      • D47-1   Die Elbe von Krautsand bis Schulau   30000
      • D47-2   Plan: Stadersand   15000
      • D48-1   Die Elbe von Schulau bis Hamburg. Nur Pläne. Plan A: Die Elbe von Schulau bis Teufelsbrück   30000
      • D49-1   Mündungen der Jade, Weser und Elbe   100000
      • D51-1   Die Trave von Travemünde bis Große Holzwiek und Dassower See   12500
      • D52-1   Die Trave von Große Holzwiek bis Lübeck   12500
      • D54-1   Beltsee   200000
      • D88-1   Helgoland   12500
      • D89-1   Juist bis Wangerooge   50000
      • D91-2   Plan A: Hafenanlagen von Emden   12500
      • D92-1   Die Ems von Pogum bis Papenburg, part 1   25000
      • D92-2   Die Ems von Pogum bis Papenburg, part 2   25000
      • D104-1   Die Eider von Eiderdamm bis Lexfähre. Nur Pläne.  Plan A: Eiderdamm bis Nordfeld   25000
      • D104-5   Plan E: Nordfeld bis Lexfähre   50000
      • D105-1   Die Eider, Norder- und Süderpiep   50000
      • D106-1   Hever und Schmaltief   50000
      • D107-1   Vortrapptief, Norder- und Süderaue   50000
      • D1511-1   Greifswalder Bodden   50000
      • D1512-1   Peenestrom, nördlicher Teil   25000
      • D1516-1   Prorer Wiek   25000
      • D1578-1   Greifswalder Bodden, nördlicher Teil   25000
      • D1579-1   Der Strelasund von Palmerort bis Stralsund   25000
      • D1621-1   Nördliche Rügensche Bodden   30000
      • D1622-1   Nordansteuerung von Stralsund   25000
      • D1623-1   Boddengewässer von Barhöft bis Bodstedt   25000
      • D1624-1   Boddengewässer von Bodstedt bis Ribnitz-Damgarten   25000
      • D1641-1   Ansteuerung von Wismar   25000
      • D1672-1   Hafen von Rostock   12500
      • D1683-1   Salzhaff   25000


      Don't forget to visit the Notices to Mariners published by BSH for corrections on German nautical charts.