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Tat Communications has a map of their subsea offerings. We’ve shown similar maps before but this one is interactive! Click on the image above to view in full screen.

Click Image For Hi-Resolution Version/

Being technologically oriented ship drivers we are easily excited by new web sites that combine these interests. Having worked closely with web based AIS (Digital Seas, EarthNC, ActiveCaptain, VslTrax… to name a few) providers during the Cosco Busan incident we are also increasingly becoming interested in digital ship tracking technology so to say we were excited to learn about the new and innovative AIS site Hi-Def San Francisco would be, well, an understatement. We will be sure to bring you more information on this site as details emerge but till that time enjoy the above image titled “30 Days of SF bay traffic“.

The data visualization above represents the worlds 10 largest container shipping companies by TEU capacity. We created this chart using IBM’s Many Eye’s project which we enjoy using since it gives us a clear, easy to understand and interactive picture of numeric data. Plus it looks pretty cool.

Want to know which company has the largest number of ships or the highest percentage of the overall market? If so then click on the picture above for the interactive version.

For those who prefer more traditional data:

(Source: 2006 BRS Report)

So the gCaptain team has been exceptionally busy in the last few weeks and we have the Cosco Busan partially to thank. In addition to the server traffic and time spent researching the incident we were motivated by the events to embark on some new projects. You already now the good news, the successful launch of a new maritime podcast! Unfortunately, however, we also had a time consuming failure.

A little history…. Shortly after the ship allided with San Francisco’s Bay Bridge we pointed you to the amazing website BoatingSF.com. Run by Michael Slater, a former Adobe Engineer, the site uses AIS vessel tracking data taken from VHF radio antennas Michael has erected near the bay and uses this to plot ships to a live interactive map embedded on his site (LINK). The post that day, however, displayed recorded data showing the track of the Cosco Busan during her short voyage. The display was impressive and attracted a considerable amount of attention.

At this point of the story we had just finished reading an amazing article written for Geo: Magazine by John Astad, our friend from Vesseltrax. The subject of the article was Shore-Side Maritime Applications of Google Earth and discussed his ability to visualize 3d images of ships running the Houston Ship Channel. Even cooler was the ability to fly around a vessel as she moved about the bay… in real time! (LINK) So I contacted Michael and asked if he would send the data file to John for 3d conversion!

The stars seemed to be aligning until we discovered a problem (read about it here) that resulted in John not being able to convert the data for use in his program. Discouraged? Yes but in stepped a gCaptain reader who we can’t thank enough. He transposed the timestamps from regional AIS beacons and helped us create a ShipPlotter version (Disclaimer here and ShipPlotter results here) of the events. Not quite accurate but close enough for our next team to start work…

Jakota “is engaged in the development and sale of solutions aimed at the commercial sector and public services, as well as the field of research and science. We supply solutions for tracking, fleet management, positioning and security- and alarm systems.” Translated; they make the best 3d ship graphing websites on the planet. They also provide amazing tools for tracking fleets of ships that are visually stunning, effective and well thought out.

You ask, how did we find Jakota? We asked our friends in silicon valley to search for a company that provides AIS vessel tracking systems that first, have visually attractive solutions, second use the latest tools of web 2.0. The overwhelming response was “Check out Digital-Seas.com“.

Fast forward through the time changes, international calling codes and German accents… we finally got in touch with Lars Krueger, one of the nicest and most professional person we have met. Lars took a programmer off his job to work on our project full time… the results were stunning but the harder we work the more faulty data we found.

The bottom line… we worked hard, had fun, met some amazing people and built relationships for the future. The final result is not 100% accurate and was compressed to meat BoatingSF’s needs but still looks amazing (you should see the original!!) We also started on a new project, global AIS and vessel tracking… but that’s for another post. In the meantime, if your a marine superintendent Lars is a person you need to know. If you’re a mariner interested in tracking ships so you don’t have to spend days in sitting in the union hall… Digital-Seas is the website you will know.

Many thanks to all who helped and stay tuned for more on the amazing people and products we met while working on this project. For a preview visit these amazing sites;

• EarthNC - Digital Chart Overlays for Google Earth!
• ActiveCaptain - Port Information via Google Maps!
• Panbo - Marine Electronics Blog!
• Kurt’s Weblog - AIS Master GURU!
• Navagear -Gear and Gadets for Boaters!
• Vesseltrax - Ship positions on google maps!
• UUPlus - Low Bandwidth Solutions for Boats.

Enough discussion… to see the Cosco Busan’s Track CLICK HERE

Note: The source of our problem was the USCG’s reluctance to release the official AIS data files. If you wish to see the amazing visualizations of Digital Seas… in full size… with accurate data… call your congressman and ask for the file to be released to the public.

UPDATE: BoatingSF has a new animation that can be found here: COSCO BUSAN’S TRACK - UPDATED

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Our friend John of VesselTrax.com submitted this link to our Maritime News Discoverer. Click on the picture below and watch as the Cosco Busan leaves the dock and embarks on its fateful voyage.

From BoatingSF.com:

Path of the Cosco Busan Hitting the Bay Bridge

The animation below shows the Cosco Busan as it leaves the Port of Oakland on November 7, 2007, and hits the Bay Bridge at 8:30 am on its way to the Golden Gate.

The Cosco Busan is the bright red arrow. (Hover over a ship to see its information.)

You can see that the ship was traveling at an acute angle to the bridge and then turned sharply, directly into the center tower of the bridge. (The towers are highlighted with red dots to make them more visible.)

No cleanup ships show up in our AIS records. It is not clear whether they arrived later, did not have their AIS transponders on, or if for some reason our receiver did not detect their signals. (Coast Guard ships generally do not turn on their AIS transponders, so they do not show up.)

Click here for FULL ANIMATION

Stay Tuned as our licensed ship captain John Konrad is preparing a play-by-play video of this AIS data. In the meantime CLICK HERE for the SFGate’s excellent coverage of the incident.

UPDATE 2:

You can find a complete article on how this animation was made HERE.

gCaptain friend and Head Designer over at Digg.com, Daniel Burka, bumped up our number of friend request for the social networking / messaging site Pownce.com. Invites will go to the first 25 readers who submit comments below.

What is pownce? The New York Times tells us;

JUST now, the hottest startup in Silicon Valley — minutely examined by bloggers, panted after by investors — is Pownce, but only a chosen few can try out its Web site.

Kevin Rose, the co-founder and chief architect of Digg, a hugely popular news site, announced in late June the introduction of Pownce, a social-networking service that combines messaging with file-sharing. Mr. Rose immediately endowed his latest venture with some mystique by declaring that, for the time being, only those with invitations would be permitted to test his new site.

Within days, invitations were selling on eBay for as much as $10. Mr. Rose has declined all requests to be interviewed about the service, including my own. But as a consolation, he sent me a coveted invitation. I enjoyed the rare thrill of cyberhipness — and got to experiment with the site.

You can also send your friends links, invitations to events, or files like photos, music or videos. Of course, you can already do that on a multitude of file-sharing Web sites. It is the combination of private messaging and file-sharing that makes Pownce so novel.

Om Malik, the author of the technology blog GigaOm, is an enthusiast. “I love it and use it constantly, ” he said in a message sent to me on Pownce. “I like it because it lets me share a lot of different things with the networks of people I really care about.”

Read the full NYTimes article titled “A Social-Networking Service With a Velvet Rope” then comment below for your invitation.

Pownce Profiles of Interest:

• Captain John Konrad’s Pownce Profile
• Unofficial Network’s CoFounder Timothy K
  
• Sea Fever’s Peter M
• Top Digger MrBabyMan - Andrew S
  
• Pownce Designer Daniel Burka

Related Link:

• gCaptain on Digg.com
• gCaptain’s Maritime Facebook Group

You are all welcome to join our new gCaptain group on facebook: LINK

If there are any facebook developers out there who is willing to do some good for our site and the maritime industry please send an email to tips [at] gcaptain.com.

Links:

• What is facebook?
• Join facebook
• gCaptain’s Maritime Facebook Group
• [Continue Reading →]

Do you think you can name this port? If so visit HERE to vote. This google map is brought to you by World Port Source which provides interactive satellite images, maps and contact information for 2,626 ports in 187 countries around the world.

Also click HERE to quickly find any port using their regional map of the world.

More interested in finding maps for boaters? Panbo has many great tips in his charting category found HERE.

Related Links:

• Google Maps - Maritime Mash-up
• Google Powered Searches For Mariners
• Google Earth For Celestial Navigation?
• Using Google To Track Hurricanes

Last week I signed up for the new web service MINT and I’m impressed. The new takes your financial information and breaks it down by cost. Why is this great for mariners? Quite simply we either have slow internet access or little time in port to monitor our bills. Mint solves this problem by aggregating your data and displaying it with awsome web 2.0 graphics. It also allows you to set up email and SMS alerts for all your financial accounts… in one place. A great feature for those whose ship’s internet access is limited to email.

Lifehacker tells us Mint’s real strenght

is in it’s Presentation, Integration Features {and} Automatic, no-hassle importing of your financial transactions from over 3,500 banking and credit card institutions is what Mint does best. Mint’s real strength

Drawbacks;

As soon as any web-based financial software like Mint is mentioned, the security watchdogs among us pounce on the comments to let the rest of us know that we should never, ever trust anyone with our financial data, especially our aggregated financial data.

Find Lifehacker’s full review HERE or visit Mint directly by clicking HERE.

CLICK FOR INTERACTIVE VISUALIZATION

With the recent LNG News I decided to get to work on some maritime visualizations. Above is a bubble graph I created representing the number of ships registered to each flag state.

CLICK FOR INTERACTIVE VISUALIZATION

This graph is even more interesting, it shows the number of ships registered to each country by foreign owners. Notice the Flags of Convenience? Surprising that the U.S. has 51 flagged ships registered by foreigners.

Data is from the May 15th 2007 version of the CIA World Factbook.
Total number of ships registered worldwide: 33,222
Total number of foreign owned ships: 16,717.
More graphs of this data:

Merchant Marine - Rank Order (top chart): [Continue Reading →]