Hi William,

It is with great joy that I am thanking you all for our ever growing Community!
Despite the pandemic hitting our planet these past months, your reference to your friends and your actions makes our Contributor's community a live and growing one!
This month we will meet Glenn Tuttle, from Punta Gorda FL. His area is a great place for fishermen, boaters and sun-worshippers. Glenn's hobby and interest in safety at see, made him join our Terrestrial Network. Let us read his story.

See you all online,

Katerina Koukaki
AIS Network Development

I have been a MarineTraffic admirer for a very long time. We have lived aboard our sailboat, a Nauticat 44 made in Finland, and now a Grand Banks 46 foot trawler for over 30 years. We cruised the entire Caribbean from 2001 until 2011, and had an AIS-receive-only unit from the start.

On one particular rough passage from Cartagena, Colombia to Panama we ran into a total white out squall. We spotted a freighter on a reciprocal course to us, on the AIS receiver, but because of the heavy rain, he was not showing up on our radar. Knowing the ship’s name from the AIS, I called him on the VHF radio and asked if he could see us on his radar. He said he did not see us on his radar. As we came to within about 3 miles, I asked again, and again, he could not see us on radar, and we could not see him. I took evasive action to prevent a collision, and I bought a Class B AIS Transponder as soon as possible.
I heard about becoming a MarineTraffic station owner from reading yachting magazines, and talking with other boaters. My two hobbies in life are boating and ham radio. We are fortunate enough to now live in a community which has both a deep water canal behind our house where we now dock our boat, and a 70-foot radio tower in the back yard.

My wife and I are also the owners of Boatwatch.org, a not-for-profit organization whose mission is to help find missing and overdue boaters world-wide. As a MarineTraffic station owner, I use the MarineTraffic resources a lot in our search for missing boats. Having the ability to look back in time, on a particular day, and see the vessels in motion, is a huge resource to us.

I would highly recommend anyone with an interest in safety at sea consider becoming a MarineTraffic station owner.

Invite a friend to join our community

Send to your friends the link below and help them be part of the world's largest AIS-Receiving Network: https://www.marinetraffic.com/en/p/expand-coverage

Glenn Tuttle Boatwatch.org Station 5570 Punta Gorda, FL USA