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Although the AIS transponder was turned off - the vessel would still have appeared on radar. The cargo vessel's system wouldn't have had the same amount of info
by mjlee 9y ago
Although the AIS transponder was turned off - the vessel would still have appeared on radar. The cargo vessel's system wouldn't have had the same amount of information for anticollision calculations, but still would have been able to detect it as an obstacle and would have flagged it to anybody on the bridge who was paying attention.
Plenty of ships go to sea without transponders on, such as large fishing vessels that don't want to give away where the good spots are.
- jessaustin 9y agoLarge fishing vessels turn on their AIS when crossing shipping lanes. Also, the whole point of modern military naval architecture is to reduce radar cross-section. Sure these boats can be seen from up close, but we can't assume that decades-old cargo ships are outfitted with the latest radar tech either.
- mjlee 9y agoMy point was that AIS is not an anticollision mechanism and shouldn't be relied upon. It's also often wrongly configured or just broken. The Royal Navy advertise their 8500ton Destroyer as having the radar cross section of a small fishing vessel: https://navynews.co.uk/archive/news/item/3951 https://navynews.co.uk/archive/news/item/3951 I'm not sure what the weather conditions were like, but even in marginal conditions, they'll have been picked up on radar.
- astrodust 9y agoEven a consumer grade radar would be able to spot a 9,000 ton vessel from a thousand yards away no matter how "stealthy" it is, and they got closer than that.