An AIS Life Saver

We often watch fishing boats working or passing in the Sound of Mull, or heading towards Mingary Pier to land their catch, but we don't often get a chance to learn something of those who work in them.  It was therefore with great pleasure that The Diary received an email from Alasdair Hughson whose small business owns and operates this scallop boat, UL62, Atlantia, photographed here in April 2012.

Alasdair writes, "Atlantia is registered in Ullapool since we purchased her in 2008.  Ours is a family run business owned by my sister and I. We became fully involved in 2003 on the death of our father, Eddie Hughson. We have three scallop diving vessels, Atlantia UL62, Auk UL554 and Darien BRD652 crewed by eight full time divers including myself. All of these guys have worked with us for minimum five years now and some as long as fifteen years. All of them are HSE qualifed divers and also inshore skipper ticket holders. Between my father and ourselves we have been fishing in the Ardnamurchan area for over 25 years now, as well as the rest of the Scottish coastline from Orkney to the Mull of Kintyre.

"All of our product is marketed by our processing and sales business, Keltic Seafare (www.kelticseafare.com) based in Dingwall."

It was good to hear from him, but the reason Alasdair originally wrote related to an event in January 2012 (Diary report here) when one of his divers from the Atlantia was lost in the Sound of Mull for a number of hours before being located at Macleans Nose.

Alasdair writes, "This incident was a terribly worrying time for myself and all of the guys who work with us and not an experience which we would like to repeat. As a result I went on the hunt for some means whereby our divers could alert the vessel should this happen again.  I came across a new product from McMurdo, a company which specialise in locator beacons and the like. It is the Smartfind S10 AIS beacon.

"The Smartfind works by sending out an AIS signal when activated, relaying its GPS co-ordinates and a man overboard distress signal to any vessel or shore station within 4 miles with AIS receive capability. The main feature which attracted me to this product was the fact that it is waterproof and can withstand pressure down to sixty metres seawater. This means that our divers can carry the beacon at all times unlike all other personal devices like EPIRBs which would need a cumbersome protective case.

"It is a small unit and has worked well in all the tests which we have done at sea. When the diver activates it an icon appears on our plotter in the boat and an alarm sounds. There is the extra cost of fitting the boats out with AIS receivers but I reckon most boats will eventually be required to fit them anyway. If it helps us to avoid that situation again then the cost is not important.

"I can see how this product would be attractive to sea users such as fishermen, yachties and kayakers.

"It would be good if you could mention that these AIS based beacons are out there for about £150. Not many people know that they are available yet, but I think they could be a real life saver. More and more vessels are being fitted with AIS so the coverage is improving all the time."

Many thanks to Alasdair for writing.

Details of the Smartfind S10 AIS beacon are here.

The Diary welcomes contributions.  An email address is in the right-hand column of the blog.