What Customers Are Saying About the AISWatchMate...

Subject: Musto = Must have ::: AIS = Priceless

In December I made the passage from Hilo, HI to San Diego. Being my first single handed passage in over 45,000 cruising miles I had many concerns. My old foul weather jacket was just inadequate, so I replaced it with a Musto MPX, which has proven to be a great choice. Comfort and dry seemed to be top priorities when thinking about what would make the passage safe.

The most important change has been the addition of an AIS system. The Vesper Marine WatchMate is no less than magical. The second day out I got my introduction as I had three targets on the AIS at once, two of which came within three miles, one never came over the horizon. None of these caused an alarm, which is set at a two mile CPA for offshore. I continued to "see" traffic on the AIS and grew to appreciate the design work that must have included someone with offshore sailing experience. When there are no targets the display waits a minute or so and simply goes blank. This is perfect for when you are laying in the bunk at night. If the display is on there is traffic in your area, if dark you're safe to sleep. As the second cold front of the trip passed, at 0200, the wind in the rigging woke me.

After I got things reefed down I noticed that the screen on the AIS had turned on. The bulk carrier SD Progresss out of China en route to Panama was 22 miles away, but the bad news was our closest point of approach was 0.15 miles! Since I had plenty of time to deal with it I just sat and watched. The weather outside was pretty thick, about two miles visibility. The alarm went off as it was supposed to when we were 20 minutes apart, it's 95db, loud enough to wake a tired sailor. Fifteen minutes later I was within two miles of THE spot, and I could finally see Progress, and yup we would have been real close. I simply stalled the sails for 10 minutes while the big guy passed about 3/4 of a mile safely in front of me.

Paul Moore, enroute Hilo to San Diego

We have used the WatchMate system at sea for the first time, on our trip down the Malacca Strait from Phuket to Malaysia. It is great!!

Bill Robinson & Marlyse Bodmer, "Jenain", Malaysia

I purchased an AISWatchMate about 18 months ago when they were first released. I still get a kick out of tracking ships on it as we travel around the coast and back in to Auckland Harbour but have had 3 instances now where the WatchMate not quite saved our bacon but certainly took all the stress out of the situations (and isn't that what cruising is all about?)

The first was on a trip back from Great Barrier Island when the alarm went off twice within a couple of minutes. Although I initially thought it was a repeat of the first alarm, I quickly realised that it was in fact 2 separate ships, one heading north and one heading south. And by sheer bad luck we happened to be smack in the middle of them when they passed each other. If it wasn't for the fact that I could see each of their tracks on the WatchMate and our relative position to them, it would have been a worrying 15 minutes wondering how close they would come.

The second was on a trip from Rakino Is to Gulf Harbour Marina when the alarm went off and I looked in the direction of the bearing and picked up the ship still a long way off. Amazingly I then saw for the first time that I had a CPA of 0.00. Not good but because I new this in plenty of time I was able to change direction and slow down which enabled us to casually watch the ship pass by at a safe distance and then carry on our way.

The third occasion was one evening just on nightfall as we passed Devonport wharf on our way back in to Auckland after a weekend away. With no wind and motoring in the middle of the harbour, the engine alarms sounded and I had to shut down the engine which was overheating. Directly in front of us was a black hulking outline and red & green navigation lights coming straight at us. Luckily the WatchMate alarm had already sounded and I was able to identify the ship as the Golden Bay and had a VHF call sign as well. Without any drama I was able to call the ship on channel 16 by name and got an immediate response from it's bridge. I advised them of our position and predicament and after confirming that they could see us, they advised that they would alter course to starboard to avoid us. Having the identity & call sign of the ship made the communication of our position so much more straight forward and removed any sense of panic from the situation.

Colin Courtney, "Pheonix II", New Zealand

It was absolutely fantastic for getting us across the Thames Estuary, down Dover Strait, and across the English Channel to Guernsey. We love it!!!!

I wish I could have gotten a photo while we had more than a hundred targets while crossing the Channel, but we were pretty busy.

All in all, it's a great system. Since we don't have radar, it's given us much peace of mind. We will be using it all of the way back to California.

Cindy Holmes and Faith Tamarin, "Carmen Miranda"