The Irish Sea is a hive of activity. Along with the small pleasure craft and sea anglers, you’ll see commercial and service boats. Find out what they are and where they’re going, with ship tracking from the AIS website.
Ship Tracking
Curious to know what the ships that you see are? Do you want to know where they are going? Satisfy your curiosity and look them up!
Our favourite ship tracking website is Ship AIS. You can search the website to see any area of water, but we’ve picked two bits out for you, covering the Fylde Coast:
- Ship AIS Walney Windfarm features the whole of the Fylde Coast, including the shipping involved in the wind farm.
- The Irish Sea page gives an overview of ships moving around in the whole of the area between here and Ireland.
On the website you can click on the map to see the individual ships, their statistics and photos. A group of ship plotting enthusiasts bring you these live vessel movements from around the UK. The information is derived from AIS data.
What is AIS?
Automatic Identification System (AIS) is a collision avoidance system that gives information on all of the ships in your area. It provides their speed and courses and how to contact them (name, call sign, MMSI). This information is publicly broadcast on VHF radio and is picked up by other ships and shore based receivers.
AIS works best over a range of a few miles as the AIS signal is more or less limited to line of sight to the horizon (usually 10-20 miles). Which begs the question, how can we track these signals from thousands of miles away? The answer is a group of amateur shipping enthusiasts around the world, all equipped with suitable receivers and aerials. They work together to track ships over longer distances.
Ship Tracking with AIS – all the work of one man!
Here at Visit Fylde Coast we were amazed to discover that the Ship AIS website was originally the work of one man. He now has a team of contributors working with him to provide this data to curious observers just like us.
You might also be interested in…
If you enjoy finding out what’s sailing out at sea, you might also want to know what’s flying overhead. There’s a similar tracker for planes and air traffic called Flightradar24.
Over the years a number of ships haven’t managed to reach their destinations. Instead they’ve become part of the list of Fylde Coast shipwrecks. Find them all remembered on the Shipwreck Memorial at Cleveleys.
Ships Servicing the Offshore Wind Farms
In the Irish Sea, on the horizon, there’s a growing forest of wind turbines. Together these form the Walney Offshore Windfarm – one of the largest in the world.
Did you know? Some of the electricity generated by Walney Offshore Windfarm 2 comes to land right here on the Fylde Coast at Cleveleys?
The turbines in this huge wind farm require constant maintenance, so you’ll see ships out there of all kinds and sizes. Some are carrying out routine maintenance. Others are erecting new turbines as the windfarm expands.
You’ll see all kinds of ships connected to building and servicing of the wind turbines. Some are service boats, there’s huge cable laying boats, while others are delivering new parts. Most of them sail from Heysham, the port most associated with the Irish Sea wind farms.
Cargo Ships
You’ll also see ferries sailing back and forth each day from Heysham to Ireland and the Isle of Man. They’re carrying cargo and passengers.
While you’re here…
Go to the homepage of the Visit Fylde Coast website for the latest updates.
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