Interesting information from unusual sources

We know our news is pretty filtered these days. To make matters worse, it’s very easy to have news feeds pander to your existing biases. Sometimes, however, interesting information can be found without really looking for it.

Lately there’s been a lot of attention grabbing scuttlebutt on various sailing forums.

It’s no secret that sailing can be pretty expensive. People with fancy yachts have issues with protecting their wealth and investments. Lately there’s been a lot of chatter about Europe. People are concerned about keeping their wealth in Euros. There’s even talk that maybe there won’t even be Euros five years from now. The main concerns are Brexit and the unrest in France, Italy and other countries. The smart money has serious doubts about the EU holding together.

Now some background for the next bit of information. Larger boats use something called the AIS system. In short, boats have transponders that broadcast basic information about the boat -things like boat name, speed, heading, size and whatnot. It’s one way ships are able to avoid collisions in the dark.

Military ships don’t play by the same rules. Only recently after a few embarrassing collisions have they started to turn them on, and only in high traffic areas. There’s some indication that military ships sometimes broadcast false AIS signals showing them to be harmless merchant vessels instead of warships. About a month ago there was a lot of suspicious AIS and US Navy traffic off the coast of Venezuela. There’s talk of boats running “dark” and others with false IDs.

Speaking of Venezuela, yachts in the Caribbean have noticed Russian and Chinese flagged vessels heading there, more than normal. Looks like things maybe be getting dangerous in that part of the world.

Interesting times.

-Sixbears