Protecting North Atlantic Right Whales
Friends of Seguin Island Light Stations’ (FOSILS) Board of Directors is pleased to announce that Maritime Information Systems have selected Seguin Island to be the first lighthouse in the United States as a relay location for a new North Atlantic Right Whale Collision avoidance system. The system, StationKeeper, was recently successfully tested last winter in Cape Cod Bay.
StationKeeper:
Most vessels 65 feet or longer must travel at 10 knots or less in certain locations, called seasonal management areas for Right Whales, along the U.S. East Coast at certain times of the year. This mandatory regulation is aimed at reducing the chances of collisions with North Atlantic Right Whales. StationKeeper, developed by Maritime Information Systems, Inc. monitors commercial shipping traffic on the existing maritime AIS system which is required on commercial cargo ships. AIS receivers are navigation safety devices that transmit and monitor the location and characteristics of vessels in federal and international waters in real time.
For more information on StationKeeper https://www.motioninfo.com/stationkeeper
Design:
When a ship is exceeding 10 knots in a designated Right Whale management area, a StationKeeper relay station transmits the following message by way of the ship’s AIS receiver and charting system display to the ship’s bridge, “Max speed 10 knots per 50CFR224.105-31″. In the tests performed on Cape Cod Bay, 85% of ships responded to this message and slowed their speed.
Opportunity and Operations:
Becoming a relay station for StationKeeper offers a wonderful opportunity for Seguin Island Light Station to serve in actively protecting the endangered North Atlantic Right Whale. FOSILS is proud to add this worthy maritime program to the operations on the island. We thank you for continued support of this historic landmark as we take on this function to protect the North American Right Whale.
How you can help:
In the past we put our solar array to “sleep” for the winter and “wake” it up in May. Station Keeper is intended to run year round which adds some challenges to our island. FOSILS will need to add remote monitoring of our solar array (normally done on island by our keepers during summer operation), a standby diesel generator (to protect our batteries during prolonged winter cloudy storms), and battery heater blankets (to allow them to maintain optimum charging capability) just to name the top three. We expect some of these costs may be covered by NOAA once they review StationKeeper to be part of their efforts to protect the Right Whale. In the meantime, Seguin needs your help to offset our costs of bringing StationKeeper online. Thank you.
Please visit https://seguinisland.org/support/donate/ to join Friends of Seguin or donate.
