The Netherlands Coast Guard and MARIN have agreed that the Coast Guard will continue to provide MARIN with AIS data for the scientific research which MARIN carries out concerning shipping safety. The agreement is a reaffirmation of a valuable collaboration over many years.
MARIN says joining forces is more necessary than ever, as shipping safety is under pressure. Serious to very serious shipping accidents regularly occur on the busy Dutch waterways and the North Sea.
The accident with the drifting vessel Julietta D is a concrete and recent example of how things can go wrong. This vessel, while anchored, lost its anchor on January 31, 2022, and started drifting, hitting a tanker, a wind turbine foundation and a transformer platform in the process and narrowly missing a gas production platform.
Also read: New chart shows how busy the North Sea really is
AIS data
A number of developments, such as increasingly larger ships and the construction of wind farms, threaten to put further pressure on shipping safety. Using the AIS data, MARIN quantifies the collision risks (caused by both navigational errors and drifting), performs trend analyses and conducts research into near-collisions and drifters.
Picture by MARIN.
