So far what I have experienced is ....AIS is great if you are traveling in heavily travelled commercial traffic lanes...
If you even just barely run outside of the channels or avoid major lanes...looking outside in clear weather or listening outside with an alert ear gets you about as much useful info as AIS...not about the commercial targets that are probably talking on the radio and showing up on Radar...but all the other little vessels out there that aren't required to have AIS yet.
Great tool???? You bet...just like my offset, metric box end wrenches that I use once in a blue moon...
I would use but never bet my life on AIS in the goo...RADAR is about 100 times more useful in my opinion at this stage of the AIS game.
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