The Indonesian government is requiring all vessels in their waters to actively broadcast an AIS signal. S/V Soggy Paws recently cruised the area and was not only asked if they had AIS, but the officials were also thorough in checking for it.

Published 7 years ago, updated 6 years ago

When we were in Indonesia in 2016, enforcement of the AIS requirement was lax. That has changed in 2017.

When we checked in in Bitung in 2017, the Customs officials not only checked MarineTraffic.com to see if we were transmitting on our AIS but also wanted to SEE and PHOTOGRAPH our AIS Transmit screen, showing that the AIS device was indeed transmitting.

Also, in June (2017), we received an email from Bitung Customs indicating that we had not been keeping our AIS on, and that failure to do so was against regulations:

“We notice that your AIS device is inactive.

We would like to remind you of your responsibility, that you must keep the

AIS device active pursuant to Article 13 paragraph 2 of Regulation of the

Minister of Finance No. 261/PMK.04/2015.

AIS inactivity until July 1, 2017, would result in poor compliance record.

You may reply to this message if you are in a condition that does not allow

you to activate your AIS device along with explanatory notification, or if

there is any discrepancy between our system and the actual situation.

Regards,

KPPBC Tipe Madya Pabean C Bitung (Bitung Customs Office)”

I emailed them with the fact that we do have our AIS on all the time we were moving but had not been in a port that would transmit our AIS to the internet in two months, and our low-power yacht AIS was not reaching the satellite AIS receivers.  I gave them an update on where we had been since the last report had registered on MarineTraffic.com, and received a reply from them.

“Thank you for your confirmation and cooperation. We will update our record based on your statement. We are apologizing for the inconvenience that we need to update the current report of yachts whereabouts due to some cases. We wish you a safe and pleasant trip.”

Sherry s/v Soggy Paws, in Tual