On the Day of St. Nicholas, 6 December, the patron saint of seamen, the Automatic Identification System (AIS) was launched in the renovated offices of the national headquarters for the co-ordination of search and rescue operations at sea. The headquarters is located in the northern Croatian coastal city of Rijeka.
Three years ago, the International Maritime Organization (IMO) introduced the AIS as a shipboard broadcast system which functions as a transponder operating in the VHF maritime band and is capable of handling well over 4500 reports per minute and updates as often as every two seconds.
The Croatian Sea and Tourism Ministry began applying the AIS system in the Croatian part of the Adriatic earlier this year. The base stations, set up on the island of Vis and on the lighthouse in Savudrija Bay, are connected with the operations centre in the seaport of Rijeka.
The second stage of introducing AIS base stations in Croatia"s territorial waters is to ensue next year. (Hina)
