4 weather buoys to get transmitters

By Jack Encarnacao, Globe Correspondent | December 31, 2004

The Coast Guard will probably add transmitters next year to at least four weather buoys off the Boston coastline, a move designed to improve security by extending the reach of monitoring signals from large tankers, barges, and cruise ships as they enter area ports.

The buoys are among 70 arrayed on coastlines from Maine to Alaska, a system created to prevent vessel collisions and respond to other maritime accidents, such as the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill, by improving communications between ship captains and authorities. After the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, officials accelerated improvements to the $50 million system to help improve homeland security.

The new transmitters are designed to bolster the Automated Identification System, which sends data -- such as cargo, crew, and recent ports of call -- to the Coast Guard as vessels approach port. Now, ships begin transmitting within 25 miles of a port. The added transmitters will allow the Coast Guard to receive data from vessels hundreds of miles away.
Dana Goward, who oversees the system for the Coast Guard, said yesterday"