Services

The maritime watch, service by service

A watch is made of motions that repeat. Miq Maritime Intelligence Inc. keeps six of them, and every one of them belongs to the same long round of duty. Below is what each stretch of the watch looks like from the desk, how it is run, and what a client receives at the close.

Motion One

Radar Plot Desk

The radar plot desk is the first station of the round. A watchkeeper sits with the scope at a known bearing offset, plots each contact as a small mark on the board, and carries the marks forward as the sweep returns. The plot is not a photograph. It is a live drawing that a second watchkeeper could read without asking a single question.

Plot marks carry a bearing, a range and the hour of the sweep that produced them. A mark that drifts between sweeps is plotted again rather than erased, so the board shows movement as a trail of small dots. When a contact leaves the band, the plot desk records the last bearing and marks the trail closed. This simple rule keeps the board honest when the scope is busy and the watchkeeper is tired.

The plot desk also keeps a short list of fixed returns, such as channel markers and moored hulls, that should not change across a shift. If a fixed return moves, the desk stops plotting new contacts and checks the fixed list first. Most scope surprises are caused by a fixed return that was not fixed at all, and catching that early saves the whole round.

Motion Two

Blip Log Rounds

Blip log rounds turn the plot into a written record. At fixed intervals the watchkeeper walks the log, reads every line against the plot, and notes any contact that has no line or any line that has no contact. The round is deliberately dull, and the dullness is what makes it strong. A log that is checked in the same order every hour is a log that can be trusted at the end of a long night.

Each line in the blip log carries the contact mark, the bearing, the range band and the hour. Where a contact is unclear, the watchkeeper adds a short note rather than a guess, and the next round tries the contact again. The log never claims certainty that the scope did not show. This is the discipline that lets a report stand up later, when someone who was not on shift asks what the watch saw at a particular hour.

Rounds are read back at the change of shift. The incoming watchkeeper reads the last round aloud while the outgoing watchkeeper follows the plot, and the two agree on the state of the board before the shift is signed. A disagreement is not a failure. It is the moment the watch catches a small error before it becomes part of the record.

Motion Three

Sweep Weeks

Once each month the watch sets aside a full week for a wider sweep. The plot is read across a broader band of bearings, the archive is opened, and this week is compared against the months before it. Sweep weeks are not about new contacts. They are about drift. A bearing offset that has crept by a degree over several weeks is invisible in a single round and obvious in a sweep week.

During a sweep week the desk keeps two plots. The first is the ordinary live plot. The second is a comparison plot that follows the same contacts across the week at a longer interval. When the two plots disagree, the watchkeeper writes down the difference and the hour, and the desk decides whether the disagreement belongs to the scope, the plot or the log.

A sweep week closes with a short written note for each client. The note does not list every contact. It lists what changed, what held steady, and what the desk intends to watch more closely in the following month. The note is plain prose, and it is meant to be read in a few minutes rather than filed away unread.

Motion Four

Harbor Watch Days

A harbor watch day narrows the whole desk to one anchorage. The plot is reduced to the approaches, the berths and the inner channel, and the watch becomes a close reading of a small piece of water. These days are useful when a harbor wants a careful record of a busy period, a dredging window or a seasonal shift in traffic.

On a harbor watch day the desk sets a tighter range band and plots at a shorter interval than usual. Fixed returns are checked against a plan of the berths, and any hull that occupies a berth outside its expected hour is noted at once. The watchkeeper also keeps a short count of moving contacts through the channel, recorded as words rather than figures, so that the day tells a story when it closes.

Harbor watch days are often paired with AIS track sessions, because a small anchorage is where reported tracks and observed plots most often disagree. When both are run together, the desk writes a single combined note at the end of the day, and that note is the record the client keeps.

Motion Five

AIS Track Sessions

An AIS track session follows a named vessel or a small group of vessels through a passage. The desk keeps both views open: the reported track from the AIS feed and the observed plot from the scope. Most of the time the two views agree, and the session is quiet. When they disagree, the watchkeeper records the difference, the hour and the bearing where it appeared.

Sessions are scheduled rather than improvised. A client names the vessel and the passage, and the desk sets the plot band before the passage begins. The session then runs for as long as the passage takes, with a short note at each change of watch. At the close, the desk writes a summary that puts the reported track and the observed plot side by side in plain prose.

Where a vessel is out of range for part of a session, the desk marks the gap honestly and does not fill it with a guess. A track session with a clean gap is more useful than one with a tidy fiction in the middle. This is the same discipline that runs through every other motion of the watch.

Motion Six

Log Sheet Evenings

The evening closes the record. Watchkeepers gather the plot notes, the blip log and the track sheets into one clean sheet for the day. Every line is read back once, and the watchkeeper who signs the sheet is the one who read it. The evening is slow on purpose. A record that is closed in a hurry is a record that will be reopened in doubt.

The log sheet carries the date, the watch window, the names of the watchkeepers and a short note on anything unusual. Anything that deserves more than a note becomes a small report attached to the sheet. The sheet itself stays short. It is an index to the day, and the reports behind it hold the detail.

At the end of the evening the desk checks that the sheet, the plot and the log agree. If they do not, the watchkeeper writes the difference down and the next morning watches it. Nothing is erased to make the record tidy. The record is the watch, and the watch is only as strong as the evening that closes it.

How a watch is set

From first brief to steady rounds

Every client watch follows the same short path. It is not a long programme of work. It is a careful start and then a steady rhythm that keeps running.

Brief and band The desk sits with the client, names the water, the passages and the hours, and sets the plot band for the watch.
Trial rounds Two or three rounds are run at low pace so the client can see the plot, the blip log and the evening sheet before the watch is live.
Live watch The rounds begin at the agreed intervals, with sweep weeks, harbor watch days and track sessions folded into the month as needed.
Close and review Each watch period ends with a plain review of what held, what changed and what the desk intends to watch more closely.

Every service on this page is part of one continuous watch, and the desk is glad to walk a client through the plot, the log and the evening sheet before any watch is set.