Count anchored vessels, and know exactly where
Nobody knows how many boats anchor outside the buoys, nor where, nor for how long. Seagrass, fees and enforcement all depend on that figure — and today that figure comes from someone with binoculars.
«The talaies watched the coast and counted sails from the sixteenth century. We have automated the watchman’s job.»
- Client
- Coastal councils, port authorities, yacht clubs, marine reserves
- Input
- Fixed camera overlooking the anchorage
- Technique
- Detection + homography over the sea plane
- Assignment
- By distance within the swing radius
- Tracking
- By proximity between frames, to measure stays
- Output
- Count, position, occupancy per buoy, duration, heat map
What you get
A vessel count, the real position of each one, occupancy per buoy and stay duration. Over cartography, with history and a heat map.
It is objective evidence: it works for managing a mooring field, justifying a fee, an environmental report or supporting enforcement. And it works because it is a continuous record, not a photo of one day.
Why the sea makes this easy
The sea is a perfect plane, and that changes the whole problem. With four or more reference points you compute a homography that turns any pixel in the image into real coordinates. No stereo, no radar, no sensor per buoy.
From there, assigning each boat to its buoy is a matter of distance within the swing radius, and tracking it across consecutive frames gives the stay duration. All from one fixed camera overlooking the anchorage.
Can be extended with
- Alert for anchoring in a protected zone
- Monthly nautical pressure report
- GIS layer for the council
- Season-on-season comparison
How precisely do you know where a boat is?
It depends on the distance to the camera and the quality of the reference points used to calibrate. The homography is exact on the water plane; error grows with distance toward the horizon. The feasibility study quantifies this for your specific location before installation.
Does it tell an anchored boat from one passing through?
Yes, by persistence. A vessel crossing the frame generates no stay; one that remains in the same position across consecutive readings does. That hysteresis is what keeps the report from filling with noise.
Does it read the boat’s registration?
No. The system counts and positions vessels; it does not identify them. Individual enforcement needs an inspection. What we provide is the evidence that anchoring is happening, where, and how often.
Do you manage an anchorage or a mooring field?
This is the vertical with the strongest institutional traction: seagrass, anchoring and nautical pressure are live debates, and continuous data beats an estimate.
Request a pilot