The Sea Ranch · Sonoma Coast, California

Passing Ships

How it works. Large ships, and plenty of small boats, broadcast who they are by radio. A receiver at the cabin listens around the clock and on a still night hears them hundreds of miles out. Every hour, day and night, a frame on the cabin wall picks the most interesting ship of the last few days and paints her: hull and rigging by her type, colors by her owner, sea from the buoy off Point Arena, light from the hour she passed. A length marked ~ is an estimate, used when the ship has not said. None of these are photos or stock art, and no image model is involved. Each picture is drawn by a program from a real broadcast. One painting a day is kept here: new faces and rare kinds first, then the closest pass.

See what the receiver is hearing right now: station 3610 on aiscatcher.org.

See how it was built, or build your own: code and parts list on GitHub.

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