Offshore Guard

A wind farm combines safety zones, turbines, substations, and array and export cables, and its vessel traffic changes sharply between construction and operation. Offshore Guard treats the whole site as a set of zones: who enters a safety zone, who lingers over a cable, who is working inside the farm. It tells routine work apart from behavior that warrants attention.

Discuss a pilot site How we decide

Vessel-risk alerts for offshore wind farms and offshore sites

NeroOffshore GuardDemo wind farmSafety zone18:14:07Z

Offshore wind turbines standing in fog over a calm sea

Demo vessel W · SIM-W

Position: Inside safety zone
Speed: 2.1 kn
Behavior: Fishing-like
Level: Watch

Built for

Offshore wind developers and operatorsConstruction and maintenance contractorsSubstation and grid operatorsMarine insurers and lendersCoast guard and maritime authorities

NeroPlatformRulesZone CSimulated

Rule R-12Live

When: Dwell of 45 min or more
In: Zone C
Then: +20 · Dwelling in a customer zone
Send to: Your team only

Preview on the last 30 days: 3 matches

What Offshore Guard does

Safety-zone alerts

Vessels that enter or linger in the safety zones around turbines and substations escalate by behavior from Watch to Warning to Critical.

Cables inside the farm

Array and export cables carry cable rules: a vessel that anchors or moves slowly over them escalates faster than it would in open water.

Fishing told apart from transit

Fishing-like activity is scored on its own and capped at Watch, unless trawling speeds appear in a no-trawl zone.

Work-vessel notices

Work vessels over the farm's cables raise a notice, not a level, so routine construction and maintenance do not crowd the queue.

Construction and operation

Construction and operation can run different zones and thresholds, because normal traffic in the two phases is nothing alike.

Alert queue: acknowledge and close

Every alert stays in a queue until someone on watch acknowledges it; acknowledgements, closures and their reasons go into an operator log, and acknowledging never changes the level.

Into an investigation

Any alert can go straight into an Investigations reconstruction. Still choosing the site? See Route Risk.

The site plan

One wind farm, one set of zones

Every turbine and substation has its safety zone, every array and export cable its protection zone, and the site boundary is a zone of its own. Offshore Guard watches them together and tells the vessels at work from the ones that should not be there.

TurbineSafety zoneDemo vessel H · inside the zoneService vessel · notice onlyArray cablesSite boundaryOffshore substationExport cableLandfall

Turbine
Safety zone
Demo vessel H · inside the zone
Service vessel · notice only
Array cables
Site boundary
Offshore substation
Export cable
Landfall

0.1Entry into a safety zone
A vessel inside a turbine or substation safety zone escalates with time and speed.
0.2Lingering over cables
Anchoring or slow movement over array and export cables runs cable rules.
0.3Work vessels raise a notice
Construction and service vessels at work do not crowd the alert queue.
0.4The landfall and the nearshore run
The shallow run of the export cable to shore, where anchoring risk is highest, is a zone of its own.

From the site boundary to every cable

A vessel anchored over the farm's cables

Array and export cables are the most exposed part of a wind farm. A vessel that anchors or moves slowly over them escalates the longer it stays, with a reason at every level.

NeroCable WatchIllustrative cableLiveSimulated23:38 Taiwan

Alert queue2 open

Warning23:32

Demo vessel E SIM-E

Illustrative cable · protection zone

At anchor in a no-anchoring zone for 2 hours

Waiting 6 minAcknowledgeClose…
Watch22:47

Demo vessel F SIM-F

Fishing-pattern movement near the cable (capped at Watch)

Caution · no acknowledgement needed
Watch21:31

Demo vessel G SIM-G

Closed 21:58 · Watched, no action needed

VesselSIM-E

Type: Cargo
Status: At anchor
Speed: 0.0 kn
In zone: 2 h 16 min · since 21:22
Reports: Every 3 min
Evidence: Raw messages sealed

Simulated view: real north-west Taiwan coast, an illustrative cable and synthetic ships.

Alert A-21Warning

Slow inside the protection zone for over an hour+20
At anchor in a no-anchoring zone for 2 hours+20

Score · Warning threshold is 4040

AcknowledgeClose…sha256 8c2d…51fa

Array and export cables each have a protection zone
Anchoring and slow movement escalate faster
A reason at every level

Silence near the site, counted honestly

When a vessel stops transmitting near the site, Offshore Guard first checks whether nearby vessels were still being heard. Only then does the gap count, and it is shown as context beside the vessel's behavior.

NeroOffshore GuardAIS gapsDemo wind farm18:14:07Z

Demo vessel D6 h gap · counted

Demo vessel ETransmitting

Demo vessel J40 min gap · below threshold

Demo vessel MTransmitting

TransmittingVessel gap

A gap counts only when nearby vessels were still being heard.

Gaps in our own reception never count
Context, never a level on its own

Into your control room

Each alert goes out by email and webhook (JSON) with its level, the points and reason for every indicator, and the hash of its evidence.

NeroDeliveryWebhook and emailAlert A-2118:14:07Z

{
  "alert_id": "A-21",
  "level": "warning",
  "vessel": "SIM-E",
  "zone": "illustrative-cable/protection",
  "reasons": [
    { "indicator": "dwell_1h", "points": 20 },
    { "indicator": "dwell_2h", "points": 20 }
  ],
  "evidence": "sha256:8c2d…51fa",
  "simulated": true
}

From: Nero AlertsSubject: [Warning] Demo vessel E · illustrative cable, protection zoneEscalated from Watch (22:32). Slow inside the protection zone for over an hour; at anchor in a no-anchoring zone for 2 hours. Score 40; Warning threshold 40. Evidence and hashes attached.sha256 8c2d…51fa

Level, points and reasons in the message
Email and webhook at launch

Turn an alert into a reconstruction

After cable damage or an incident in a safety zone, the same sealed data becomes a bilingual reconstruction that insurers, lenders and investigators can check.

NeroInvestigationsReconstructionA-21Simulated

Incident reconstruction · Demo vessel E · illustrative cable

Taiwan time	UTC	Event	Evidence
21:22	13:22	Enters the illustrative cable's protection zone at 7.4 kn	E-01
21:32	13:32	Slows inside the zone and anchors in the no-anchoring zone	E-02
22:32	14:32	Slow in the zone for an hour: Watch A-21 raised · +20	E-03
23:32	15:32	Still at anchor after 2 hours: A-21 escalated to Warning · +20	E-04
23:38	15:38	The operator acknowledges the alert; the ship is still at anchor	E-05

Each evidence item resolves to sealed raw files and their hashesmanifest 4e7a…d20c

Taiwan time and UTC side by side
Every statement cites its evidence

Known limits

What Offshore Guard can and cannot see

Approach & Limits

AIS reports where a vessel says it is. We describe behavior as “consistent with” a pattern and never infer intent.
Vessels that do not transmit AIS are invisible to AIS-based alerting. Connecting your site radar is designed to close part of that gap.
Collision risk needs course prediction and is not part of the alerting today.
Alerting is only as complete as the data behind it, and every report states the areas we cannot see.

Works with Cable Watch

Export cables and power links run on past the site boundary. Cable Watch takes over on the same engine, all the way to landfall.

Explore Cable Watch

Simulated replay: the demo ship slows inside the cable's protection zone, anchors and stays. Each indicator adds its points until the score reaches the Warning threshold. Ships and tracks come from Nero's synthetic track generator; the cable is illustrative.

Common questions

How is Offshore Guard different from Cable Watch?

The engine and the evidence are the same. Cable Watch is set up for long cable corridors; Offshore Guard for a site: safety zones, turbines, substations and the cables inside, with notices for the work vessels that are supposed to be there.

Will our own service vessels raise alerts?

Work vessels over the farm's cables raise a notice rather than a level. Anywhere else on the site, a vessel is scored on what it does, like any other.

Can we connect our own radar?

That is part of the design. Each source comes in through its own connector with a license tag. Data you provide serves only your organization unless your contract says otherwise.

Do you score vessels by flag or nationality?

No. Flag and nationality carry no weight.

Is it available now?

Not yet in general release. We are seeking a wind farm and an operator for the first pilot.

Become a pilot partner

We are seeking a small number of cable and offshore wind operators as partners for the first pilot deployments. Inquiries in English or Chinese.