Crowdsourced review of satellite images can help rescue the schooner Nina

There is a fascinating story of the attempts of family and friends of the people lost aboard the schooner Nina to locate her using satellite imagery.  They have secured assistance from many places including a service called Tomnod to crowdsource review of the millions of square miles of ocean represented in the images.  They have 13,000 volunteers reviewing the images and tagging potential ships, liferafts and other objects.  The idea is that if enough people tag an item, they can then look at it more carefully to determine if it could be the Nina.

It's a fascinating development in Search and Rescue technology.  The thought that satellites can help locate missing vessels is certainly intriguing. The point made in the article that if the SAR includes satellite imagery in the vicinity of a distress call, it could make a huge difference in located the vessel in distress in a hurry without putting rescuers in danger.

This is amazing!  I've signed up. Give it a whirl if you have a few minutes of time to spare. You just might be saving a life.