Port Phillip Sea Pilots AIS is gone

That's a darn shame (as was the disabling public access to some important VicPorts web cams - so much for the VIC governments "better boating push".)

I used to use a hacked version of the PPSP website code in an attempt to optimise it to a small phone screen and cut out some of the pilot services "clutter". The guts of it is still a marinetraffic applications interface, but with some of the display defaults set to suit the pilots.
(My version still seems to be working ok just now on my phone.)

You may find a cruder substitute from a link in the BayWinds page: www.baywx.com.au/ships.html
It is a little clunky with quite a small viewing window. I also used to run a "sized up" version of that too, but in the end it turned out the original is a little easier to control on a small android phone where slightly misguided pinches, swipes and taps can land you in a world of frustration.

It also has bigger sized ship icons! (Which after all is why those without a proper AIS receiver or transponder are interested in the web-based AIS substitutes.)

Warning: I don't think you can force a position data update with these versions, and you have to wait for the 600 second down-counter to time out. At 20 knots ships cover a lot of ground in 10 minutes. I usually run with the 30 min course projection option enabled, to try and estimate "where is she now", but of course that also can get you into trouble with course changes.

When I really need to be as up to date as possible I close and then reopen the app. Even web-based AIS "receivers" will still be running some minutes behind the real-time VHF based gear.

cheers,