digital ship magazine (march 2011)

TT idewater Inc, own-er of approximate-ly 400 vessels serv-

ing the offshore energyindustry, is to conduct atrial of fleet managementsoftware from ABS Nauti-cal Systems.

The vessel operatortransports crews and sup-plies, tows and anchorsmobile rigs, assists in off-shore construction projectsand performs a variety ofspecialised marine supportservices world-wide, withover 90 per cent of its fleetworking internationally inmore than 60 countries.

As such, Tidewater hasput a lot of effort into

selecting a system that willbe able to cope with thediverse demands of itsfleet on a global basis, andis looking forward toexamining the capabilitiesof the ABS-NS system.

“Our vendor vettingprocess was time inten-sive,” said Bill Scott, manager, engineering and technical services,Tidewater.

“It was imperative thatwe selected a companythat not only had a solidproduct, but a businessplan that echoed ours - atpresent and into thefuture.”

ABS Nautical Systems

says that it intends that thetrial will result in it becom-ing Tidewater’s globalfleet management soft-ware provider.

This would see its NS5software package replacean internal system, with thenew integrated softwarebeing used to help manageprincipal operational func-tions including mainte-nance, vessel-initiated req-uisitions and relevant regu-latory requirements.

As part of the trialTidewater will implementseveral modules from NS5,including Maintenance &Repair, Drydocking, OnDemand Reporting and

Web Based VesselDrawings, as well as inter-faces to its current andfuture ERP solutions.

Following a successfulpilot phase, the moduleswill be installed in aphased approach onapproximately 185 ofTidewater’s vessels overthe next 24 months.

“ABS Nautical Systemswill provide us with struc-ture in which to scheduleand track our maintenanceand thus continue to builduniformity throughout ourentire organisation, whilesimultaneously and seam-lessly integrating our sup-ply chain processes,”added Mr Scott.

“We are confident thatwith the system’s Classintegration and the assem-bled team’s experience, thisproject will be a success.”

Karen Hughey, presi-dent and COO of ABSNautical Systems, alsocommented: “We arepleased to have been cho-sen as the software solu-tion for the world’s largestmarine provider of sup-

IN THIS ISSUE

March 2011

electronics and navigation

software

satcomsMowinckel offers free SMS and e-mailto crews – 2

Globe Wireless CEOsteps down – 6

The broadband ocean – dip your toes ordive straight in? – 10Telemetry service to enhanceFleetBroadband – 12

BASS and SIS finally end turbulent relationship – 18

Improving efficiency in2011 – FLAGSHIP – 22

Saving time and money with electronicpurchasing – 24

185-vessel software dealawaits after Tidewater trial

Product-specific onboard ECDIS CBTlaunched – 34

ECDIS – Capabilities andLimitations – 37

The e-revolution in navigation – Dr AndyNorris – 42

ABS Nautical Systems is to install its NS5 software system aboard a numberof vessels operated by Tidewater Inc, as part of a trial programme that

should see 185 vessels installed by 2013

Tidewater operates a fleet of approximately 400 vessels continued on page 2

© 2

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“Value for Money!” - Denis Dorigo, Norbulk Group IT Manager

(+47) 77 62 19 00 or [email protected] us at Digital Ship Hamburg

9–10 March, Magnus Hall www.dualog.com

Norbulk Ship Management, headquartered in Glasgow, is equipping its 70+ ships with new IP-based / broadband satellite communication systems.

“We have chosen Dualog Connection Suite to manage and control our new systems”, says Norbulk Group IT Manager Denis Dorigo.

“We expected a good working relationship with real maritime communication experts and a smooth transition from our previous system to Dualog Connec-tion Suite. That is what we got”, explains Dorigo.

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SATCOMS NEWS

Digital Ship March 2011 page 2

Vol 11 No 6

UPCOMING CONFERENCESDIGITAL SHIP HAMBURG

Hamburg Magnushall, Hamburg9 - 10 March 2011

DIGITAL SHIP CYPRUSSt Raphael Hotel & Resort, Cyprus

5 - 6 April 2011

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Subscribe online at www.thedigitalship.com

or contact Stephan Venter [email protected],

tel +44 (0)20 7017 3407

Digital Ship Limited2nd Floor,

8 Baltic Street EastLondon EC1Y 0UP, U.K.www.thedigitalship.com

PUBLISHERStuart Fryer

EDITORRob O'Dwyer: Tel: +44 (0)20 7017 3410

email: [email protected]

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CONSULTANT WRITERDr Andy Norris (navigation)

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No part of this publication may be repro-duced or stored in any form by anymechanical, electronic, photocopying,recording or other means without theprior written consent of the publisher.Whilst the information and articles inDigital Ship are published in good faithand every effort is made to check accura-cy, readers should verify facts and state-ments direct with official sources beforeacting on them as the publisher canaccept no responsibility in this respect.Any opinions expressed in this maga-zine should not be construed as thoseof the publisher.

continued from page 1

port services for the offshore energyindustry.”

“Tidewater needs a product that notonly offers usability, but also stability, andABS Nautical Systems aligns with theseneeds. We anticipate a long relationshipand look forward to joint success with theTidewater team.”

Record growthThis deal with Tidewater is part of whathas been a successful last 12 months forABS Nautical Systems, with the companyhaving recently announced that itachieved record growth in 2010, signing83 new clients with a combined total of1,053 vessels overall.

In the month of December alone thecompany says that 18 new customers weresigned, joining a new client roster for theyear that includes Chevron, ReedereiOffen, Hapag-Lloyd, Donnelly TankersManagement, Nereus Shipping, FleetManagement Ltd., NAVSEA and ArabMaritime Petroleum Transport Company.

2010 also saw the company enter theVietnamese market for the first time fol-lowing two new contracts with VietnamPetroleum Transportation Joint StockCompany and PVTrans Oilfield Services.

“We more than doubled our year-over-year growth and we continue to see thistrend increasing,” said Joe Woods, seniorvice president, sales and marketing forABS Nautical Systems.

“As such, we will continue to expandour global footprint to ensure that we pro-vide our customers with the best serviceand delivery possible.”

ABS Nautical Systems also opened newoffices in Vancouver and Shanghai in2010, and will be announcing three addi-tional openings in the spring of 2011.

“Seventy five per cent of the clients wesigned last year are based outside of theUnited States and as we continue to seethis international trend emerge, you willsee us move into new regions around theworld,” said Ms Hughey.

ABS Nautical Systems says it will soon

be releasing an updated version of its NS5software suite, NS5 Enterprise, which aimsto improve usability, reporting, speed,overall performance and add two addi-tional deployment options.

Printed by The Manson Group Ltd

Reynolds House8 Porters' Wood

Valley Road Industrial EstateSt Albans

Hertz AL3 6PZU.K.

DS

www.seasecure.net

Mowinckel Ship Management hasinstalled the CrewCommCenter fromSeaSecure across its fleet, an applicationwhich offers free SMS and e-mail forcrews for a fixed monthly cost.

Mowinckel's initial goal when search-ing for a new service was to optimise itsweb usage over its installed KVH VSATantennas. The CrewCommCenter systemincludes web optimisation capabilitiesusing dedicated proxy services, and wastaken for testing by Mowinckel in October2010.

Following the successful completion ofthese tests Mowinckel ICT manager RunarGaarder and his team decided that thecompany would install the SeaSecureproduct across its whole fleet.

During the testing period crews hadaccess to the free SMS World WideService, both for incoming as well as foroutgoing messages, which proved to be a

popular added benefit of the technologyonboard.

A built-in thin chat client (supportingYahoo, MSN, AOL, ICQ and Facebook)was also included, which allowed crews touse their ordinary shore side user IDs toaccess the services within theCrewCommCenter, but without generat-ing the standard amount of data trafficthat would typically be involved.

For security, firewalls on the vesselsshut down all common ports and crew areonly able to use SeaSecure dedicated portsfor the browsing and chat functions.

The SeaSecure system also managesautomatic switching between the KVHVSAT antennas and the Inmarsat back-upsystems installed onboard as vessels moveout of VSAT coverage areas.

SeaSecure says that theCrewCommCenter continues to providethe crew with full use of the free SMS andfree e-mail service when using theInmarsat terminal.

Mowinckel offers free SMS and e-mail to crews

Mowinckel is to install the new systems across its whole fleet

www.integ.com

www.idirect.net

Integral Systems has been selected as the prime contractor on a five-year,$10 million IDIQ (indefinite deliv-ery/indefinite quantity) contract with the US Coast Guard to equip its large cutter fleet with VSAT communicationstechnology, including routers andmodems from iDirect GovernmentTechnologies (iGT).

Integral's Satcom Solutions division,formerly CVG and Avtec Systems, willserve as lead integrator on the project tomodernise USCG's communicationsbackbone for its fleet of up to 76 largecutters with the introduction of Ku-bandsystems.

Implementation will begin on three cut-ters initially, in early 2011.

Integral will supply its 117 MT mar-itime stabilised satellite terminal underthe deal, a Ku-band VSAT system provid-ing Single Channel per Carrier (SCPC) oron-demand networks supporting capabili-ties like Video Teleconferencing (VTC),Virtual Private Networks (VPNs), andVoice over IP (VoIP).

iDirect will install its e8350 satelliterouters, supporting DVB-S2 transmissiontechnology using LDPC (Low DensityParody Check) and adaptive coding andmodulation (ACM).

“Through our partnership with iGT,the US Coast Guard will have access toone of the most advanced satellite com-munications networks available,” saidSteve Gizinski, general manager ofIntegral Systems’ Satcom Solutions division.

“Our interoperable, commercial-based 117 Ku-band maritime antennasystem ensures a quick and easy transi-tion as the Coast Guard replaces its legacy network. We look forward toworking closely with iGT on this vitalprogramme.”

‘Seventy five per cent of the clients wesigned last year are based outside of theUnited States’ – Karen Hughey, ABS-NS

Integral agreesUSCG deal

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SATCOMS NEWS


Intellian has appointed SørenEinshøj as its new global Chief StrategyOfficer. Mr Einshøj has nearly twentyyears experience in the marine industry,having been involved in the founding ofMarlink in 2001 and serving as the com-pany’s CEO until 2007.

SAM Electronics has been contract-ed to distribute KVH’s series of mar-itime communication systems throughoutGermany, following a new agreementbetween the two companies.

www.ship-equip.com

Ship Equip and Varada Marine has signeda contract whereby Varada will installShip Equip VSAT systems across its entirefleet of Offshore Supply Vessels.

Varada Marine, headquartered inKristiansand, Norway, has announcedambitious plans whereby it aims tobecome “one of the largest offshore sup-port vessel companies in the world”, andhas an extensive new building programmeunderway at the ABG Shipyard in India insupport of this goal.

Deliveries off the VSAT system will bescheduled to fit in with this new buildingprogramme, with the first system havingalready been delivered to the yard.

Varada Marine will be provided withKu-band services with 128 kbps uploadand download bandwidth speeds. Fourtelephone lines, including a prepaid crewcalling set-up on selected lines, will also beincluded in the package.

“We are very happy that VaradaMarine has chosen SEVSAT from ShipEquip for their entire fleet,” said ShipEquip CSO, Gilles Gillesen.

“It confirms what we have workedhard to establish, that Ship Equip is able tohandle large fleets of vessels, and thisseems to be established in the market too.”

This deal is an indication of what hasbeen a good start to 2011 for Ship Equip,which reports that its total number ofinstalled VSAT systems has passed 900 inthe new year.

The company says that it also has anorder backlog of more than 230 SEVSATsystems, and estimates that its share of thecurrent maritime VSAT market is between10 and 20 per cent.

“As the installation rate hit 24SEVSATs in December 2010, or more thanone new SEVSAT per working day, wesaw the installed base grow quicklytowards 900,” said CEO Ivar Nesset.

"Our main focus will be to continue pro-viding superior support and unsurpasseduptime on our service. Providing 20 giga-bytes of data and voice communication pership per month at a low fixed price is hardfor anyone to compete against."

Mr Gillesen believes that there is still vastpotential for VSAT growth in the maritimemarket, and hopes that the company will beable to build on its achievements so far.

“Still only around 5 per cent of theworld market have adopted VSAT tech-nology as of today, meaning there are50,000 ships or more that would benefitfrom such solutions,” he said.

“With this technology we believe it ispossible to reduce costs and increase billabledays for the ship owner. This is one of thekey drivers to convert to this technology.”

Ship Equip has recently opened a newoffice in Rotterdam manned by engineersto work on new installations, as well ascarrying stocks of antennas and spareparts to assist in the process.

During Q1 2011 the company also plansto open a new office in Dubai, to add to itsoffices in Singapore and Houston.

Varada Marine in fleet-wide VSAT deal

Varada Marine’s Offshore Supply Vessels will now be installed with SEVSAT

www.tesacom.net

www.iridium.com

Tesacom has announced that Iridium hascertified its new VKI maritime satellitecommunication system for operation onthe Iridium network.

The new Tesacom VKI product pro-vides integrated voice, data, e-mail andvessel tracking solutions for the maritimesector.

"The Tesacom VKI LRIT system is anexcellent example of the innovative solu-tions being developed by our value-added

partners," said Greg Ewert, executive vicepresident, global distribution channels,Iridium.

"Partners like Tesacom are a key elementin solidifying our position as market leaderin mobile satellite communications."

Jose Sanchez Elia, CEO of Tesacom,said, "With Iridium's global coverage andflexible services, and Tesacom's commit-ment to providing its customers with thehighest quality value for cost-saving solu-tions on the market, Tesacom VKI is thechoice for anyone sailing around theworld."

Global service programmelaunched by Iridium

www.intelliantech.comwww.marlink.com

Iridium-based system approved

www.iridium.com

www.radioholland.nl

Iridium is establishing a 'Global ServiceProgram' for customers of its IridiumOpenPort system, which aims to provideshipboard support to any OpenPort cus-tomer at more than 50 ports.

Launching first quarter 2011, thisservice will be based on a network oftechnicians located around the globe. As part of this initiative, Iridium hassigned an agreement with RadioHolland to be the first service partnerunder the programme.

Radio Holland, owned by ImtechMarine, will provide portside technicalsupport and assist Iridium with globallogistics, managing three regional serv-ice centres.

“Iridium recognizes the criticalnature of maritime communications, andhas established this program to providecustomers timely expert support,” saidJohn Roddy, executive vice president,global operations and product develop-ment, Iridium.

“Instituting the Global ServiceProgram is an important element in ourbusiness strategy for Iridium OpenPort,and this agreement with Radio Holland isa significant step in that direction.”

In addition to this new network ofmaritime service centres, as of 2011

Intellian’s new CSO, Søren Einshøj

Iridium says it will be providing a five-year standard warranty for all IridiumOpenPort units.

“Iridium OpenPort continues to pro-vide an unequalled value proposition,”Mr Roddy said.

“Iridium OpenPort offers the highestquality and lowest cost of ownership ofany communications solution for ship’sbusiness and crew welfare. Ship operatorshave told us that they have experiencedimmediate savings after switching toIridium OpenPort.”

In other news, Orbital SciencesCorporation has signed a systems integra-tion and test contract with Thales AleniaSpace, the prime contractor for IridiumNEXT, to integrate the communicationspayloads and platforms of the low-Earthorbit satellites, and then test the systemsat its manufacturing facility.

“We are delighted that Thales Aleniahas selected Orbital as systems integrator,which represents another major step for-ward in the development and construc-tion of Iridium NEXT,” said Iridium CEOMatt Desch.

“Orbital – like Iridium – is a long-timeand trusted US Government partner,which should advance the objective ofhosting payloads on our new satellitesfor projects such as Earth observation,scientific monitoring and space situa-tional awareness.”

New applications for Iridium transceiverwww.iridium.com

Iridium reports that it has certified thefirst Iridium 9602 Short Burst Data (SBD)Transceiver-based partner devices, whichshould open up new applications fortracking assets such as cargo and ships viathe company's satellite network.

The Iridium 9602 transceiver can beused as the data communication enablerfor portable tracking and monitoringdevices.

One of the new approved devicesusing the transceiver is from CubicGlobal Tracking Solutions, with its GS-5L system for tracking and monitor-ing the temperature, environmental con-ditions, location or maintenance needs of

assets (such as containers) throughouttheir lifecycle.

Alerts can be issued when specific con-ditions (such as cargo route deviation, sen-sor limits, equipment faults, tilting or tam-pering) are sensed.

“Iridium is advancing the way globalenterprises conduct critical daily activi-ties,” said Patrick Shay, vice presidentand general manager of data services for Iridium.

“The Iridium 9602 is ideal for a widerange of applications, including remotetracking, personal location/safety, moni-toring and tracking of assets such ascargo, ships or trucks, as well as control-ling and monitoring equipment forgreater efficiency.”

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SATCOMS NEWS


www.globewireless.com

Frank Coles has stood down as GlobeWireless CEO and president, after 11 yearswith the company.

Mr Coles was appointed to the positionof CEO in 2005, having previously servedas COO and as managing director duringhis time with the company.

Globe Wireless has been involved in anumber of bold expansion moves in themaritime market place in recent yearsunder his leadership, including the acqui-sitions of SeaWave and Zynetix.

The technology created by both of thesecompanies was integrated and updated tocreate Globe's new iFusion service,launched in September last year, whichMr Coles had called a "new phase in mar-itime communications."

2010 also saw the company agree a dealto supply FleetBroadband services to 350

vessels operated by Anglo Eastern ShipManagement - one of the largest satcomdeals in maritime history.

Mr Coles has been replaced as CEO byKenneth Jones, founder and chairman ofGlobe Wireless, who has returned to thedaily leadership of the company.

Mr Jones founded Globe Wireless in1994 and headed the company as CEO until2004, when he became chairman of theboard. He has been directly involved withGlobe Wireless throughout its history.

“Customers can expect continuedefforts by Globe Wireless to enhance ourproducts, support and services,” he said.

“Globe Wireless will continue to be the innovation leader for maritime communications.”

The company says that it has nowemployed an executive search firm thatwill be helping Mr Jones to expand themanagement structure of Globe Wireless.

www.broadpointinc.com

Broadpoint has announced the signing ofnew contracts with shipping companyV.Ships Offshore, to provide Ku- and C-band VSAT satellite services for the com-pany’s worldwide operations.

Under the contracts, Broadpoint willdeliver telephone access with local diallingcapabilities, crew calling card services, andinternet access including Wi-Fi to the ves-sels in V.Ships’ global construction fleet.

“We’re very pleased to be embarkingon this new relationship with Broadpointand look forward to the benefits it willbring V.Ships Offshore and our employ-ees,” said Frank Feurtado, offshore direc-tor, V.Ships Offshore.

Bryan Olivier, president and chief operatingofficer, Broadpoint, also commented: “Thesecontracts mark the beginning of what weexpect to be a long and productive partnershipbetween Broadpoint and V.Ships Offshore.”

“In providing global connectivity toV.Ships Offshore construction fleet wewill be enabling crews to work more effi-ciently by delivering a reliable connectionto colleagues around the world, as well asallowing employees to maintain contactwith their families and friends.”

Globe Wireless CEO steps down

www.thuraya.com

Thuraya has signed a Memorandum ofUnderstanding with UAE’s NationalTransport Authority (NTA), to create aframework for mutual support and collab-oration in the field of mobile satellitetelecommunications.

According to the MoU, Thuraya andNTA will explore and define areas ofpotential cooperation for the deploymentof Thuraya services and solutions onboardUAE flagships.

Both parties will also coordinate effortsto meet NTA’s satellite communicationsrequirements inside and outside the UAE.

Additionally, on an international levelThuraya and the NTA say they will togeth-er liaise with the International MaritimeOrganisation (IMO) in pursuit of accredita-tion of Thuraya’s maritime offerings.

“Thuraya has an excellent portfolio ofsatellite data and voice telecom solutionsfor the maritime industry and other sea-related segments,” said Sultan Al Ghafli,Thuraya chief strategy officer.

“This MoU paves the way for futurecollaboration that will extend our pres-ence in the maritime sector on a nationaland international scale.”

Salim Al Zaabi, acting director general

and executive director of the maritime sec-tor at NTA, also spoke of the importance ofthe deal from the Authority’s point of view.

“Signing an MoU with Thuraya willopen the door for us to explore areas ofmutual cooperation that will supportNTA’s pioneering role in the UAE,” he said.

“We are excited about partnering withThuraya to implement advanced and reli-able satellite telecommunications solutions

Thuraya signs UAE MoU in land vehicles and sea vessels in the UAE.”

In other news, Thuraya has alsoannounced the appointment of SamerHalawi as the company’s new chief execu-tive officer.

Mr Halawi assumed the office on 23rdJanuary 2011, following the return of pre-vious CEO Yousuf Al Sayed to theEtisalat Group. Mr Al Sayed had beenCEO since 1998.

Frank Coles (left) has stepped down as Globe Wireless CEO, with company founderKenneth Jones (right) stepping back into the role

www.orange-business.com

Crest Subsea is to install VSAT fromOrange Business Services to run the com-munication infrastructure of its divingsupport vessels.

Crest Subsea, a subsea support compa-ny, is part of the Pacific Radiance Group ofcompanies, based in Singapore and pro-viding offshore support vessels and inte-grated marine solutions for oil and gas,mining, engineering contracts and relatedservices support industries.

The new system will connect vessels tothe Pacific Radiance network via theOrange satellite service, with the aim ofimplementing new communication servic-es and business applications across theentire fleet.

Using the VSAT, Crest will integrate itsvessels into the onshore corporate net-work, enabling access to all businessapplications.

In the other direction, those on shorewill be able to monitor activities on thevessel through real-time transmission ofelectronic data on the status of varioussystems, and real-time monitoring of theuse of consumables for each vessel.

For crews, the VSAT will provideoptions for communication by phone, e-mail and online chat while they are offduty. Installation of satellite television forcrew use is also being considered.

These facilities are seen as a key benefitof the service by Crest, which is looking to double its workforce over the next four years.

Under the contract Crest Subsea haschosen a homogeneous IP telephony solu-tion, based on Business Talk Global fromOrange Business Services, where the con-

ventional PABX is replaced by a centralIP-PBX.

This central unified messaging systemallows for number portability, flexiblebilling (consolidated, by site) and a reportgeneration system.

In addition, with the IP telephony solu-tion Crest will have a private numberingsystem with access to the Crest Subseadirectory by means of abbreviated dialling.

"Crest Subsea particularly valued theOrange contribution in simplifying thecomplexity of the network infrastructurevia a joint development of a technologyand innovation roadmap to enhanceworkforce effectiveness," said BruceSaunders, general manager, Crest Subsea.

"Orange not only provided the neces-sary skilled resources, but also providedresource resilience through management ofits internal resource pool. The processesand methods employed by Orange consult-ants internally are now being successfullyused in the Crest Subsea environment."

Orange VSAT for Crest Subsea

Crest will use the Orange system tointegrate its vessels into the onshore

corporate network

Salim Al Zaabi, acting director general and executive director of the maritime sector atNTA, and Sultan Al Ghafli, chief strategy officer at Thuraya, mark the signing of the MoU

VSAT deal for V.Ships Offshore

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SATCOMS NEWS

www.vizada.com

Vizada has launched a new satellite com-munications service called Pharostar, aproprietary Ku-band VSAT system for themaritime market.

Based on iDirect technology, the serviceprovides standard IP data speeds of 1024kbps for applications such as internet, e-mail and VoIP.

Vizada says that the connectivity avail-able emulates that of corporate networks,allowing for unlimited data transfer as an‘always on’ service.

As with all the company’s standardbase connectivity services, Pharostar willbe offered with one or a range of VizadaSolutions communications applications toimprove data transfer, increase security,and help control communications costs.

Pharostar joins InmarsatFleetBroadband and Iridium OpenPortas part of Vizada’s maritime broadbandportfolio, which aims to offer customersa variety of choices in terms of data con-nectivity speeds, coverage, and terminaland antenna size.

Vizada will also be offering Pharostarin bundled packages with Inmarsat FleetBroadband or Iridium OpenPort, to offerredundancy and satellite connectivitywhen outside Ku-band coverage areas.

“Pharostar enables us to offer ourservice providers an exclusive competi-tive advantage by arming them with ahigh-performance broadband communi-cations service supported by industryleading solutions and technical expert-ise,” said Erik Ceuppens, CEO VizadaEMEA & Asia.

New VSAT service from Vizada

www.onehorizongroup.com

SatCom Group has announced that it is tochange its name to One Horizon Group,reflecting the company’s focus on its flag-ship Horizon communications platform.

One Horizon Group Plc is a holdingcompany with subsidiaries in the satellitecommunications and telecommunicationsectors. The group offers a range of mobileand fixed satellite products and hasexpanded into IP (Internet Protocol) basedtelephony systems through the launch ofthe Horizon product portfolio in 2010.

Horizon offers VPN VoIP solution over

satellite which aim to minimise the use ofdata involved. VoIP calling can be per-formed from as low as 2kbps, while theapplication also integrates optimised dataapplications for internet surfing, e-mail,and instant messaging.

Horizon is suitable for deploymentover most types of satellite communica-tions systems.

“Aligning our name with our coreproduct more accurately represents thetransformation of our business as we enternew global communications markets withthe Horizon suite of products,” said SandyJohnson, COO of One Horizon Group.

Name change for Satcom Group

www.gmpcs-us.com

www.globalmarinenet.com

Global Marine Networks and GMPCSPersonal Communications haveannounced the availability of two newproducts, the Speedmail satellite e-mailservice and 'The Box', a satellite routerwith access control used to manage satel-lite airtime.

GMPCS Speedmail is an e-mail servicefor use with both handheld satellitephones and broadband satellite servicessuch as Inmarsat FleetBroadband andIridium OpenPort.

The companies say that it offers up to15 times faster e-mail and data transferspeed than a standard connection,through compression and custom serverprotocols.

A filtering system lets users previewheaders to prevent unnecessary down-loads or downloads of large files, andfunctionality to automatically pick updropped satellite transfers where they leftoff is also included.

Satellite SMS notification of new e-mails (via Iridium or Globalstar) is alsoavailable, as well as virus scanning, spamfiltering, and full DES/PGP encryption.The system works with any e-mail pro-gram, web mail, or the included MozillaThunderbird and iScribe e-mail clients.

“GMPCS Speedmail is powered by theGlobal Marine Networks XGate service.XGate is a proven service designed specif-ically for use over satellite phones, so it isideally suited to meet the demands ofGMPCS customers,” said Jon Klein, VPand general manager of GMPCS.

'The Box' is a satellite router with accesscontrol and data compression which thecompanies say can help users provide con-trolled crew access to data services andsimplify satcoms installations.

Usage controls can limit users by time,megabytes, or web site white/black list-ing, while firewall filtering, by MAC orTCP/IP address and/or port number,can also be used to provide even tightercontrol.

A failover service redirects data feedsbetween different installed satellite net-works as required, while shared onboardcaching can reduce the traffic generatedby popular websites visited onboard.

The router works with most satellitedata service providers including Inmarsat,Iridium, Globalstar, Thuraya, and VSATsystems, or any IP-based connection, andat all data rates at or above 2.4 kbps.

The companies say however that 'TheBox' has been specifically designed for thenew generation of satellite data systemssuch as Inmarsat FleetBroadband andIridium OpenPort.

Satcom products launched

www.harris.com

HarrisCapRock Communications hasreleased details of the VSAT contract itagreed with oil giant BP last year, reveal-ing that it has signed a 39-month contractto deploy its SeaAccess solution onboardBP's tanker fleet.

This fleet consists of more than 50tankers travelling on a worldwide basis,with BP having been one of the first oper-ators in the merchant maritime sector tocommit to a full fleet-wide VSAT installa-tion project when it began installing C-band technology from another provider in2006.

These vessels will now switch to theHarrisCaprock system, which will be usedfor corporate office communications,enabling ship captains to send real-timereports on vessel operations, logistics androutes, as well as crew welfare services,specifically supporting the crew’s heavytelephone traffic.

Prior to the agreement of the contractHarrisCapRock notes that BP conductedextensive testing at the HarrisCapRockUK facility based in Aberdeen.

During the tests the HarrisCapRockengineering team developed a time divi-sion multiple access (TDMA) demonstra-tion with test circuits for BP to conductreal-time data transfers, make telephonecalls and see first-hand the system's widearea network (WAN) optimisation service.

“Securing BP Shipping’s fleet commu-nications further builds upon the strongrelationship we’ve developed with BP,”said Peter Shaper, group president, HarrisCapRock Communications.

“Currently we’re providing communi-cation services to BP’s offshore assets inthe Gulf of Mexico and in West Africa.We’re honoured that BP continues to placetheir trust in us to deliver reliable commu-nications for their critical operations.”

Details of BP VSAT deal confirmed

‘Securing BP Shipping’s fleetcommunications further builds upon thestrong relationship we’ve developed with

BP’ – Peter Shaper, HarrisCapRockCommunications

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NN o-one would contest that thetrend towards broadband mar-itime communications is

strengthening – and picking up speed.Indeed, to judge by the coverage in main-stream shipping industry publications,broadband has already become ubiquitous.

Now that Inmarsat has itself decided tobuild and launch a VSAT network,shipowners can look forward to an era ofever more powerful communications.

But this era, welcome though it is,comes with caveats. Entry-level broad-band products, Inmarsat FleetBroadband(FBB) and Iridium OpenPort (IOP), deliv-er a step change on what went before butpresent challenges to buyer and selleralike. VSAT services can still be pricey fora product sometimes stitched togetherfrom regional coverage.

If a shipping company’s operationsdemand very high levels of data through-put, then VSAT and the burgeoning mini-VSAT market will have something to suitas an alternative to choosing the newdefault standard, FBB. For medium to lowlevel throughput, Iridium and Thurayahave proven to be very effective solutions.

But despite the lure of broadband andthe reported rise in demand, it could bethat the majority of a shipping company’scommunications are still voice-based. Ifthat’s the case then in a few monthsInmarsat releases its new FleetPhone, toprovide yet another alternative.

And let’s not forget there is a mass oflegacy systems still out there onboard shipand working well. In fact this market is ofa size to suggest that many owners are notyet convinced that the time (or the price) isright for the move to broadband.

Legacy versus BlackBerryIt is very easy to get sucked into the hypeabout new products, especially thosewhich apparently are being accepted bythe market so quickly, and it is also easy tofeel pressurised into making a purchasedecision when you are being told that anumber of legacy services, such asInmarsat-B, will be removed from servicein the next few years. But it’s alwaysworth taking a step back and seriouslyconsidering your needs and requirements.

Legacy systems don’t of course have thesame throughput as the newer broadbandservices and are more expensive to use on a$ per minute or per megabyte (MB) basis,but if the data communication requirementis not large, these older systems can still beperfectly fit for purpose. Perhaps the ques-tion should be whether owners can managethe ‘modern’ communications load with

legacy systems and whether there is a casefor holding on to them.

If real-time communication with theship is not considered a priority there areplenty of providers who sell ‘store and col-lect’ data services which allow the ship toconnect to servers and download mail.Less well known is that it is also possibleto provide real-time connectivity overlegacy systems, giving BlackBerry-styleimmediacy to data messaging.

This gives the related benefit of bettercost apportionment and billing. Each andevery e-mail has its exact cost associatedand clearly identified in the invoice,removing many of the problems withbatched systems where it can be difficultto identify costs of individual messages.

This is relevant particularly to ship-managers who need to pass on particularcommunications charges to other parties.

Some shipping companies, who oper-ate modern tonnage trading world-wide,still have very down-to-earth communica-tions needs. They want to make sure thatmessages are sent and received quicklyand efficiently. They want simplicity, sta-bility and reliability.

The ability to trace messages via theweb is a useful add-on because of thenature of the data, such as ISM formswhich need to be imported into a shore-based system. Others want bespoke soft-ware to send schedule updates from ves-sel to the shore – small pieces of data butvital to the business.

Time to believe thehype?

On paper the attractions of broadband –lower, fixed prices and always-on connec-tivity – seem obvious. The former is evenmore important in the current earnings cli-mate, in which owners are having to copewith the double whammy of low charterrates and high fixed costs.

The launch of FBB has created a ‘super-cycle’ of adoption. The falling cost ofequipment and connectivity is drivingmore and more owners to adopt, which inturn drives down the costs, promptingmore owners to make the switch.

FBB has the fastest sales growth of anyInmarsat terminal to date and significant-ly reduced data costs compared to prede-cessor Inmarsat Fleet.

FBB’s per megabyte cost of $9.95 orlower is a quantum leap from Fleet’s $23per MB. FBB voice pricing is $1.00 perminute and much lower prices for bothvoice and data can be achieved if cus-tomers commit to large scale usage plansof 126MB of data and above.

Systems like FBB or IOP can also beeasier to install than some of their prede-cessors – many owners have been able toself-install, perhaps with help from theirfriendly service provider or reseller –whereas most if not all VSAT systemsrequire a greater degree of planning,craneage and technical assistance to install.

But this cycle and the growth of interestaround broadband creates its own chal-lenges. Some of the older generation ofships’ masters in particular resent thedrive towards the use of modern technol-ogy – it’s probably fair to say that they arefrightened of it – but many of us resistchange in one form or another.

Younger officers and more technology-friendly crew members on the other handhear the word ‘broadband’ and imagine itas a utopia that will give them access tothe internet and everything this promises.

In fact, either the speed or the cost permegabyte often means that this dreamfails to become a reality and the crewmember is often unable to make use of thetechnology in the way they would hope.

Owners and managers for their partmight resist granting access to the crews.They too, are uncertain as to what granti-ng internet access onboard will mean forthem – both in terms of costs and produc-tivity. A crew member, they argue, ispaid to work on the ship, not to spendtheir time surfing or connecting to socialnetworks.

Making the moveTheir appetite for switching will alsodepend upon the owner's approach toship-shore communications. Some willview broadband communications as ameans of doing the same things that theydo today but in a substantially faster way.Others are looking to new technologies toenable them to make the ship more of anintegrated part of their office and gainadded productivity.

What often happens, even in the formercase, is that they often don't reap the costsavings they envisage, partly becausebroadband’s inherent use of IP technologyadds a data overhead which the older dial-up systems did not normally have.

In the latter case, as with many things

in life, the better something works, themore it will be used and as usage of voiceand data communications goes up, sodoes the bill.

Migrating to broadband will mean thatthe ship effectively becomes part of theworld wide web, with all the things - goodand bad - that this entails. For the migra-tion to be a success, controls on access arean absolute pre-requisite.

These controls are a combination of‘background functionality’ which ensurethat the ship’s PCs are not downloadingupdates and making regular but unneces-sary contact with land based servers andrather more direct controls, making surethat a crew member is not connecting tothe web and streaming video or music viathe ship's network.

It can be a great experience to outfitwith broadband, but for owners who wantto keep control of the process, the crucialelement is not just to upgrade hardwarebut to use software that is designed towork with IP circuits.

As a real-life example, an analysis con-ducted by Telaurus of a shipowner with amedium-sized fleet who migrated from adial-up system to broadband showed thatalthough the total number of messagessent and received by their ships remainedsimilar, the amount of data actually trans-mitted increased by one third - but theoverall airtime bill fell by almost 50 percent when broadband was matched withthe right software.

For savings like this to be achievable,the owner’s chosen software cannot be anarchaic product that has had few changesmade to allow broadband connectivity.Tinkering like this is not normally enoughto control the IP circuit and so deliver anoptimal level of performance.

The choice between using legacy sys-tems and moving to broadband is ulti-mately about making informed decisions:selecting the service which fits your needs and ensuring that the right softwareis in place to manage the demands of your business.

If owners can address those questionsadequately they are best-placed to judgewhether they are getting the most fromlegacy systems, or are ready to dip theirtoes in the broadband ocean.

Digital March 2011 page 10

SATCOMS

Despite the apparent pace of the move towards broadband, the legacy communications market has needs which hardware and software vendors must address to help them make the transition,

writes Trevor Whitworth, Telaurus Communications

The broadband ocean – dip your toes or dive straight in?

Trevor Whitworth is senior vice president of sales & marketing, Telaurus Communications, developer of the se@COMM communica-tions software system. Telaurus, founded in 2000, was acquired byGlobecomm Systems in 2009. The company has 40 employees and anetwork of global agents, and is a Gold Inmarsat Service Providerand an Iridium Distribution Partner.

DS

p1-15:p1-14.qxd 14/02/2011 14:56

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©2010-2011 KVH Industries, Inc. KVH, TracPhone, CommBox, and the unique light-colored dome with dark contrasting baseplate are trademarks of KVH Industries, Inc. 11_KE_V7miniVSAT_Comm_Nordic_DigitalShip“What Broadband at sea was meant to be” and “mini-VSAT Broadband” are service marks of KVH Industries, Inc.

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SATCOMS


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Inmarsat is to introduce a new low data rate telemetry service to the FleetBroadband range, which should open up new applications in areas like onboard systems monitoring from shore.

Kyle Hurst, Inmarsat, told Digital Ship about the evolution of the DTS service

Telemetry service to enhanceFleetBroadband

II nmarsat has announced that it is tointroduce a new Dynamic TelemetryService (DTS) to work over its Fleet-

Broadband network, which aims to create ahost of additional capabilities in vessel track-ing and monitoring, at low cost to the user.

The main idea behind the DTS service,which is scheduled for a full commerciallaunch in the fourth quarter of 2011, is toadd some of the basic tracking functional-ities inherent in the company’s Inmarsat-Cservices to FleetBroadband, while takingadvantage of the functionality allowed bythe new technology to extend the low datarate connectivity to new applications.

The beginning of this project stretchesback to 2009, prior to the release of theFleetBroadband 150, as the companybegan to explore how it might best intro-duce tracking services to its latest line ofsatellite systems.

Looking at the options available andthe capabilities of the technology theywere dealing with, it soon became appar-ent that the potential application of such aservice could reach even further, as KyleHurst, Inmarsat maritime market managerand project leader on DTS, notes.

“When we started looking at this in thecontext of the merchant maritime marketwe realised that there are numerous typesof data that are generated on board a mod-ern merchant vessel that could be suited toa low data rate service,” he told us.

“One of the things we realised very earlyafter looking at the position reporting,which was the genesis of the project, wasthat the position reports are just anothertype of telemetry – it’s a string of datawhich comes at a certain frequency. There’sno reason why we have to have the fieldsand the data reported only having posi-tional information. It could be anything.”

“We knew from our experience withInmarsat-C that there was generally a lot ofpeople that were interested in that informa-tion – but they just didn’t have a good way

to get it back from the vessel to land.”Development of the service followed

steadily from that point in 2009, up to theannouncement of the service in 2011, asInmarsat looked at how such a systemmight run on its newly launched genera-tion of satellites.

“At that time (in 2009) we still weren’t100 per cent sure if this type of servicewould actually go ahead, or if it would goacross the entire product range – but wewanted to take the new technology andthis idea of the low data rate product, putthem together, and see what comes out,”Mr Hurst explained.

“With a satellite network as complex asthe I-4s, sometimes you can have verygood capabilities, but when you put it upagainst the technology you’re dealingwith sometimes it doesn’t mesh togetherthat well, and that actually was the casewith the DTS when we first put it with theFB technology.”

The I-4 satellites mainly operate a stan-dard IP service, which Mr Hurst notes isvery good at short, bursting http andinternet-style traffic, but had not beenengineered for the constant dribble ofinformation envisioned with DTS.

“It has been an extended process, whichhas brought us up to today, while we havemade sure that we could pass this new datatype across the network in the best waypossible – best for the customer, best for thenetwork, best for everyone,” he said.

“We now believe we have the solution,where we can move the traffic efficientlyand get it to the customer in a way that wethink is well ahead of anything else that’scurrently available, but is also as conven-ient as the legacy systems like Inmarsat-C.”

ApplicationsThe DTS system that has been developedis a hardware-based solution, which is notlinked to the SIM card used to managenormal FleetBroadband traffic but rather

is built in to the above and below deckhardware units.

It is expected to be available on the fullrange of three FleetBroadband terminals,with existing units needing only a firmwareupgrade to be able to access the service.

“The current plan, and I think this ispivotal, is that there would be no hard-ware change involved,” said Mr Hurst.

“The equipment is already out there,so we’re looking at just doing a firmwareupgrade – though that’s not a simplething in itself, as basically every vesselusing the service will need to have itapplied and we’ll need to get that outthere as quick as possible.”

Ideally Inmarsat would like to be ableto apply firmware updates to terminalsalready installed on ships at sea by send-ing the data files across theFleetBroadband itself, however Mr Hurstconcedes that the logistics of conductingsuch an operation means that an in-portupdate is the most likely solution.

“So I think the most likely aspect is thatit would probably have to be carried outby an approved technician,” he said.

Inmarsat is aiming for the system to be,to a great extent, ‘plug and play’, in that itshould be something that can easily linkwith standard shipboard technologies.

“There are a lot of systems onboardvessels that output common formats likeNMEA and RS-232, and IP-based for-mats,” said Mr Hurst.

“What we’re looking at is being able toplug directly into these technologies on anIP-based system, because FleetBroadbandis IP based.”

“The idea for us is converting whateveris out there to an IP-compatible system,and facilitating getting that informationstraight to the FB terminal.”

Ultimately this should mean that basi-cally any system that can connect to a net-work can also be connected to theFleetBroadband, and to the shore.

“This would also need to be intelligent-

‘Taking this information off the ship and putting it into different systems that areprobably best not being on the ship – there is value in that’ – Kyle Hurst, Inmarsat

p1-15:p1-14.qxd 14/02/2011 14:56

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SATCOMS


ly sorted, to a certain level, at the UT (userterminal) side, so we are relying on our UTmanufacturers as well to provide part ofthe service,” Mr Hurst notes.

“We understand that once you startplugging numerous systems into your FBterminal there will be a wealth of informa-tion coming through.”

“Even simple things like engine moni-toring or AIS could have a considerableamount of information pouring through, soI think there is a need to have some kind ofmechanism to decide what you want to goover the network, and what you don’t real-ly need to look at right now.”

Once the technology is in place MrHurst envisages a wide number of areaswhere the technology could be applied toimprove vessel operations.

“There are a lot of engine monitoringsystems right now that output a lot oftelemetry based data to the ship itself, butin a lot of cases the data isn’t really goinganywhere, some of it is being displayedand being read every so often but there’s alot that is not being utilised,” he said.

“Then there are things like systemsmanagement for navigation systems orbridge systems too, there are integratedbridge systems where you can have every-thing connected to a centralised box whichcan give you a reading of the health of allthe components, such as the radar, yourplotter, all of these things.”

“You can also have a mix of all of these– why just have the position report or asystems report, why not mix them uptogether? It just means extra characters,

and once people can generate it at one endand understand it at the other end thereisn’t really any limitation on what can besent across the network.”

Being able to transmit this telemetrydata can also allow those on board to getbetter advice from shore-based expertswhen it comes to maintaining and runningcomplicated machinery on the vessel.

“Taking this information off the shipand putting it into different systems thatare probably best not being on the ship, forlong term analysis, monitoring qualitycontrol, or even pollution monitoring –there is value in that,” said Mr Hurst.

“Preventive maintenance is a big thingthese days too, and you can have engineersonboard looking at this information butthey may not be the best people to do so.”

“Maybe it might be better for this infor-mation to be going to the engine manufac-turer where they can look at a largerdataset and maybe see these anomaliesbefore a ship based engineer because theyhave more information coming in andmore time to analyse it.”

The ‘dynamic’ aspect of DTS is alsosomething that differentiates the servicefrom the simple transmission capabilitiesof a service like Inmarsat-C. In essence itallows the user to change the type oftelemetry data that is being received asthey require, so if there is an issue withone particular system further data fromthat equipment could be requested.

“So you might say ‘I don’t really needto know about the water levels in thebilge right now, but what I do need to

know about is the temperature in theexhaust pyro because it seems to be a bitstrange’,” said Mr Hurst.

“As the situation changes with the infor-mation you’re receiving from this remoteasset you can refine the information thatyou require to give you a better idea of thecondition of the system you want to look at.So it becomes rather adaptive – that’sanother big change from Inmarsat-C.”

The technology included will be‘request-response’ based, meaning thatyou can ask the terminal for somethingand, as long as it’s available, that data willcome back to you.

“The other scenario we’re looking at is UTgenerated information, where you work withthe alarms onboard a vessel,” said Mr Hurst.

“You may not be sending informationall the time, or sending a certain level ofinformation periodically, but you wouldhave the system set up so that when cer-tain alarms went off those alarms wouldbe forwarded to the office on shore.”

PricingAs with any communications service, thefirst question on most people’s lips tendsto be ‘how much?’ Though Inmarsat can-not offer much in the way of details on thisaspect of the service at this time, currentplans do suggest that the service will havea fixed cost element.

“The subscription based service that weare looking at right now means that itshould have very much fixed costs, whichis something we think the industry willrespond to,” said Mr Hurst.

“It’s very early to talk about price, we’veonly just got approval on the service, but Ithink generally we’re probably looking atsomething that will be slightly aboveInmarsat-C, but with capabilities way, waybeyond what Inmarsat-C could handle.”

The cost of the DTS service will not beadded to an existing FleetBroadband airtimecontract, but will rather be treated as a com-pletely separate service, with separate billing.

“We understand that, much like theInmarsat-C model, that the customers forthis may not be the same companies thathave an airtime contract with theirFleetBroadband,” said Mr Hurst.

“For example, you have the shippingcompany having an airtime contract withtheir FleetBroadband for their data com-munications and voice communications,but it may well be an engine manufacturerwho’s looking at maintaining the enginesas part of a maintenance contract that’smonitoring the engines.”

“The shipping company doesn’t neces-sarily want to be billed for a service that’sbeing used by an engine manufacturer. Soit will be completely separate billing.”

With these plans all in place, Inmarsat’swork with its partners is now set to begin inearnest, to bring about the necessarychanges that will make the DTS service pos-sible on every FleetBroadband enabled ship.

If all goes as expected, by the end ofthis year huge amounts of new dataabout the operation of onboard systemscould be pouring back to shore from theglobal fleet for analysis – an interestingprospect indeed.

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SOFTWARE NEWS

www.deltamarin.com

The European Maritime Safety Agency(EMSA) has awarded a contract toDeltamarin for a study on tests and trialsof the Energy Efficiency Design Index(EEDI), as developed by IMO.

The main objective of the contract is toprovide EMSA with a technical study onthe EEDI, in order to refine the EEDIapplication for certain categories of RoRoships (volume and weight carriers) and toidentify the potential application of theEEDI or any alternative method toimprove energy efficiency of purpose builtvessels from a technical and design pointof view.

The Energy Efficiency Design Index(EEDI) is an IMO-agreed initiative on thedevelopment of a CO2 design index fornew ships. This index separates technicaland design based aspects from operationaland commercial aspects.

The core of the indexing formula isgiven by the ratio between environmentalburden (i.e. CO2 emissions) and workperformed.

It is hoped that the EEDI, if applied toconventional designs for propelled ships,will contribute in the longer term to theglobal effort to reduce CO2 emissionsfrom the shipping sector as new shipsbuilt in accordance with the EEDI enterinto operation.

Deltamarin’s commission includes,

Deltamarin contracted for ship efficiency projectfirstly, the refinement of the EEDI formu-la for RoRo (volume and weight carriers)and RoPax vessels. In this contextDeltamarin shall assess the current baselines approach for volume andweight carriers.

If necessary, a refinement / adjustmentof the baselines for the volume and weightcarriers shall be proposed.

Deltamarin shall also identify possiblecorrection factors to be included in the EEDI formula for RoRo and RoPaxvessels.

In case no correction factor is suitable,Deltamarin shall develop an alternativeapproach to address Energy Efficiency forthe applicable vessel types, arrangetest/trials of the proposed approach, anddraw conclusions on its suitability.

The study will also include a compara-tive analysis looking at the GHG emissionreduction potential of the current EEDIapproach in relation to the potential new proposal.

Secondly, Deltamarin shall develop aframework to address the energy efficien-cy of purpose built vessels and spe-cialised ships.

Based on representative samples estab-lishing baselines for these vessel cate-gories, requirements for any additionalcorrection factors will be identified. Themain goal will be to develop methods onhow to improve the energy efficiency ofthese vessels at the design phase.


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Ship It!, a shipping-themed iPhone gamefrom e-learning company Coracle, hastopped the Games/Educational charts in

the Apple App Store in 10 countries(France, Portugal, Hong Kong, Taiwan,Poland, Turkey, Hungary, CzechRepublic, Guatemala and Argentina).

Coracle says that the game was alsoranked in the top 10 inover 55 countries.

Ship It! helps playersto understand four basictypes of ships, their relat-ed cargo, and relativeloading times. The ulti-mate goal is to manage allships and cargo in themost efficient manner.

"This game is a greatway to promote the mar-itime industry whilstdemonstrating that wecan use this platform tobuild simulated trainingmodules," said JamesTweed, founder ofCoracle.

Coracle has produceda number of other mar-itime related apps, includ-ing a Maritime Glossary, aPorts Information appand the 'Maritime TwitterTop40'. The company saysthat it will be introducingmore apps in the nearfuture.Want to learn about shipping? There’s an app for that

Shipping App tops iPhone chart

p16-27:p15-25.qxd 14/02/2011 16:05 Page 1


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Electronic documents company ElectronicShipping Solutions (ESS) reports thatINEOS has adopted its CargoDocsTerminal Services system on oil productsshipments form the GrangemouthRefinery.

Working with an ESS project team,INEOS Grangemouth issued its first opera-tional electronic set of documents, whichincluded an electronic bill of lading, onJanuary 16, 2011 when a cargo of vacuumgasoil was shipped on board the 14,830 dwtchemical/product tanker Ternholm, oper-ated by Tärntank Ship Management AB.

"We were introduced to CargoDocs byBrostrom, our pool operators," said AnnOlofsson, deputy managing director,Tärntank Rederi AB.

"We have found the service quick andeasy to use and even getting the Mastertrained while he was at sea proved to be asimple process. Documentation processesat Grangemouth have never been easierand we look forward to the increasedindustry adoption of eDocs."

For the first time at the terminal, the setof electronic documents included docu-ments created and electronically signed byan independent inspector.

For this shipment, SGS United

Kingdom Limited created and electroni-cally signed the Vessel Experience Factor,Ullage Report, Sample Receipt and TankInspection Report, which were included inthe set of eDocs issued for the shipment.

SGS has an embedded documentationteam at INEOS Grangemouth responsiblefor processing shipping documents, whichhas been assisted by ESS in the move toelectronic documents through the provi-sion of training and support.

All other major inspectors atGrangemouth, including Saybolt, IntertekCaleb Brett and Inspectorate were alsoinvolved in testing at Grangemouth, andare already set up to use electronic docu-

ments operationally when required byshippers.

INEOS became the first company to useESS Terminal Services in the UK when itwent live with CargoDocs at its FinnartOcean Terminal in 2010. Having laid thegroundwork there, the roll-out ofCargoDocs at Grangemouth was complet-ed in a twelve-week timeframe.

"This is another milestone for INEOS inour plans to move towards greater use ofeDocs across our terminals," said TonyPollock, INEOS marine assurance manager.

"ESS CargoDocs offer a particularadvantage for ships calling atGrangemouth, as the dock is tidal. UsingeDocs has the potential to save up to twohours on documentation processes postloading giving us faster vessel turn-around. This allows vessels to more easi-ly achieve tidally restricted sailingschedules."

ESS notes that the first Grangemouthtransaction using the system demonstrat-ed how electronic documents could helpto improve efficiency at the terminal.

During that particular shipment, theMaster found a minor data discrepancy inthe initial draft documents. However,using the electronic system this discrepan-cy was able to be communicated, fixedand accepted by the Master within min-utes, without any party needing to leaveor attend the vessel.

Grangemouth Refinery goes live with eDocs

Oxford Aviation Academy(OAA) has released version 12 of itsMaritimeCrew Resource Management(MCRM) learning materials. The update isavailable under licence and consists of a 17module interactive computer based train-ing (CBT) program with support materialsfor instructors and students.

Veson Nautical has opened a newoffice in Oslo, Norway, and will also relo-cate its corporate headquarters to a largerspace in Boston, USA, in May of this year.The new office in Oslo is led by TomasHozman, commercial director, Europeand Tone Ekman, senior consultant.

Krill Systems has appointed BrianStaton as vice president of world-widesales. Mr Staton has 26 years of experienceas a sales and marketing executive with

Brian Staton, new vice president of world-wide sales at Krill Systems

five major marine electronic brands, was aformer president of Simrad USA, andmost recently worked as business devel-opment manager for Ship Equip.

PortVision has appointed JamesPerduto as director of transportation andgovernment business development. Basedin New York, Mr Perduto previouslyworked with maritime software companyStelvio, on its ShipDecision product.

www.oaa.com/mcrmwww.krillsystems.comwww.portvision.comwww.veson.com

p16-27:p15-25.qxd 14/02/2011 16:05 Page 2

SOFTWARE NEWS


www.autoship.com

Incat Crowther USA, a passenger vesseldesign company, has installed a number ofupgrades to its Autohydro Pro hydrostaticsand stability software, supplied by AutoshipSystems Corporation (ASC) of Canada.

“Autoship Systems has always beenfrom my experience at the cutting edge ofnew technology for hydrostatics and sta-bility software programs,” said GrantPecoraro, Incat Crowther naval architect.

“When I haven’t been able to figure outa routine or a run file, I’ve always foundtheir Autohydro Technical Manager to bea wizard at solving my issues.”

Autohydro 6.4 includes an updateaimed to allow users to account for the

Design software upgrade for Incat Crowther SOLAS 2009 probabilistic rules for cargoand passenger vessels, and a soon to bereleased version 6.5 will add an assess-ment tool on intermediate stages of flood-ing as per the probabilistic rules.

Modelmaker functionality will addi-tionally be enabled to allow the user tographically see penetrations and to printpenetration calculations, with this tool tobenefit from a new and improved inter-face. Other features in the latest softwareversions include an autoballast feature, anew reporting tool, an update to free-sur-face-moment functionality, automaticimport of IGES models, export support forbulkhead definitions for Autohydro to usein its calculations, and compatibility withWindows 7.

The Modelmaker allows users to graphically see penetrations and print penetration calculations

www.edbergogroup.com

EDB ErgoGroup reports that four newmaritime clients have signed up to itsMarineLink eCommerce service.

Fred Olsen Marine Services AS, JoTankers AS, Bergshav Management AS andWilhelmsen Marine Services AS will use theservice to manage electronic purchasingprocesses such as handling inquiries,quotes, orders and order confirmations.

The system also includes various toolsfor analysis and creation of statistics, aswell as functionality for reporting anddelivery of KPIs.

The MarineLink service has incorporat-ed the MTS (Marine Transaction Services)eCommerce service operated byWilhelmsen Ships Service, which EDB

ErgoGroup took control of last year.As a result EDB ErgoGroup now has

Wilhelmsen Ships Service as a largemarine supplier client, and is offering elec-tronic purchasing services to the shippingmarket and marine suppliers as part of itsbroader eCommerce strategy.

"Most businesses are international, andthe shipping industry is a typical industrythat is highly dependent of effective inte-grated value chains," said Terje Mjøs, CEOof EDB ErgoGroup.

"By providing the MarineLink service,EDB ErgoGroup takes a worldwideresponsibility to support our home marketcustomers in their international business."

EDB ErgoGroup says that more than2,500 vessels are now trading throughMarineLink.

New companies sign up for MarineLink

www.sismarine.comwww.bassnet.no

After years of disagreements and legalwrangles, Norwegian software companiesBASS and Star Information Systems (SIS)have parted ways after the companies con-firmed that BASS has completed the saleof its 34 per cent stake in SIS - with state-ments on both sides suggesting that therelationship between the parties hadbecome particularly strained.

BASS says that it will use the financialresources it has freed up after the sale toinvest in its own business by pursuingnew markets and developing new prod-ucts, and has claimed that "SIS’ poor per-formance and its need for major fundingover a long period of time to upgrade itsproducts and technology platform" wasone of the reasons behind the move.

BASS CEO, Per Steinar Upsaker, saidthat BASS had "lost confidence in SIS.When they asked shareholders for addi-tional funding (in June), we saw this as anopportunity to sell out rather than putmore money into a business with highlyuncertain returns and no exit strategy."

"The price we received was satisfactory,based on the limited financial informationwe received from the company."

Meanwhile, a statement from SIS onthe sale has welcomed the move as end-ing "a direct conflict of interests" and giv-ing the company "full control over ourown destiny."

According to SIS CEO, Per AndersKoien, "the BASS shareholding (has)

been a hindrance to our corporate activi-ties recently."

"Now we are in a position to advance tothe next stage of our development withoutfurther interference."

This unusual situation whereby BASSheld a shareholding in a competing soft-ware provider came about after BASS'original parent company, BarberInternational, purchased the 34 per centstake in SIS in 1999, in the hope that the two companies could benefit from

BASS and SIS end turbulent relationshipworking together.

However, these plans did not quitework out, and a co-operation agreementbetween BASS and SIS was terminated in 2003.

This was followed by a further compli-cation in 2005 when the management ofBASS completed a management buy out ofthe BASS business unit from Barber - apurchase which also included the stake inSIS. This deal was completed around thesame time that a legal battle between the

two companies regarding intellectualproperty rights was resolved in an out-of-court settlement.

Then, in 2007, BASS made a formal bidto acquire the rest of the shares of SIS - anoffer that was firmly rejected by the otherSIS shareholders.

However, with the sale of the BASSstake in SIS now completed this compli-cated 10-year relationship has finally cometo an end - a move that looks to be in thebest interests of all involved.

‘The BASS shareholding has been ahindrance to our corporate activities

recently’ – Per Anders Koien, SIS

creating seaworthy software

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p16-27:p15-25.qxd 14/02/2011 16:06 Page 3

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Isn’t it time for SeaAccess?Maritime communications are taking a turn for the better. Expensive phone calls, slow data transfers and gaps in coverage are a thing of the past. With SeaAccess Communications from CapRock, you get always-on, business-class broadband at an affordable, fixed, monthly cost virtually anywhere in the world. Without metered service and surprising cost fluctuations, your captains and crews can remain in contact with the corporate office and stay in touch with friends and family anytime. And thanks to CapRock’s global infrastructure, you’ll get worldwide coverage and local support day in and day out. All these advances lead to cost savings, more efficient fleet operations and more informed decision-making.

It’s time for a wave of change.

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p16-27:p15-25.qxd 14/02/2011 16:06 Page 4

SOFTWARE NEWS


www.abs-ns.com

software service training consulting integration understanding

The trusted name in fleet management software for your 60,000 ton hardware.software for your 60,000 ton hardwar

office systems. P&O Ferries also ordered an integrated

barcode solution for the MSK Spare Partssystem, to enable quick stock checks andstock issuing.

During the vessel build at STX Europe'sRauma Shipyard, Marine Software wascontracted to deliver a fully configureddatabase covering all main machinery,safety equipment and Lloyds RegisterClass items.

A final database commissioning visittook place in Dover during berthing trials, where a successful handover of all systems took place. This prepara-tory work helped the crew to immedi-ately be able to use the system uponfinal delivery.

As P&O Ferries’ CODA finance sys-tem already accepts Accruals fromMarine Software’s OPS fleet procure-ment system, all ‘Spirit of Britain’ accru-als will be integrated through the exist-ing finance interface.

A sister vessel, the 'Spirit of France', isdue to enter service in September 2011,and will be fully equipped with the samesoftware solution.

Marine Software says it is now enteringits fifth year of supplying fleet softwaresystems for P&O Ferries, after successfullybeing awarded an 18 ship contract for cen-tralising ship management operationsback in 2005.

www.spectec.net

SpecTec reports that its USA division hasrecently agreed a contract to perform asoftware consulting project for PrestigeCruise Holdings, parent company of theOceania Cruises and Regent Seven SeasCruise brands.

The project will include type levelmigration, a service SpecTec providesto organise data and eliminate anyrepeated elements from the system, aswell as a complete ship inventory forthe group’s combined fleet of sevenvessels.

SFI Coding (Group System), a classi-fication system for the maritime andoffshore industry, will be used in thisregard, which provides a technical andfinancial functional subdivision of ship information.

The project will also include anupgrade of the company’s software sys-tem to AMOS Business Suite version9.1, which introduces a range of addi-tional functionality over previous versions.

The project has already begun, with thefirst task being a ‘ship check’ of each ves-sel to estimate the time required to per-form the full physical inventory of allspares onboard.

P&O ferry installs Marine Software www.marinesoftware.co.uk

Marine Software has secured a contractwith P&O Ferries for the supply of inte-grated ship management software for itslatest 49,000 grt newbuild vessel 'Spirit of

Britain', which has entered service on theDover-Calais route.

This contract covers planned mainte-nance, stock control, procurement andsafety management requirements,between both the vessel and central

P&O’s Spirit of Britain is to be installed with the integrated ship management software

SpecTec beginsPrestige project

p16-27:p15-25.qxd 14/02/2011 16:13 Page 5


Digital Ship

www.aveva.com

AVEVA has announced that STX OSV hassigned an agreement to purchase the fullAVEVA Marine solution suite, which willbe deployed for integrated hull and outfit-ting design.

STX OSV operates nine shipbuildingfacilities, including five in Norway, two inRomania, one in Brazil and one in Vietnam.

This new long-term agreement coversthe full AVEVA Marine solution, support-ing efficient engineering and design

processes from early / basic design,through detailed hull and outfittingdesign, to the creation of manufacturingdata and documents.

The system will be used by up to 300concurrent users across all of the group’snine shipyards.

“We required a suite of products thatprovided seamless integration betweendisciplines, particularly Hull andOutfitting in the whole value chain,” saidStig Sandanger Riise, senior vice presidenttechnology & engineering at STX OSV.

“We selected AVEVA Marine to pro-vide this integration and they also offer usan advanced database capability allowingSTX to accommodate ship buyers’requests at short notice and enablingchanges very close to production start.”

“Equally important, AVEVA Globalsupports concurrent engineering across allof our nine yards in Norway, Romania,Brazil and Vietnam.”

STX has already begun the first projectusing AVEVA Marine with the design of aPlatform Supply Vessel and two sister ships.

Unlock the Potential of Internet On Boardwith Dualog® Connection Suite™.

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www.mespas.com

Mespas has announced the release of ver-sion 5.13 of its fleet management softwaremespasR5, with approximately 80 newchanges making the upgrade the largestever released by the company.

The release of this new software ver-sion is supplemented by the introductionof what the company calls the ‘MespasCube’.

The Mespas Cube is an offshore serverinstalled aboard the ship which acts as thehub between the vessel's PCs and the cen-tral database ashore.

With the Cube, the software can be runon multiple PCs on board the ship, with-out impinging on the applications' abilityto synchronise and work with the centraldatabase ashore.

The company has also introduced anew Mespas Reporting Engine, used torun overviews, comparisons and analyseson single vessels or the entire fleet.

In other news, Mespas hasannounced that Tito Vinci has joined the company as area sales manager,responsible for sales activities predomi-nantly in Southern Europe and theMiddle East.

STX OSV deploys AVEVA

STX has already used the software system as part of a PSV design project

Mespasexpands offering

p16-27:p15-25.qxd 14/02/2011 16:37 Page 6

SOFTWARE


Improving efficiency in 2011 - FLAGSHIPThe EU backed FLAGSHIP project has introduced a number of new technological solutions since the beginning

of 2011 that should assist shipping companies in improving the efficiency of vessel operations, covering areas like engine monitoring, hull condition forecasting, and terminal logistics

FFLAGSHIP, the Pan-European mar-itime transport project backed bythe EU, has introduced a number of

new technology-based tools which aim toimprove safety and efficiency in ship oper-ations, while also reducing the impact ofvessel transport on the environment.

The aim of the FLAGSHIP project is tocreate and develop new technologicalsolutions that will assist vessel operatorsand other relevant stakeholders in moni-toring the status of seagoing vessels, high-lighting inefficiencies and supportingcrews in improving onboard operations.

The emphasis of the project is on on-board systems and procedures, ship man-agement systems on shore, the impact ofnew technology, effective and efficientcommunication interfaces, and the impactof various standards and regulations.

The 53-month project is partially fund-ed by European Union contributions, andfeatures more than 40 partner organisa-tions including shipping companies, ship-yards, universities and various technologyproviders.

This partnership is overseen by theEuropean Community Shipowners'Associations (ECSA).

As Herman de Meester, coordinator ofFLAGSHIP, describes it, “The vision ofFLAGSHIP is to create the mechanism bywhich the expertise of all the requiredactors can be brought together in real time,independently of their location.”

“[This provides the required informa-tion] to the right people, in the right for-mat, at the right time and incorporatingthe highest level of knowledge, so thatthey can better manage all the questionswhich confront a ship operator.”

Ship monitoringOne of the new tools announced by the proj-ect for 2011 is a monitoring system thatapplies the Technical Condition Indexingscheme (TCI) to help a ship’s crew monitorand improve the technical condition of ves-sel engines.

According to the project partners, thedeployment of the FLAGSHIP-TCI systemcan help a ship’s crew to enhance voyagesafety, lower fuel consumption and reducethe emission of air pollutants.

FLAGSHIP says that use of the TCI sys-tem can promote proper engine condition-ing while reducing maintenance and off-hire costs.

Integrated with an analysis packagebased onshore, the on-board system gen-erates a set of performance indicatorsbased on reference values, historical per-formance and benchmarks.

The ship’s superintendent and crewreceive a report in which problems aredetected and highlighted via a high leveltraffic light showing green, yellow or reddepending on the severity of the issue.

The user can also access an on-line ver-sion of the report to investigate the precise

data that caused the warning. FLAGSHIP’s application of the TCI con-

cept utilises satellite communication andthe internet to allow data to be collated,processed and distributed to both ship andshore-based personnel. The system analy-ses the data and presents it in a format thatcan be acted upon by either a shore-basedsuperintendent or a ship’s crew at sea.

Ornulf Jan Rodseth, research director atFLAGSHIP partner MARINTEK, com-mented: “FLAGSHIP’s application of theTCI concept on critical ship systems is anexcellent example of information andcommunication technology being har-nessed to aid early detection of problems,efficient diagnosis and timely repair.”

“We have seen fuel savings of up to 5per cent as a direct result of the use of theTCI-system, which underlines the impor-tance of R&D projects such as FLAGSHIPin making ship transport even more envi-ronmentally friendly.”

The FLAGSHIP–TCI project was led byMARINTEK in Norway and was supported,delivered and trialled in conjunction withNTNU in Norway, Teekay Shipping, andRolls Royce in the UK; Danaos Shipping CoLtd and ASME of Greece; Containerships inFinland and RINA in Italy.

Hull managementThe other new tool recently released by theFLAGSHIP project is a software system thatcan forecast the condition of a ship’s hullover time, which it says should helpimprove the efficacy of surveys and reducethe amount of time a ship is out of service.

The software tool that has been devel-oped, FLAGSHIP-HCA (Hull ConditionAssessment), is designed to accurately pre-dict the condition of a vessel’s structure,coating and components, enabling shipowners and operators to schedule mainte-nance in a more efficient manner and there-by reduce maintenance costs.

The principal economic objectives ofFLAGSHIP-HCA are to extend the life of theexisting fleet of tankers and bulk carriers byup to five years, with a 10 per cent to 20 per

cent reduction in service repair costs forships throughout their life-cycle.

In this respect, a primary concern for shipowners and Class societies is that of corro-sion of the ship’s structure. As such, this isthe primary focus of FLAGSHIP-HCA.

“Management of corrosion is beingaddressed through separate tools that meetthe specific needs of the ship owner and theClass Society,” said Ben Hodgson, projectmanager at BMT Group and FLAGSHIP-HCA sub project leader.

“The enhanced data exchange that thesetwo tools will promote between Class andship owner will quite possibly lead to thedevelopment of enhanced Class ruleswhich will ultimately lead to better main-

tained, more available and safer ships.”FLAGSHIP-HCA includes three primary

tools which enable the ship owner and Classto exchange hull data in real time, based oncrew inspections and maintenance work aswell as periodic measurement campaigns.

Firstly, the toolset includes a SurveyAdvisor Tool (SAT) which advises survey-ors where individual ships are most vul-nerable and therefore where they shouldconcentrate their investigations.

Secondly, the Hull Health ProgrammeAdvisor (HHA) optimises the survey andmaintenance programme taking in to consid-eration the vessel’s work schedule and thepredicted structural integrity of the vessel.

Finally, the Corrosion ParameterPrediction Tool takes the results of a surveyor set of surveys and updates a databasewith corrosion parameters associated withevery aspect of the ship’s hull, based onobserved rules and results.

Mr de Meester, coordinator of Flagship,commented that, with the HCA the projecthas managed to make significant steps for-ward in a number of its target areas.

“FLAGSHIP has pursued the twinobjectives of reducing still further bothrisk and the environmental impact of theworld’s commercial fleet whilst generat-ing the opportunity for real commercialbenefits,” he said.

“FLAGSHIP-HCA is a tangible example

of the maritime industry collaborating toimprove performance and efficiency ineveryone’s best interest.”

The FLAGSHIP–HCA project was ledby the BMT Group in the UK and was sup-ported, delivered and trialled in conjunc-tion with MARINTEK of Norway; BureauVeritas and Sirehna of France,Germanischer Lloyd of Germany andPORTLINE - Transportes MarítimosInternacionais, of Portugal.

Terminal efficiencyThe third FLAGSHIP innovation success-fully implemented this year is a real-timeoptimisation system targeting congestionin container terminals, the first of its kindaccording to the project partners.

The system, known as FLAGSHIP-RTS,was trialled at the Port of Valencia and isused to manage transport resources, con-tainer repositioning movements andinventory levels simultaneously, using areal time scheduling model.

FLAGSHIP says that this allows the ter-minal operation to be re-optimised dynam-ically throughout the day enabling both airpollution and congestion to be significant-ly reduced, as well as reducing costs forlogistics operators and customers.

FLAGSHIP-RTS has been designed anddeveloped as a management tool for termi-nal operators, freight forwarders, shipoperators and container logistics providers.

Led by MJC² Limited in the UK, FLAG-SHIP–RTS was supported, delivered andtrialled in conjunction with five Spanishorganisations including the Port Authorityof Valencia (Spain); China Shipping (Spain)Agency; Ingenieria de Sistemas para laDefensa de España S.A SA; Spanish DepotService , S.A and Trans-Base Soler, S.L.

Trialled with China Shipping (one ofthe FLAGSHIP project partners) at thePort of Valencia the project reports thatreduction in wasted container handlingoperations in the terminal improved effi-ciency and led to less congestion (and con-sequently increased safety).

Trucks and containers covered less 'emp-ty mileage', leading to lower CO2 emissionsand improving the effective capacity ofhaulage fleets; reducing both their operatingcosts and their impact on the environment.

FLAGSHIP–RTS also had a positiveimpact on the area surrounding the termi-nal reducing noise pollution, easing con-gestion and speeding up road traffic in theterminal vicinity.

Julian Stephens, Technical DevelopmentManager at MJC² said: “The system hasshown that it is capable of reducing wastedrepositioning movements by up to 25 percent while saving 10-20 per cent of trans-port costs through improved planning andfaster response times."

"Furthermore, the project has enhancedbusiness efficiency as well as the quality of life for those living and working in the area.”

One software tool created by FLAGSHIP aims to help crews in monitoring vessel engines

DS

p16-27:p15-25.qxd 14/02/2011 16:06 Page 7

Are you an IT professional with experience in shipping or Oil&Gas?

Or, are you a Shipping or Oil&Gas professional with passion for IT?

Maybe you are ideally suited for working in SpecTec group!

With close to USD 30 million consolidated revenues, SpecTec Group is today the largest IT Provider Company in

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Our software AMOS (Asset management Operating System) is currently installed on more than 7000 Ship installations

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p16-27:p15-25.qxd 14/02/2011 16:06 Page 8

SOFTWARE


TT hough the technology and a rangeof providers have been around formore than a decade, the introduc-

tion of e-commerce and electronic pur-chasing into the maritime industry hasbeen a slow, though steady process.

However, the last few years have seengrowth in this sector increase at an evermore rapid rate, as shipping companieslearn from the experiences of earlyadopters and benefit from the expansionin the numbers of companies connectingto these electronic networks.

As maritime software providers haveworked to ease the process of integrationof e-commerce applications, shippingcompanies can more easily calculate someof the ways that online purchasing andcommunication with trading partners cansave them both time and money.

Two shipping companies that havetaken the plunge in this regard and movedtheir purchasing into the digital era areUS-based Totem Ocean Trailer Expressand Crowley Petroleum Services, whojoined ShipServ’s trading platform in 2007and 2008 respectively.

In the few years since the introductionof the technology both companies haverealised benefits in areas like cost savingsand reduced purchasing administrationtime, increasing the efficiency of thedeployment of their ships and changingthe way that they operate on a daily basis.

It is stories like these, and those of theother shipping companies that are begin-ning to gain a competitive advantagethrough the application of the technology,that have driven this growth in maritimee-commerce.

Totem Ocean TrailerExpress

Totem Ocean Trailer Express (TOTE) is aprivately-owned freight and cargo ship-ping company with four vessels – two arecharter vessels, and two are used to oper-ate a twice-weekly service between thePort of Tacoma, Washington and the Portof Anchorage, Alaska.

TOTE’s purchasing department isheaded by Phil Morrell, vice presidentmarine opera-tions and is run by Lisa Gee,purchasing administrator, who is respon-sible for the procurement of everythingneeded to run the vessels, from fuel tonuts, bolts and spare parts, paint, food,bedding, cleaning materials and every-thing else in between.

Like many other shipping companies,TOTE runs a simple ship-to-shore pur-chasing process. The individual ship man-agers are responsible for their ships andbudgets, using a purchasing catalogue tomake their orders.

On shore, it is Lisa Gee’s responsi-bil¬ity to fulfil orders and execute the pur-chasing plan to ensure that spend is keptwithin budget.

“Our goal is always to come in underbudget so that we can cover things in anemergency,” says Ms Gee.

Requisitions are sent from each vesselto the Port Engineer for approval via theirSpecTec AMOS purchasing system. Fromhere, requisitions are sent on to Ms Gee.

It is at this point that the process getsmore complicated and work-intensive. Inline with TOTE’s purchasing policies, MsGee is required to get two or more quotesfor each order – requiring a lot of commu-nication and a lot of paperwork.

Similarly time consuming is findingalternative suppliers in order to satisfy thetwo-quote policy, particularly for ‘hard tofind’ parts for older machinery, or localsuppliers in remote locations when thecharter vessels are abroad.

Communicating with suppliers waspreviously typically done by fax and e-mail. Re-keying quotes manually intoAMOS took up a lot of time and wasfraught with potential errors – and forTOTE, saving time is a critical part of costcontrol, with speed increasingly of theessence in the modern shipping industry.

“The biggest challenge we had was clar-ity of writing – does the faxed quote say 3or 8, 5 or 2? I usually had to call up to clar-ify – a real waste of my time,” said Ms Gee.

“Prices are fluctuating a lot more thesedays. Quotes used to be valid for 60 daysor more; today they’re good for 14-30 daysso it’s critical that we find suppliers andget quotes back quickly so we can takeadvantage of good prices.”

New solutionThe company wanted to find a way ofimproving the efficiency of this process,

that would help it tackle this volume ofwork and free up resources to improvecost control and supplier performance.

Mr Morrell, vice president marineopera¬tions, was the first to suggest theShipServ system to TOTE, having previ-ously had experience with the technologyat another shipping company.

So, in February 2007, TOTE beganusing ShipServ TradeNet – and hasn’tlooked back since.

Today TOTE uses the e-commerce plat-form to send out Requests For Quotes(RFQs) and orders, and with the require-ment to get two or more quotes for everyorder that soon turns into a lot of adminis-tration to manage.

However, TradeNet is directly integrat-ed with the purchasing system in TOTE’sAMOS software package, so everything ishandled electronically with no need tosend faxes or e-mails and manually re-keydata into AMOS.

“Sometimes the orders are over 20pages long,” said Ms Gee. “Not having tomanually key the orders into our purchas-ing system is a real time saver.”

As a result of this change in the pur-chasing process Ms Gee says that she isable to allocate 20 per cent more of hertime looking for single ‘hard-to-find’ itemssuch as parts for older machinery, forwhich she uses the ShipServ Pages onlinesupplier directory.

“Before we had access to Pages it usedto take numerous phone calls around mynetwork of suppliers,” she said.

“What used to take several weeks nowtakes less than a week with Pages. If Ineed to find an item really quickly I usePages to identify the suppliers and then

call them direct.”Using an electronic system also allows

for all of the data generated by the system,which is collected automatically, to beused to create an additional layer of busi-ness intelligence, which Ms Gee says isused to help improve supplier manage-ment processes.

For example, TOTE uses the KeyPerformance Indicator (KPI) data inTradeNet when carrying out supplierevaluations. For Ms Gee, the KPIs provideuseful evidence of how well suppliershave been performing.

“Occasionally a long-standing supplierwill come to me and ask why we aren’tdoing so much business with them any-more,” she said.

“Now I have solid data that tells methat either they weren’t responding quick-ly enough to RFQs or that their pricing’stoo high.”

“As a result of taking the time to dothis we’ve been able to leverage ourspend by negotiating better prices. Nowsome of our suppliers realise that they’vegot competition we’ve been able to rene-gotiate more favourable contracts andframework agreements.”

Looking forward, although TOTE doesn’t insist that its suppliers useShipServ, the company is encouragingsuppliers to look to connect to the networkfor orders.

It is also considering extending the useof TradeNet for managing its shore-basedfacilities’ purchasing needs, as well as pur-chasing for other vessels owned byTOTE’s parent company.

“With TradeNet, all it takes is just oneextra click of the mouse and it saves me

Saving time and money with electronic purchasingThe number of shipping companies using electronic purchasing services is continuing to expand, and with a growing number of success stories the motivation to introduce the technology grows

even stronger. Digital Ship looks at the benefits that Totem Ocean Trailer Express and Crowley Petroleum Services have gained from the move to e-commerce

The purchasing team at TOTE has been able to use the data from the electronic purchasing system to negotiate better prices with suppliers

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SOFTWARE


looking through reams of paper,” saidMs Gee.

“Using TradeNet for even a third of ourorders saves us a lot of time. It’s less bor-ing too!”

Crowley PetroleumServices

Fellow US operator Crowley PetroleumServices is another company to have joinedTOTE on the ShipServ platform, comingonline with the system within 18 months ofTOTE’s introduction of the technology.

Crowley Petroleum Services, whichoperates 100 petroleum barges andtankers, manages its purchasing withteams in Jacksonville, Florida on the eastcoast, and on the west coast in LongBeach, California.

Richard O’Malley is purchasing super-visor for the east coast division, supportedby nine buyers and a warehouse manage-ment team. Together the team managespurchasing for 55 vessels.

Crowley’s move to electronic purchas-ing was based on two major objectives:firstly, to be able to increase the number ofvessels without the need to add more peo-ple in purchasing; and secondly, to reducespending by 2 per cent.

Having first seen the ShipServ system ata trade show, Crowley’s vice president ofprocurement was intrigued enough toinvestigate further, and went to see the sys-tem in use at two other shipping companies.

This was followed by a trial of the e-commerce platform, before Crowleysigned up for TradeNet in August 2008.The system is now integrated withCrowley’s NS5 purchasing system, part ofits software package from ABS NauticalSystems.

Requisitions are sent by the ship man-agers for approval by the port engineers.Approved requisitions are sent on to thebuyers who are then tasked to go out tomarket to find the best deals.

By January 2009 – six months into theimplementation – Crowley had alreadyachieved significant success trading elec-tronically, engaging in electronic tradeswith 46.5 per cent of its 3,900 vendors.

Time savingsOne of the main benefits Crowley has seensince moving to electronic purchasing hasbeen an increase in productivity from itspurchasing team. With additional visibili-ty into the process, the buyers spend lesstime chasing up responses from vendors.

“Time is the biggest saving,” said MrO’Malley.

“We have detailed data that tells us thatthe amount of time we spend per vesseleach week has dropped from 9.2 hours to7.09 hours.”

Crowley says it is now able to track thisto an even higher level of detail: the time itnow takes to convert a requisition to apurchase order has reduced from 33 min-utes to 24.1 minutes – minutes that add upover time.

Being more productive has not onlymeant that the team is able to take on morevessels (currently being added at a rate ofthree per year), but it means that the teamis now more effective.

“Not having to waste time doing thingslike standing by the fax machine allows usto do other parts of our jobs that were

done a bit more haphazardly before,” saidMr O’Malley.

Expediting deliveries is also a majorpart of a buyer’s job at Crowley, but withthe electronic system releasing time spentpreviously on manual purchasing activi-ties, the buyers are now able to be moreproactive in following up delayed ordersand resolving invoice and purchase ordermismatches.

This has had an obvious knock-oneffect on the vessels – in an internal surveyat Crowley the ship crews reported anincrease in the timely arrival of materials.

Although Crowley has not yet quanti-fied the decrease in time the vessels areheld up in port waiting for materials, MrO’Malley is certain that by being moreeffective in expediting orders purchasing

has been able to make a significant contri-bution to avoiding off-hire days.

Buyers are also able to spend more timeworking on contracts and negotiatingmore favourable terms, with more accu-rate vendor performance data readilyavailable in the system.

“We use this data when we conductvendor evaluations,” said Mr O’Malley.

“Our buyers can now point to a ven-dor’s performance with regard toresponse times and prices – this definitelyhelps them negotiate discounts in con-tracts. It’s been a big boon.”

A consequence of these changes hasseen Crowley progressively add more ves-sels and vendors to the TradeNet systemto maximise the potential benefits. In fact,a willingness to use the electronic pur-chasing platform is now part of Crowley’svendor evaluation criteria.

Results like these, at both Crowley andTOTE, are positive examples of how elec-tronic purchasing systems can help toimprove the purchasing function, remov-ing many of the manual tasks involvedand allowing staff to spend more timefinding ways to get better value from theirpartners and suppliers.

From a wider industry perspective, it isstories like these that will drive continuedgrowth in the use of maritime e-commercetechnology – and hopefully lead to evengreater benefits for all of those operatingin digital purchasing.

Ratings and reviewsShipServ is aiming to enhance its e-com-merce platform even further in 2011through the introduction of new servicesto help marine purchasers learn more

about new suppliers they are consideringdoing business with.

With the latest enhancements to thesystem a purchaser looking for spare partsfor products from a certain manufacturerwill soon be able to see if the supplier hasbeen verified by that manufacturer and isauthorised to sell genuine spare parts.

The purchaser can already see whichother marine purchasers that supplier hastransacted with recently, including eitherthe full name of the purchasing company,or the name in general terms (such as ‘aship management company in Germany’).

The purchaser can also see reviewsfrom other purchasers who have actuallytransacted with that supplier.

All of this should help improve confi-dence in electronic commerce – a lack oftrust between trading partners is usuallyone of the biggest obstacles to online trad-ing – if a buyer is asked to transact with asupplier they don’t know at all, just on thebasis of a low quote.

“We're building mechanisms wheretrustworthy suppliers can float to the top,”says ShipServ CEO Paul Østergaard.

As marine purchasers often have tofind new suppliers, to provide a newproduct in a new port, and don’t havetime to investigate them fully, ShipServ ishopeful that this service should speed theprocess up.

Also newly introduced in 2011 is a rat-ing measure called TradeRank, to helpbuyers find new suppliers they can trustas well as helping suppliers to promotethemselves.

Buyers evaluating new suppliers canquickly see the popularity of those suppli-ers based on a 5-star grading system,which ShipServ says will help them tomake more informed decisions.

The same buyers can also see customerreviews on that supplier, as well as theirtrading history.

Every supplier in the ShipServ Pagessupplier directory has its trading historyindicated on the system, based on howmuch they actually trade via ShipServ, thesize of the orders and how many differentbuyers work with that supplier. Alsoreflected is the supplier’s ratio of orderswon to Requests for Quote (RFQs).

So, for example, if you are consideringusing a new Chinese supplier, “if you seethe Chinese supplier is trading with 10companies in Western Europe, that istelling you something,” says ShipServ’sSVP product management, Stuart May.

Without tools like this, a top qualitysupplier in a large market like China canbe buried – but on Pages, “the quality willbe exposed,” adds Mr Østergaard.

ShipServ says that the informationavailable is fully verified, because it isbased on trades which have actually beenconducted over the company’s platform.

After a trade is completed, shippingcompany purchasing managers are givenan opportunity to score the supplier (from1 to 5 stars), on the basis of whether theirpurchase was delivered as described; ontime; and the quality of customer service.

Only companies which have actuallytransacted with the supplier on TradeNetare able to provide reviews.

Based on a survey, ShipServ says that 40per cent of suppliers on TradeNet thoughtonline reviews would be a good thing, and

75 per cent of buyers said they would picka supplier that had better reviews.

“Many review systems are at best mar-ginally useful because you don't knowwho wrote them,” says Mr Østergaard.

ShipServ’s advice to suppliers is thatthey shouldn’t worry about getting one ortwo bad reviews – since everybody hasmishaps – and concentrate on the fact thathaving genuine feedback can actuallyincrease their credibility. The importantthing is that most reviews are positive.

Brand verificationA brand verification tool has also beenintroduced, which simply means that if aship supplier claims on its profile page to bean authorised agent of a brand owner, thenthe brand owner is asked to verify this.

The purchasing manager can see all thebrands which a ship supplier claims to bean agent for, and whether the brandowner has agreed with this.

If a ship supplier falsely claims to be anauthorised agent of a brand, then thebrand owner is able to request that theclaim is removed from the ship supplier’sprofile page.

ShipServ says that the tool has provedvery popular with brand owners so far.

“We haven't met a brand owner thatdidn’t want to take control of their brand,”Mr Østergaard said.

Wärtsilä has been one of the first com-panies to take advantage of this brand ver-ification option, and immediately discov-ered many suppliers incorrectly claimingto be authorised Wärtsilä distributors.

The company was then able to removethese claims from the relevant suppliers’ShipServ Pages profile pages, notesWärtsilä e-solutions consultant TuomoLivonen.

Wärtsilä manages 20 different brands,including companies which it hasacquired, and this tool makes it much eas-ier to manage them, rather than have toresort to lawyer’s letters every time itwants to stop a supplier falsely using aWärtsilä brand.

Wärtsilä transacts “tens of millions ofEuros” over ShipServ TradeNet everyyear, Mr Livonen says.

The company started using ShipServPages itself as a supplier, significantlyexpanding its presence on the directory inDecember 2010.

“In the beginning we were a bit scepti-cal, but our first impressions are positive,”said Mr Livonen. “We can see we havebuyers looking at our services.”

Wärtsilä is very well known as a suppli-er of engines, but it also provides manyother services around the world to themarine and offshore industry which are notso well known, and ShipServ Pages pro-vides an opportunity to advertise those.

Steven Alexander, chief operating offi-cer of the International Marine PurchasingAssociation (IMPA), also says that hisorganisation plans to use the brand verifi-cation tool so it can stop suppliers falselyclaiming to be IMPA members.

IMPA provides a level of policing over itsmembers, for example suspending suppliersfrom the organisation if they use a manufac-turer’s brand without authorisation.

“What we're going to do is use this tomanage the IMPA brand, which is fantas-tic,” said Mr Alexander.

‘We’re building mechanisms wheretrustworthy suppliers can float to the top’

– Paul Østergaard, ShipServ

DS

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p28-44:p26-32.qxd 14/02/2011 14:02 Page 1

ELECTRONICS & NAVIGATION NEWS Digital Ship


www.tidelandsignal.com

Tideland Signal has supplied theCommissioners of Irish Lights (CIL) withthree SeaBeacon 2 System 6 dual-bandracons for applications around the coast of Ireland.

Two of the new racons will mark lighthouses and the third will be fitted to atype 1 buoy which replaces a Lanby (largeautomated navigation buoy) at theCodling station, which is in the Irish Sea.

This completes CIL’s programme towithdraw all MFAs (Major floating aids -both lightships and Lanbies) from Irishwaters. Lanbies were introduced in the1960's to replace lightships.

The Codling Lanby was removed fromstation on July 24th 2010 and wasscrapped. It was replaced by a Type 1 EastCardinal buoy, with a focal plane of over5m, fitted with Tideland's SeaBeacon 2racon, an AIS system and solar-poweredlight with a range of 9nm.

Another SeaBeacon 2 solar-poweredracon has been installed at InishtrahullLighthouse, Ireland's most northerly light-house, which stands on a small island sixmiles north of Malin Head, off the northcoast of Ireland.

Inishtrahull and nearby Tory Islandlighthouse are the two main landfall lightsguiding shipping from the Atlantic.

The same Tideland SeaBeacon 2 solar-

powered racon system will also be used atBull Rock, an offshore station on the SouthWest coast. All Irish stations have beenautomated since 1997 and the majority aremonitored from Dun Laoghaire.

www.kongsberg.com

Dutch maritime training college STC-Group has signed a contract withKongsberg Maritime for the supply ofupgrades to its simulator installations.

The contract consists of extensions andupgrades to the group's full mission andpart task ship's bridge simulators and itsfull mission engine room simulator.

A complete upgrade of the group'sclassroom set of 15 desktop cargo handlingsimulators and 15 desktop engine roomsimulators, including instructor stations forboth classrooms, is also included in thedelivery, in addition to new ship and

engine models for the different simulators. Kongsberg Maritime will install the

latest versions of its ship's bridge simula-tion software and hardware, with theupgrade including an extension of thevisuals and the addition of new naviga-tional instruments including Multiflextouch screen panels.

A range of new high-fidelity hydrody-namic ship models for a greater variationof exercises will also be included in the delivery.

The engine room simulator part of theupgrade will include an upgrade of thegroup's full mission simulator to the latestMAN B&W MC90-V engine, and a class-

room installation of the same model onKongsberg Maritime's latest version of itsBigView touch-screen, an interactivemimic engine room simulator system.

This system features 3D models of theengine room that can be interacted with bytouching the screen.

Also included in this delivery is a con-tainer ship engine simulator model withWärtsila RT-flex common rail engine, spe-cially developed for training on green shipoperations.

STC-Group is investing in upgradingits current chemical, LPG and crude cargohandling simulator for its classroom con-figuration, and, in response to develop-

ments in the Port of Rotterdam, the grouphas also purchased a new LNG cargo han-dling simulator as part of the contract.

"The contract is a part of the EuropeanTransport Academy project partlyfinanced with subsidy from the EuropeanRegional Development Fund," commentsErik Hietbrink, chairman of the board,STC-Group.

"As a major education and traininginstitute, STC-Group evaluates on a regu-lar basis the market for various simulatorapplications, and it appears that no sup-plier is close to offer the fidelity and real-ism as found in Kongsberg Maritime sim-ulation models."

New racons for Ireland

Simulator upgrade for Dutch college

Three new racons will be supplied byTideland under the deal

THE FULL PICTURE

www.lr.org

Lloyd’s Register and Shanghai-basedBestway Marine Engineering Design havecompleted a joint-industry project todevelop a new 'green' bulk carrier, whichthey say has produced results "far exceed-ing expectations".

According to the provisional data fromthe project, the new design for a 35,000dwt bulk carrier will achieve an 18 percent improvement in environmental effi-ciency over comparable previous versionswhen measured against the IMO's EnergyEfficiency Design Index, a method bywhich a ship's CO2 efficiency is measured.

The new 'Emerald' design exceeded tar-gets in a number of key areas - it reducedthe Handysize model's steel weight by 12per cent, making room for more revenue-generating cargo without increasing fuelconsumption (the target was a 10 per centreduction), and also reduced fuel con-sumption by 19.5 per cent (the target was15 per cent).

“This project clearly demonstrates whatcan be achieved through the power oftechnical co-operation,” said Nick Brown,Lloyd's Register's country and marinemanager, China.

“It showcased our technical expertiseand ability to provide timely insightsand support to innovative designerssuch as Bestway right from the initial

design stage.” “This project also highlighted the lead-

ership Bestway is taking in the area of shipdesign. We are confident about workingtogether again with Bestway on safe andefficient designs in the future.”

Both companies have since committedto return to the drawing board to see whatfurther practical gains can be made with35,000-dwt and other ship designs todevelop 'greener' and more efficient ships.

The initial project was started in 2009 toresearch the commercial, functional anddesign feasibility of developing environ-ment-friendly, low-carbon, economicalbulk carriers.

The partners say that owners in Asiaand in Europe are showing interest in thenew vessel designs, and Bestway is apply-ing the design criteria to a number of dif-ferent sized bulk carriers.

"This project demonstrated andstrengthened the strong relationshipbetween Lloyd’s Register and Bestway. Itis an excellent example of effective co-operation between a local design companyand a leading classification society," saidProf Liu Nan, Bestway chairman and gen-eral manager.

"I am sure that with more co-operationour ‘Emerald’ series and other bulk carriership-types will be optimised and all theseship-types will satisfy a growing demandfrom the global ship-owner community."

‘Green’ bulk carrier project completed

p28-44:p26-32.qxd 14/02/2011 14:02 Page 2

while the University will host it and con-tribute pedagogical services.

"The new simulator will be configuredas a work deck offering students crewtraining with the purpose of increasingefficiency and safety in demanding seis-mic vessel operations," explains EinarNielsen, VP projects, PGS.

There will also be an opportunity toconnect the different simulators at theUniversity's Research, Innovation andIndustry Centre, for team training andextended R&D projects.

"This is a significant extension of theSIMAR project, which we launchedtogether with Kongsberg and ChalmersUniversity of Technology in Sweden lastsummer," said Marius Imset, instituteleader at the Faculty of Technology andMaritime Science at the UniversityCollege in Vestfold.

"The new state-of-the-art simulators forthe R&D facility will form the centrepieceof our activity as we look at various waysof improving maritime training in cooper-ation with suppliers and actors in the mar-itime industry, like, for instance, PGS."

"Our end goal is making maritime oper-ations across all sectors safer, more efficientand more environmentally friendly."

www.orbcomm.com

ORBCOMM has noted, in a filing to theUS SEC (Securities and ExchangeCommission), that its ability to providesatellite AIS services has been interruptedas a result of the loss of a satellite.

The last of ORBCOMM's remainingAIS-enabled Quick-Launch satellites(QL3) exhibited communications failuretoward the end of the fourth quarter 2010,according to the statement.

The company notes that all six of itsAIS-enabled satellites, launched in June2008, have already been fully depreciatedor impaired for accounting purposes, andthat ORBCOMM received $44.3 million ofinsurance proceeds with respect to thesesatellites in December 2009.

ORBCOMM’s regular Machine-to-Machine (M2M) messaging service is notimpacted by this event since QL3 had notbeen providing any ORBCOMM messag-ing services since June 2010.

ORBCOMM says it will continue itsefforts to restore commercial-level AISservice in the near term through securingother third-party sources, and that thefinancial impact resulting from this interruption for the first half of 2011 isexpected to be less than $1 million infuture revenues.

The company also plans to launch mul-tiple new satellites, commencing with itsfirst AIS-only satellite under an agree-ment with OHB/Luxspace which isscheduled for launch in the second quar-ter of 2011.

ORBCOMM says that this will then befollowed by the launch of two of the 18more powerful AIS-enabled satellitesplanned for its next generation network.

This plan includes the launch of up tofour (two AIS-only and two OG2) satel-lites in 2011, on three separate launchvehicles. These satellites are expected toprovide improved AIS data service capa-bility significantly beyond what was pre-viously available.


www.kongsberg.com

Vestfold University College has signed aframework agreement with KongsbergMaritime's simulation division to exploreactivities and projects of joint interestwithin the area of research and develop-ment of maritime simulators.

The agreement comprises R&D projectplans and the use of an InteractiveSimulator Laboratory (SIMSAM lab) atVestfold University College, which willserve as an R&D facility.

This will include several R&D projectsinvolving maritime simulators such as theon-going SIMAR project - Simulation ofDemanding Maritime Operations - whichaims to improve simulation training byenhancing the focus on human factors.

Kongsberg Maritime and VestfoldUniversity College are major partners inthe SIMAR-project, in addition to theUniversity in Oslo, Norway and ChalmersUniversity of Technology in Sweden.

Other R&D projects under considera-tion include the fields of communicationand team training for best practice in mar-itime simulation and environmental/fuelefficient surveys for Green Ship training.

Under the agreement KongsbergMaritime will deliver an Offshore VesselSimulator configured as a navigationbridge, which will be used as a test facilityfor the R&D projects at VestfoldUniversity College.

This simulator will be one of the major

components in the planned SIMSAM lab-oratory, part of the University's newOslofjord Research and Innovation Parkand a focus area for the entire maritimecluster in the Oslofjord area in the southof Norway.

The new University Park will also beequipped with a Seismic Vessel Simulator,which will be developed and delivered byKongsberg Maritime.

Petroleum Geo-Services (PGS) will bethe owner of this module, which will serveas a training facility for the company,

ELECTRONICS & NAVIGATION NEWS

Vestfold and Kongsberg in R&D agreement

MCA aims to clarify ECDIS training requirements

Vestfold and Kongsberg aim to work together in the development of maritime simulator systems

ORBCOMM admitsloss of final AIS-enabled satellite

VSTEP has appointed PTTerravision Indonesia as its marketing, sales and implementationpartner in Indonesia. Terravision will beresponsible for business development ofboth VSTEP’s NAUTIS MaritimeSimulators and RescueSim EmergencyResponse Simulators.

VSTEP has also announced a partner-ship with Anacom Eletrônica for dis-tribution of its simulator products inSouth America.

McMurdo has launched a new cor-porate website which showcases its rangeof brands, including Kannad Marine andKannad Aviation products. A documentssection is included, with a catalogue ofsafety information and certification for thefull range, as is a dedicated ‘warranty’page, where customers can register theirwarranty online.

New website for McMurdo

www.ECDISregs.com

The UK's MCA (Maritime and CoastguardAgency) has issued a new MarineInformation Note to assist UK vessel opera-tors in making sure that their navigators arereceiving the right kind of ECDIS training.

Marine Information Note MIN405 (M+F)aims to clarify the type of training that isacceptable for Masters and all Deck Officersof UK flagged vessels which have ECDIS astheir primary means of navigation.

The document outlines the requirementswith regard to completion of both genericand equipment specific ECDIS training,and goes a step further by stating that 'trick-le down' training with regard to equipment

specific training is not acceptable.Mark Broster, managing director of

ECDIS Ltd in the UK, has welcomed themove, saying that “it is commendable tosee that the MCA are upholding [training]standards by insisting on proper training.”

“We know only too well the difficultythat ship-owners, managers and marinersare having in making sense of the plethoraof legislation regarding ECDIS, and thisdocument goes a long way in clarifyingthe position for UK flagged vessels.”

ECDIS Ltd suggests that shipping com-panies should now start planning theirtraining strategy to incorporate genericand equipment specific ECDIS training fortheir crews.

www.vstepsimulation.comwww.mcmurdolimited.com

www.gmdss.info

Australian GMDSS company Dunstan andAssociates reports that it has commis-sioned a new GMDSS shore station inThailand.

The station provides Sea Area A1, A2and A3 services, and is part of theThailand Marine Department’s newVessel Traffic Management andInformation System.

The station is located near the port of

Laem Chabang, south of Bangkok, anduses Barrett HF radios, Tait VHF radiosand the TransOceana DSC system in theprovision of GMDSS services.

The company has previously beeninvolved in a number of other GMDSS sta-tion projects in the Asia-Pacific region.

These have included a GMDSS upgradeto the Government marine radio station inMauritius last year, as well as the creationof other GMDSS stations at Bangka Islandin Indonesia in 2009.

GMDSS station for Thailand

p28-44:p26-32.qxd 14/02/2011 14:02 Page 3

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Digital Ship


www.arisimulation.com

Great Offshore of India has opened a newintegrated offshore vessel and crane han-dling simulation facility, based on systemsprovided by ARI Simulation.

The new simulation package includes acomplete recreation of the bridge of an off-shore vessel, and is equipped with all nav-igation and propulsion control systems aswell as fully integrated GMDSS systems,POSCON controls and DynamicPositioning.

The aft bridge station is equipped withboth ship handling and engineering con-trols to allow for the complete simulationof complex anchor handling operations.

The system has been configured withmultiple controls, including thrustertelegraphs and azimuth systems, whilecustom models of Great Offshore’s ownvessels have also been designed andimplemented - including AHTSVs, PSVsand harbour tugs.

The integrated nature of the installa-tion, combining both shiphandling, navi-gation and operations features, allowsGreat Offshore to conduct simulator train-ing for entire end to end missions.

Visuals are delivered using 9 plasmadisplay screens providing a better than270 degree field of view, and using ARI'slatest version of its graphics system.

“It is the man behind the machine thatmakes the difference,” said Soli Engineer,

executive director of Great Offshore.“We have taken concrete steps to miti-

gate the challenges faced by us in design-ing and building our own indigenous off-shore ship handling and manoeuvringsimulator incorporating the latest tech-nologies into a unique world-class prod-uct. This is the first and only integratedoffshore vessel manoeuvring simulatorEast of Suez.”

Shravan Rewari, CEO of ARI Simulation,also commented: “The Great Offshore sys-tems utilise much of the framework inher-ent in ARI’s comprehensive range of off-shore simulation products - from tightly

Great Offshore opens simulator facility

The new simulator is based on systems supplied by ARI Simulation

integrated process simulation; crane opera-tions, ship handling, navigation, dynamicpositioning, complex heavy lift operations,anchor handling and towing.”

“ARI’s unique physics engine providesa completely realistic solution to the complexities of crane/anchor-handling/towing operations and their dynamiceffects on the stability and handling charac-teristics of the vessels involved.”

“These features - at the forefront oftoday’s technology - combine to make thisinstallation an extremely exciting bench-mark in the challenging world of immer-sive offshore oilfield operations training.”

www.totemplus.com

Totem Plus has launched its new BNWAS(Bridge Navigational Watch AlarmSystem), a system which monitors bridgeactivity and raises alarm if the Officer OnWatch (OOW) becomes incapable of per-forming their duties.

New regulations from IMO will requirecarriage of a BNWAS complying withIMO performance standards.

For existing ships, the equipmentshould be installed in connection with thefirst survey after various deadlines,depending on ship type – 1 July 2012 forpassenger ships and ships over 3,000 GT, 1July 2013 for ships over 500 GT, and 1 July2014 for ships over 150 GT.

New ships over 150 GT and all newpassenger ships constructed after 1 July2011 need to be equipped with a BNWAS.

Totem Plus notes that a unique featureof its particular system is the presence ofwhat it calls a 'burglar alarm' - a securitymode that will trigger an alarm if motionis detected on an unattended and lockedbridge in port.

The BNWAS also offers various typesof alarm options, NMEA output for transfer of the BNWAS status to the VDR,and an 'auto' mode with activation avail-able from an external source (such as anauto pilot).

BNWAS launchedby Totem Plus

p28-44:p26-32.qxd 14/02/2011 14:02 Page 4


ELECTRONICS & NAVIGATION NEWS

www.kongsberg.com

A Korean-built VLCC has been deliveredas the first vessel to feature KongsbergMaritime's new K-Chief 600 marineautomation system, part of an integratedVessel Performance System (VPS) whichaims to help reduce fuel consumption andlower emissions.

The K-Chief 600 system was firstannounced early in 2010, with a pilot proj-ect aboard 'MV Sia' completed in May 2010.

Following this first delivery of a vesselsailing with K-Chief, Kongsberg says that italready has installations scheduled foranother 80 K-Chief systems, aboard furtherVLCCs, Ro-PAX vessels, container shipsand crude oil tankers.

The K-Chief 600 system includes touchscreen and split screen capabilities, contextMini trends, a 7 days full trend system, anda new Human Machine Interface (HMI).

"The new HMI has been developed tomeet ongoing demands from the industry

www.photonicsecuritysystems.com

Photonic Security Systems (PSS) haslaunched a new non-lethal pirate defence sys-tem, the LDS100, based on laser technology.

The LDS100 aims to prevent piratesfrom approaching a ship by sending a 10metre wide multi-band laser light beam,up to a distance of 1 km, to dazzle thepotential intruders and disable them fromlocating and boarding the ship.

The system is located in the ship’s hull, tomake it difficult for the intruder to disable it,and incorporates a twin laser system, with thecommand centre mounted inside the bridge.

The laser optics are mounted on swivel-ling and tilting tracking cameras. These arethen mounted on brackets on each side of thevessel, to enable it to track the incoming craft.

The technology utilises multi colourchannels that are blended via a transmittercontrol unit and then directed to a lens

through a fibre optic cable. When activated and directed at an incom-

ing craft, the multi-colour laser should createenough difficulty for the attackers to allowthe ship’s Captain to take a suitable evasivecourse of action to minimise further attacks.

“The problems of piracy at sea havebeen prevalent for some years, with manyships and crews having been heldhostage,” said Paul Kerr, PSS.

“At PSS we believe we have developeda new commercial product that will assistto reduce piracy at sea.”

“The LDS100’s laser beam will tem-porarily stun the intruders and enable theCaptain to take evasive action. A few sec-onds can make all the difference.”

Each unit package is built to suit thevoltage supply available onboard and tothe requirements of the ship. The units canbe linked to threat detection devices orthermal imaging equipment if required.

www.actisense.com

www.nobeltec.com

Actisense and Nobeltec have announcedthat have collaborated in a project to inte-grate NMEA 2000 technology intoNobeltec software packages.

Nobeltec is a developer of PC-basedmarine navigation software programmesand a supplier of electronic charts, hard-ware, and accessories.

The Nobeltec NMEA 2000 Gateway(NGT-1-NBL) has been designed to trans-fer NMEA 2000 data from the NMEA2000 bus to PCs running the Nobeltec

VNS 11 and Admiral 11 navigation soft-ware programmes.

"It has been a wonderful experienceworking with the great people atActisense to build the Nobeltec NMEA2000 PC Gateway (NGT-1-NBL)," com-mented Bill Washburn, product managerat Nobeltec.

"The Nobeltec NMEA 2000 PC Gateway,powered by Actisense is based on the NGT-1 a great, award winning product. We atNobeltec look forward to continuing thegreat relationship between our two compa-nies and developing additional innovativeand award winning products."

for modern HMIs on critical systems suchas navigation and automation," says BenteLise Melås, VP integrated automation,merchant marine division, KongsbergMaritime.

"The K-Chief 600 HMI offers a numberof improvements, including upgradedalarm presentation, multiple palettes, splitscreen with up to four resizable views,improved operation dialogues with inte-grated mini trends, flexible tabular viewswith sorting, filtering and optionalcolumns selection, custom views and bet-ter data handling to name but a few."

"Together, these enhancements providea user-friendly experience that contributesto the safety and efficiency of any vessel."

The Kongsberg Maritime VPS aboardthe new build VLCC, fully integrated withthe K-Chief 600, analyses all aspects of thevessel's energy use including speed, trimand weather conditions in real time.

It also includes fuel and engine per-formance monitoring systems, for onlineanalysis and prediction of main enginefailures before they may occur. The VPSharmonises previously disparate vesselperformance applications offered byKongsberg Maritime and its partners intoa single station.

VLCC delivered with new automation system

The Korean-built vessel is the first to feature the K-Chief 600 marine automation system

Laser system introduced to foil pirates

Collaboration on NMEA 2000 interface

www.veripos.com

Veripos has been awarded a five-year con-tract for positioning services by offshorecompany POSH Semco of Singapore.

Under the terms of the contract,Veripos will provide 19 DP POSH Semcovessels with a combination of proprietarypositioning services, including its UltraPrecise Point Positioning (PPP) facility fordecimetre-level accuracies.

Existing Veripos hardware, alreadyoperational aboard most of the fleet, willbe upgraded and standardised over the coming year with installation of LD2-G2 integrated mobile receivers onnine vessels.

POSH Semco operates globally with afleet of more than 90 vessels, and withanother 20 vessels to be delivered over thenext three years.

Its expanded fleet will comprise deep-water Anchor Handling Tugs (AHT),Anchor Handling Tug/Supply (AHTS)and Accommodation Vessels, CraneBarges, Offshore Utility craft, AzimuthingTerminal Tugs, Oil Storage Barges andBallastable Tank Barges.

www.ecdisregs.com

A new ECDIS website has beenlaunched which aims to provide ECDISrelated information to the mariner tomake current legislation clearer and eas-ier to understand.

The ECDISregs.com website has been created with help and supportfrom international sources and in con-junction with ECDIS training company,ECDIS Ltd. Information is provided freeof charge.

“Finding relevant ECDIS legislationcan be frustrating and time consuming,

so this new website aims to provide all relevant information in one place,” commented Mark Broster,ECDIS Ltd.

“The site is supplemented withexpert comment provided by the ECDISLtd team in order to help the marinernavigate and understand the mass oflegislation that exists. The service is freeto view, and has already proven to bevery popular.”

ECDISregs.com will include a libraryof regulations, publications and docu-mentation pertaining to ECDIS andrelated subjects.

POSH contractfor Veripos

ECDIS website launched

www.raytheon-anschuetz.sg

Raytheon Anschuetz Singapore reportsthat it is to supply navigational bridgeequipment to two 75 metre multipur-pose offshore support vessels being con-structed at Nam Cheong Dockyard, anda 60 metre AHTS newbuild which willbe constructed at the Berjaya shipyard,both in Malaysia.

The two DP2 offshore support vesselsare expected to be completed in spring2011 and will provide anchor handlingcapability and accommodation for up to220 people when conducting offshoremaintenance works.

The contract comprises a redundantAnschütz Standard 22 gyro compassand NautoPilot 2025 autopilot system,NSC Radars, as well as the full packageof sensors and radio communicationequipment for sea area A3.

Raytheon Anschuetz Singapore willbe responsible for system integration ofthe new equipment in accordance withABS class rules.

The other contract covers the supplyof gyro compass, autopilot, sensors,radio equipment and radar system inte-gration to the 60 metre AHTS newbuildto be delivered from Berjaya.

“Thanks to our engineer's deep expe-rience in interfacing, even with othermakers’ equipment, RaytheonAnschuetz Singapore has proven itselfin providing turn-key navigation solu-tions according to individual require-ments and classification rules,” com-mented Jan Lötzsch, managing directorof Raytheon Anschuetz Singapore.

“With our large spares depot andmanufacturer-trained technicians wehave best qualifications for reliable aftersales service.”

Raytheon to supply Malaysian newbuilds

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Maritime IT companies Seagull and MARIS have worked together to create what they say is the firstcomputer based training system for ECDIS that is product-specific, in this case on MARIS ECDIS

Product-specific onboard ECDIS CBT launched


ELECTRONICS & NAVIGATION

MMARIS and Seagull have reachedan agreement to develop aproduct-specific computer-

based training ECDIS (Electronic ChartDisplay and Information System) module.

Seagull’s existing ECDIS onboard train-ing course includes training in the use ofECDIS and its various information fea-tures, as well as the application and man-agement of electronic charts.

Under the new agreement, Seagull willre-design the MARIS ECDIS900Application Trainer to be included in theSeagull library of CBT modules.

It will be available as a ‘ProductSpecific Training’ module to cover the lat-est revisions to STCW, working onSeagull’s existing CBT-based trainingadministrator.

The MARIS ECDIS900 CBT modulewill be available as part of softwarereleased by Seagull, as well as being phys-ically delivered and supported technicallyby Seagull.

“This course is the same as the genericonboard ECDIS course from Seagull, but ithas been amended with an ApplicationsTrainer for the MARIS ECDIS,” saidSeagull managing director Roger Ringstad.

“[The new software] will have the sameassessment mechanism built in as the stan-dard Seagull CBT modules, while theworkbook will be the same as for the stan-dard ECDIS course.”

The training system will be availablevia an annual subscription per ship andupgraded for as long as the subscription isheld, and will be based on self-tuition bynavigating officers while onboard.

Orders may come from the Seagull net-work or from MARIS, with MARIS dis-tributors able to sell the system and routetheir orders to MARIS, which will in turnpass the orders on to Seagull.

Training using the application should beperformed under supervision of the ship’sMaster or an approved assessor, and sup-ported by an ECDIS Onboard Workbook.

The ship’s Master or the approved asses-sor will confirm that the candidate has per-formed satisfactorily, endorse the coursetraining records and send them to theSeagull Training Centre for assessment.

There, an instructor will verify that acomplete set of documents has beenreceived and that all training records andwritten responses to the workbook meetthe required minimum standard.

On completion of these steps theinstructor will issue and submit to the ves-sel a course certificate.

Product-specific trainingMr Ringstad believes that that the need forproduct-specific ECDIS training cannotnow be ignored as the first ECDIS manda-tion deadline in 2012 looms ever closer.

“Used by qualified navigators thesesystems increase the safety of naviga-tion,” he said.

“However in the hands of unqualifiedoperators they may contribute to misun-derstandings and even accidents.Understanding the philosophy, limita-tions and features of ECDIS is a must.”

ECDIS onboard training is both effec-tive and cost saving, said Mr Ringstad,since the seafarer is already in situ anddoes not incur any travel or accommoda-tion expenses.

At the same time the candidate can betrained in the use of the specific ECDISsystem and equipment configurationonboard.

“Shore-based ECDIS facilities can hard-ly offer the type of product-specific train-ing that key Flag States are increasinglyseeking, because there are too many dif-ferent ECDIS makers and an unlimitednumber of software versions and systemconfigurations,” he said.

“ECDIS training has reached a cross-roads and ship owners need to be readyfor compulsory ECDIS. We are preparingto take our generic ECDIS training pack-age forward so that it can be product-spe-cific, in order to speed up the ability ofship owners to meet what will becomestatutory obligations.”

MARIS deputy chief executive (corpo-rate) Steinar Gundersen echoed the viewthat training at sea may be the only viableoption to ensure competence in theECDIS-mandated world.

“As has been the case in other forms oftraining for some time, the future ofECDIS training is onboard ship,” he said.

“As the first in the world to offer prod-uct-specific ECDIS training throughSeagull, we will meet the IMO modelcourse 1.27 and be certified to replace lessefficient training ashore.”

Seagull says it is also open to develop-ing product-specific training packagesfor other ECDIS suppliers and hasalready been approached by half a dozen

potential partners.“Currently, this agreement is unique

to the industry, but I am sure its signifi-cance will not be lost on regulators, shipowners and other manufacturers,” saidMr Ringstad.

Additional productsSeparate from this agreement, MARIS andSeagull have also both announced newindividual technology developments inother areas.

MARIS says it has secured what itbelieves to be the world’s first typeapproval certification for an independentPC-based radar kit to meet the new RadarPerformance Standard MSC.192 (79).

The certification recognises the MARISRadar Kit as an integral part of a Radarsystem, type approved to the latest stan-dards associated with Radar TestStandard IEC 62388.

The new Radar Performance Standard,coupled with Radar Test Standard IEC62388, together encompass performancerequirements for marine radar, particularlyin terms of target detection in adverseweather conditions where small targets areoften barely visible to the radar system.

Certification of the MARIS radar kitwill now allow third parties to easily adda PC-based radar to an integrated naviga-tion system, as an OEM product.

The kit includes a PCI card (Radarinterface board, or RIB) and the necessaryradar software, and operates on aMicrosoft XP platform in a PC environ-ment. As such, MARIS says it has thecapability to interface with the majority ofleading radar and navigation sensors.

“The new Radar Standards require thatany approved radar must be tested as asystem and therefore, where appropriate,it is also necessary for equipment integrat-ing with the radar kit to be tested and cer-tified by an approved test authority,” saidMr Gundersen.

“MARIS is able to provide advice andsupport to achieve this approval status, andthe radar kit has been specifically designedto offer a degree of flexibility for customrequirements, including the HMI (humanmachine interface), recognising the needfor diverse yet compliant products.”

IMSBCSeagull’s other development is the intro-duction of a new CBT module that incor-porates the regulatory changes madethrough the International Maritime SolidBulk Cargoes (IMSBC) Code, that becamemandatory under the SOLAS Conventionfrom January 1st, 2011.

The new Code, which covers the load-ing, discharge and transportation by seaof dry bulk cargoes, replaces the Code ofSafe Practice for Solid Bulk Cargoes (TheBC Code), and has to be followed by allbulk carriers.

Working with South Tyneside College,

Seagull has completely revised its previ-ously BC Code-compliant training modulein order to implement the necessarychanges and bring it in line with the newIMSBC Code.

The new IMSBC Code CBT moduleincorporates a total of 12 chapters, dealingwith different aspects of the Code, introduc-ing best practice and also setting out opti-mum safety measures for the loading, dis-charge and carriage of solid bulk cargoes.

In particular, the training modulefocuses on the particular requirements inrespect of solid bulk cargoes that are liableto self heat and thereby combust, and howto maintain the structural stability of theship by eliminating stresses on bulkheadsand other parts of the vessel.

Seagull's Captain Jim Dibble notes thatthe company has designed the new moduleto be useful from a practical point of viewfor seafarers onboard bulk carriers, ratherthan being too complicated or legalistic.

“The new training module allows sea-farers to grasp the new IMSBC require-ments in an intuitive way, so they canmore easily comprehend what is nowrequired of them,” he explained.

Taking about two hours to complete,Seagull’s IMSBC Code CBT also givespractical examples of real situations thathave occurred on bulkers in the past.

“We have illustrated the dangers of non-compliance with actual accidents or inci-dents that have occurred within the indus-try. Introducing real scenarios helps focusthe minds of seafarers on the task in handwhich will ensure the safety of themselvesand their colleagues, as well as the safety ofthe vessel itself,” said Captain Dibble.

At the end of each of the chapters thereis an assessment section which will enableseafarers to get a good idea of the level ofunderstanding they have reached.

The results of this assessment can alsobe accessed by the company’s trainingadministrators, via a database, so that theycan see how much of the training has beencompleted and the level of comprehensionthat has been achieved.

“One of the strengths of the Seagulltraining package is that it allows theowner or operator to assess not only thetraining but also how it is taking placeonboard the vessel,” said Captain Dibble.

“As well as being highly cost effective, italso allows shore-based staff to continuous-ly monitor the progress that is being made.”

Seagull's new IMBSC CBT training mod-ule is aimed primarily at seafarers sailingon bulk carriers, particularly those atSTCW Management and Operation levelwho are involved with cargo operations.

Captain Dibble says however, that itcan also be a useful tool for managementat the shore-based offices of shipownersand operators as it can give staff in theselocations a detailed view of the issuesinvolved in loading, discharging andtransporting these types of cargoes. DS

‘The future of ECDIS training is onboardship’ – Steinar Gundersen, MARIS

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AA s a historical comparison, theonset of ECDIS could be said tobe as significant as putting

steam powered engines and propellerson sailing ships.

The comfort blanket of the much lovedand respected paper chart is fast disap-pearing and being replaced by a digitalequivalent. Some embrace this new tech-nology and others fear it.

It is therefore not surprising that therapid advance of this new technologymeans there are large numbers of shipsnavigating with paper charts and ECDIS,or in historical parlance, navigating withsails and engines.

This will no doubt continue until ade-quate training, equipment efficiencies andtrust in ECDIS equipment warrants theremoval of ‘sails’.

For those that distrust these systems,much of the distrust can be put down to alack of the proper training that wouldgive the operator the ability and confi-dence to use the equipment efficientlyand effectively.

The need for training is justified by thelarge numbers of ECDIS related incidentsat sea. We all read about these incidentsand with the benefit of hindsight passjudgement, but this could be you joininga ship with ECDIS, without adequatetraining.

Ask yourself whether you would beable to utilise the system safely and effec-tively? Are you willing to take the risk ofnot conducting adequate training?

One thing is certain, when used byproperly trained operators ECDIS pro-vides enormous benefit for the marinerover existing paper charts.

Such benefits include:� Increase in spatial awareness and effi-

ciency – This ultimately means the operator has more time to look out of the window.

� Fusion of navaid information – Pools information feeds to assist in compil-ing your picture (e.g. Radar Image Overlay (RIO), AIS and NAVTEX).

� Increased safety in dangerous condi-tions – If you can prove the ECDIS derived position correct you can judge yourself to the nearest point of danger very accurately.

� Fast, accurate passage planning and re-planning

� Automated, fast, accurate chart updates

It is my opinion that the concept of ECDISsystems can be likened to that of radarsets.

Radar sets are subtly different in theway they look and the software they use,but on the whole they all contain much thesame functionality. The challenge is toknow where to find that functionality onthe system you are using.

The existence of multiple systems infleets makes this challenge greater,although for those that are waiting for theday all ECDIS menus look the same do notget too excited. One only needs to look atradar which has been around for decadesto see that it is highly unlikely.

It is therefore incumbent on the pur-chaser to choose their ECDIS system withcare so they have the functionality to meetthe task (minimum performance stan-dards laid down in IMO A.817(19)).

Furthermore, it is essential that ade-quate training is available so the operatoris able to get the most out of their ECDISand understand both capabilities and lim-itations of the equipment.

Playing around with an ECDIS for acouple of hours is not enough to warrantnavigating with it. There is no substitutefor proper training.

I have listed some advantages of ECDISover paper charts, but what does ECDISoffer the operator in terms of functionality

and time saving during the RoutePlanning process (Appraisal, Planning,Execution and Monitoring), and what arethe shortfalls of using such systems forthis purpose?

DataFirstly, without data an ECDIS system isuseless. It is the quality of data within itthat is the basis for navigational safety.

It may therefore be prudent for thewould-be ECDIS purchaser to choose aquality, reliable data product first beforepurchasing an ECDIS that can utilise it,rather than the other way round.

There are two different types of dataproduct available for use in ECDIS, Rasterand Vector charts.

Raster charts are high quality scans ofpaper charts whereas Vector charts aredatabases that use ‘objects’ in the databaseto create a customised display.

There are official variations of eachdata type, called Raster NavigationalCharts (RNC) and Electronic NavigationCharts (ENC). Both terms sound non-spe-cific but are in fact very specific.

RNCs, by definition, are official chartsas their official status is based on thepremise that they must be constructed inaccordance with IHO publication S-61 i.e.standardised and issued by a governmentauthorised Hydrographic Office (HO).

ENCs, by definition, are official vectorcharts as their official status is based onthe premise that they must be constructedin accordance with IHO publication S-57i.e. standardised and issued by a govern-ment authorised HO.

With the existence of Private data pro-duced by companies independent of HOsit is prudent to tread with caution in order

to ensure that your data product is official.When installed with data, ECDIS sys-

tems can utilise a number of differentproducts of both RNC and ENC format tosuit the mariner’s needs.

The system is also capable of giving vis-ibility of holdings so that you can seewhich charts are available within yoursystem folio. This can be displayed as a listof available charts or as in Figure 1, as anoverlay similar to that shown in a chartcatalogue.

However, the shortfall of the systemwith regards to data is that ENC coverageof the world is incomplete. Therefore, ifyour route is not entirely covered byENCs, then in accordance with IMOCircular 207 the mariner must utilise anappropriate combination of ENCs, RNCsand paper charts to execute the route.

Thus, not only does it require carefulplanning with regard to data use, but alsogreat expense for the mariner.

Here are some considerations whenusing data:� What data products can your ECDIS

utilise (SENC data such as TADS?)� Do you have sufficient coverage of

ENCs for your route?� If you do not have sufficient coverage

of ENCs, do you have sufficient RNCs?

� If using RNCs you are in RCDS mode and you will require an ‘appropriate’ folio of paper charts in accordance with IMO Circular 207

� What is your Flag State definition of ‘appropriate’ folio of paper charts?

� The operator must ensure the system prioritises the correct chart data type (ENC/RNC). Know how your system prioritises data.

ECDIS is a powerful tool that offers a range of benefits to the modern navigator – but only if applied correctly andwith adequate knowledge of the system’s capabilities and limitations. Paying close attention to the ECDIS

fundamentals can make a big difference, writes Malcolm Instone, ECDIS Ltd

ECDIS – Capabilities and Limitations

Figure 1 – Overlay of catalogue of available charts

Figure 2 – Cell information


Digital Ship

p28-44:p26-32.qxd 14/02/2011 14:03 Page 10



Advantages – andcaveats

An obvious advantage when using ENCsis the ability to interrogate it to view infor-mation on the cell and objects within thecell (see Figure 2 on previous page).Effectively, it provides access to an ency-clopaedia of information that the operatorcan access.

In future this may include the integra-tion of a huge number of informationsources such as Admiralty List of Lights &Fog Signals (ALLFS), for example, in orderthat all relevant information is available atthe operator’s fingertips.

However, before you get excited atthe prospect, there is a lot of workrequired before this vision is achieved.Moreover, access to this information onECDIS systems is not yet as user friendlyas it could be.

For example, it is not always possible toget a sufficient explanation of an object,particularly when interrogating ECDISChart1 and it can take a long time to findthe information required.

Many systems do not prioritise theinterrogated object at the top of the list ofthose available in the cell and as such itcan take time to cycle through the listbefore you find what you are looking for.

It should be noted that although RNCsare scans of paper charts, when interrogat-ed they also provide limited informationabout the chart such as Title, Scale,Projection and Updates, but objects withinit cannot be interrogated.

Some systems offer additional databas-

es such as tidal curves (see Figure 3) andprediction data to aid in calculating HW,LW, tidal heights and predicted TS.

However, before committing to suchdatabases, it is worth considering wherethe data is from, whether it is official dataand if or how it can be updated.

Not all Flag States approve data pro-vided by ECDIS manufacturers, withsome stating that only Admiralty TotalTide (ATT) is acceptable (most systems areable to integrate ATT).

The environmental data in some sys-tems may be official, in that it has beenpurchased from official sources, but itdoes not necessarily state exactly where itis from, so be careful.

Some systems are able to provide theirown database of worldwide ports andport information to aid the Mariner, whilstothers can be integrated with existing pub-lications such as Lloyd’s Fairplay.

If utilising databases provided by themanufacturer then consider how the data-base is updated and whether informationcan be updated by the user as changesoccur.

Another great advantage of the ECDISis its ability to highlight a given SafetyContour based on a set Safety Depth.ECDIS uses an operator configured safetydepth to display a safety contour that dif-ferentiates safe water from that which isunsafe.

However, the lack of contour data cur-rently available within ENCs means theoperator is not yet able to fully harmonisethe Safety Contour with the Safety Depth.

Passage planningRoute creation on an ECDIS can be fiddlyand frustrating to start with, but whenpractised makes the process much quicker.

For example, if you were constructing aGreat Circle route on paper charts it wouldbe fair to say that this would require knowl-edge, skill and a significant amount of time!However, constructing a Great Circle routeon ECDIS takes seconds as waypoints areplaced at the click of a button.

Moreover, there is no need to rub outyour past track and re-plan or transferwaypoints from one scale of chart toanother as waypoints are placed on allavailable charts for its position.

Once the Route is complete you are pre-sented with all the information relevant tothe route. Enter your ETD and it will cal-culate your arrival time based on plannedspeed or enter your ETA and it will calcu-late when you need to depart.

If you enter your ETD and ETA the sys-tem can calculate the necessary speedrequired to meet the ETA i.e. SOA. Somesystems can calculate the effect of tide onyour route timings and even calculateUnder Keel Clearance based upon anentered draught.

Once the plan is derived it can be savedand used again and again or even copied todisc and shared amongst a Fleet of ships.

Fugro Seastar AS, Oslo, Norway Tel: +47 21 50 14 00 Fax: +47 21 50 14 01 E-mail: [email protected] Web: www.fugroseastar.no

Know where you’re going

MarineSTAR assists manoeuvring in restricted waters and confined port areas. Quay distance calculation aids berthing of large vessels.

M in

The MarineSTAR Manoeuvring System provides high accuracy position, course and speed - both in the forward direction and athwartships.

MarineSTAR can be integrated within ships bridge systems to provide stable accurate, position course and speed data. This is especially valuable to ships using electronic charting.

▪

▪▪

Figure 3 – Tidal curves

p28-44:p26-32.qxd 14/02/2011 14:03 Page 11


Digital Ship

tem. If your system offers the ability toconfigure the search beyond set parame-ters, ensure that what you want the sys-tem to search for is selected.

Also, when checking the route it isimportant to ensure that the correct dis-play setting is selected (see Figure 4).

In the left hand screenshot the system isin the Standard display and the routecheck is highlighting a Danger, although itis not shown. In the right hand screenshotthe display has been set to Custom andIsolated Dangers have been selected fordisplay. The highlighted symbol is nowdisplayed (non-dangerous wreck).

Another frustration when using ECDISsystems to check a route is that it may high-light the same danger on multiple occa-sions without recourse for the operator toclear the specific danger in one action.

When conducting the check of theroute, the system will only check ENCsand not RNCs, unless there are manualalarmable constructs within the XTD.

The inability of most systems to high-light gaps in ENC coverage for your routetherefore necessitates that a manual check

on the best scale charts be conducted for theentire route. Note that this can be time con-suming but comes highly recommended!

Once the Route has been checked, addi-tional information pertinent to the routecan be added. The system can even be con-figured to alert the operator of suchnotices.

Considerations at this stage are howbest to display the information so that itcan be clearly seen by the operator.

Note that the font size is constrained onmany systems and symbology is also lim-ited. Personally, I used to favour a ‘cloudand arrow’ approach on paper charts todraw attention to supplementary informa-tion, but this is not necessarily available asa symbol in ECDIS.

You must therefore make use of what-ever is available and what works for you.Perhaps technology will allow the use oflight pens to add such information infuture?

Interpreting informationIt is essential that the system is set up cor-rectly prior to executing the route or

important information will not be dis-played. This relates to settings for dis-play, data for the vessel itself and theconfiguration of Alarms on systems thatallow it.

For display purposes, the amount ofinformation must be configured prior toexecuting the route and for this purpose 3 types of display must be available foruse with ENCs; S52 Base, Standard andAll Other.

The ‘Base’ display (Figure 5, left screen-shot) provides a minimal amount of infor-mation and represents data that cannot beremoved from the display. As such, theBase display does not provide enoughinformation for safe navigation.

The ‘Standard’ display (Figure 5, centrescreenshot) incorporates the Base displayplus additional features to provide a moreappropriate display for safe navigation

Figure 4 – Standard display versus Custom display

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1. Screen into ‘large’ or ‘planning’ screen format.

2. Orientate the chart to show the beginning and end of the route to get a ‘big handful’ feel for the route.

3. Create a blank canvas by hiding all old routes, constructs etc.

4. Begin with waypoint plotting in the general area of the start and end of the route.

5. Select either Rhumb Line or Great Circle route etc.

6. Zoom in to a more appropriate scale to modify the start and finish waypoints and ‘massage’ way-points to account for TSS etc.

7. Ensure that you have adequate XTD for the various legs of your route to take into account the nature of the environment and expected possible deviations, lat-eral separation from the route and collision avoidance.

8. Check Zones of Confidence (ZOC) or Source Data Diagrams and amend the route or highlight as necessary.

9. Set Safety Depth and Safety Contour values.

10. Conduct a system check of the route at an appropriate XTD to allow for deviations, collision avoidance etc.

11. Once all alarms have been checked and verified, check the route in its entirety on 1:1 scaleby manually scrolling along it.

12. Add relevant additional informa-tion and manual corrections.

13. Double check Distance / ETD / ETA and Tidal Constraints.

14. Protect the route as necessary and save a back up.

15. If updates are installed prior to sailing or during the execution of the route, ensure that the route is checked again, as updates may affect it.

ECDIS routeplanning tips

However, the route planning functionvaries between systems with some beingeasier to use than others. Furthermore,some systems lack functionality withregard to producing Great Circle routes.

For example, not all are able to split thecurved line into individual Rhumb Lines,whereas other systems provide detailedoptions such as limiting latitudes, numberof segments, length of segment etc. Itmust also be noted that not all systems cancalculate SOA based upon an entered ETDand ETA.

Once a route is planned ECDIS systemsalso have the ability to check the plannedroute for dangers.

However, be careful as the check onlylooks within the Cross Track Distance(XTD) or Corridor of the route, so ensurethat it is correctly configured to cover therequired area. The wider the XTD themore alarms will be generated, althoughthis is not a reason to reduce it below whatis required.

The check looks for set parameterswhich could be system defined as well asoperator defined, depending on the sys-

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(note it does not include Soundings). The ‘All Other’ display (Figure 5, right

screenshot) presents all layers of data andI would suggest that this provides toomuch information for effective navigation.This is because the volume of data shownclutters the display making it difficult tosee safety critical information.

Therefore, most manufacturers providean extra display category, normally called‘Custom’ that allows the operator to con-figure their display to incorporate infor-mation between Base and All Other.

Some systems also allow the saving ofsuch displays so that the operator can cus-tomise displays for all environments suchas Pilotage, Coastal, Open Ocean,Anchoring etc., selecting them as andwhen required.

However, due to the sheer volume ofsettings and configuration that is possible,it is recommended that check-off cards beproduced to cover all environments.

Remember, too much information is asdangerous as too little.

The system auto-filter also means thatunless you are navigating on the best scalechart, you will not see all the informationavailable for display. Therefore, whenzooming out the system will automatical-ly deselect certain features from displaysuch as Soundings, Lights andTopographical detail.

The only way to ensure that your dis-play is not affected by SCAMIN (ScaleMinimum) is to always ensure you arenavigating on the best scale chart! It istherefore essential that the operatorknows how to select the best scale chart ontheir system.

Positioning andnavigation

The ECDIS system tirelessly fixes andrecords ship position based upon the pri-mary fixing system (GPS or DGPS), whilst

searching the track ahead for risky or evendangerous conditions such as TrafficSeparation Schemes, charted wrecks andshoal patches.

The system is also capable of loadingcharts automatically as you execute yourpassage, based upon ship position.

Additionally, ECDIS also offers highlevels of confidence by fusing different fix-ing modes (GPS/Visual/RIO) into onedisplay. Manual fixing functionality isalso provided, although some systemsprovide more functionality in this regardthan others.

If the positional information is accurate,the system can be used to give valuableinformation about a ship’s position whenturning in confined conditions.

Some manufacturers have developedprecise navigation tools such as theDocking Mode function that allows detailedinformation on the forces at work on thevessel to be viewed in a separate panel.

Furthermore, functions such as aPredictor can also be used to predict thefuture position of the ship based uponreal-time influences on the vessel such aswind, tidal stream, acceleration and decel-eration and Hydro-dynamic data (seeFigure 6, next page).

When used correctly, both are excellenttools to reassure the operator of what isbeing seen out of the window – “this looksa bit tight, we need to put more wheel on– ECDIS concurs...”

ENC updatingThe days of updating and correctingcharts in the charthouse are numbered,but do not ditch those tracings just yet.

In my experience the one component ofECDIS that is guaranteed to ruin your dayis the inability to update your system orinstall charts. Remember, it takes time andsystem knowledge to complete installa-tion and updating effectively.

Figure 5 – ‘Base’ display, ‘Standard’ display, and ‘All Other’ display

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Digital Ship

It is worthwhile timing how long ittakes your system to conduct a small andlarge update so that you are aware of thetimescales involved. Remember, afterupdating the system you will need tocheck your route again to check for new dangers.

Ensure that you are getting your week-ly permit updates and that they are updat-ed prior to any charts. Furthermore, beextremely careful when using USB sticksand CDs to transfer information betweensystems and computers as ECDIS systems

lack virus protection. It is recommended therefore that the

transfer of information between systemsonly occurs within the LAN and that anyUSBs or CDs are virus checked prior tobeing used.

It is also prudent to back-up your system regularly. This undoubtedly needs to be carefully controlled in ship’sprocedures.

If you are considering linking yourECDIS to the internet for chart updatingpurposes, consider the following:

� Do you need to? Do you have an adequate feed of information from navaids such as NAVTEX and a sys-tem in place to plot it on the ECDIS? If so, do you require such a connection?

� How effective is the anti-virus fire-wall? If operating ECDIS and a virus prevents the ship from sailing (or worst case causes an accident) the decision to link to the internet will soon be questioned.

� Will the system cease safety monitor-ing for the period it is updating?

� What is the cost of updating via inter-net connection?

� Will the system automatically high-light new updates so the operator can view their relevance relative to the planned route?

ECDIS systems are designed and built byengineers. This is not a derogatory state-ment, but it is my opinion that more cur-rent mariner knowledge is required inorder to provide the mariner with a better,more user friendly product.

The systems contain far more function-ality than is needed and are not yet asergonomic and user friendly as they couldbe. Moreover, inadequate training isresponsible for a large number of colli-

sions and groundings as operators areover-reliant on ECDIS and simply do notunderstand the shortfalls of such systems.

However, ECDIS systems are a revolu-tion and do go a long way in making nav-igation safer and easier, but only if:� The operator uses the system correctly.� The operator configures the system

correctly.� The operator understands the capa-

bilities and limitations of the system in use.

� The operator is not over-reliant on GPS or on the ECDIS system.

� The operator utilises spare capacity by looking out the window and assessing the integrity of navigation aids and equipment.

� The operator manages and supervises the system adequately.

Like it or not, ECDIS is coming and formost deck officers it is a case of embrace itor risk becoming irrelevant on the bridgeof a ship.

For both types of mariner I recommendconfronting the problem head on by con-ducting approved training and learning as much as possible about these systems. It is cringe worthy but true - train hard,navigate easy!

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Bremerhaven:Am Seedeich 39D-27572 BremerhavenPhone +49 (471) 9 72 63-0Fax +49 (471) 9 72 63-33Email [email protected]

Your successful systemintegrator for:

Navigation Systems

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Figure 6 – Predicting future position

About the authorMalcolm Instone is director of operations and standards with ECDIS Ltd,a company offering advice on various aspects on the transition to ECDIS,as well as a range of accredited training courses (www.ecdis.org). Screen-shots used in this paper are courtesy of Transas and Kelvin Hughes.

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IIMO is on course to agree the imple-mentation plan for e-navigation bythe end of 2012, having been working

on the concept since 2006. Through necessity, e-navigation will be

an evolutionary process but eventually itwill revolutionise the way that ships arehandled and navigated compared to thepractices in use today.

To many this could be a surprisingstatement. Surely e-navigation is builtaround user requirements and these arefirmly based around existing practices?

User requirements are typicallyembraced by such aspects as the improvedintegrity of displayed information, theincreased reliability of equipment, betteralert systems, better access to up-to-dateplanning information and greatly easeduse of equipment with a minimal need forship-specific familiarisation training.

However, it is clear that if e-navigationcan satisfactorily meet such requirements,it could also provide the basis for a radicalchange in how ships’ navigation is per-formed, even if lying outside IMO’s pres-ent strategy for e-navigation.

A fundamental job of the human navi-gator today is to be the integrator ofdiverse navigational inputs to ensure con-sistency and therefore integrity.

Once this task can be performed better,in all respects, by electronics rather thanhumans, then many of today’s navigation-al practices may quickly become outdated.

Human errorFundamentally, e-navigation is part of theever-increasing concentration beingundertaken in all transport sectors to min-imise the effects of human error on safety.

Many scientists and engineers aroundthe world are engaged in such activitiesand public awareness, and even insis-tence, on using technology to eliminateaccidents caused by human error willinevitably grow.

As an example, automobile manufac-turers are increasingly announcingdemonstrators with remarkably advancedautomated features designed to ensuresafety, even in extreme cases of driverinactivity or misjudgement.

This is eventually likely to promote agrowing public acceptance and maybeeven demand for increased automationacross the whole transport sector, perhapsas early as the 2020s.

So maybe the eventual pressure for fun-damental change in ships’ navigationalpractices will come as much from outsidethe profession as from inside.

It is essential that e-navigation canevolve to meet such inevitable pressures,but initially it has to meet the fundamentalrequirements of today’s users.

In fact, the infrastructure to enable e-navigation is unlikely to be really getting

underway until the middle of the presentdecade and will probably not have a majoreffect on carriage requirements until theearly 2020s.

The apparently long timescales are per-haps underlined by the carriage require-ments for ECDIS, which even by 2018 willnot be mandated for all ships. ECDIS, andits future evolution, is an essential compo-nent of e-navigation.

Digital worldE-navigation has to properly embrace theevolving digital world.

Unfortunately, we have entered theECDIS era where much of the supportingdata, such as sailing directions, remainspaper based and even that which is digi-tally available is often in a book-type for-mat on the screen, which does not alwaysallow quick and easy reference.

A significant part of the e-navigationinfrastructure programme will be to pro-vide the data structures and protocols thatenable all data to be readily communicableand accessible. Ensuring that the informa-tion is up-to-date and of high integrity areother key necessities.

Initially, such automatic systems willease mariners’ planning tasks and mayprovide some checks on the consistency ofplanning decisions. Inevitably, they willallow an ever-increasing automation ofthe planning process.

In particular, with the increased sophis-tication of the ship/shore communicationslinks envisaged by e-navigation, a ship’splanning process could become activelyintegrated with those of port and coastalauthorities, both during the initial plan-ning process and when underway.

Mandatory reporting activities wouldbenefit from such integration and could betotally automated. Safeguards will need tobe incorporated to allow coastal authori-ties to ensure that they are not beingspoofed by false reporting.

E-navigation could also permit a seam-less integration with the pilotage phases ofthe voyage, potentially enabling an auto-

matic exchange of information betweenthe master and the pilot prior to boarding.

An onboard workstation could poten-tially be configured to ‘pilot mode’, withthe pilot knowing that all required localdata would be available through the e-navigation communication links.

Into the more distant future, it could bethat piloting, through the e-navigationstructure, could be effectively conductedfrom the shore and that the bridge team’smain role is to ensure that the ship pre-cisely follows pilotage instructions. Thatpossibility would certainly create somedebate!

Integrated NavigationSystems

To obtain higher integrity and availabili-ty of real-time navigational parameterssuch as position, speed, heading andcourse, e-navigation will surely requirethe use of an advanced integrated navi-gation system (INS).

It is becoming possible to design a rea-sonably affordable dual-redundant INS thatwould provide navigational parameterswith a very good estimation of the magni-tude of the instantaneous errors, such thatan alarm would be reliably sounded if aparticular error limit was reached.

In the fullness of time, especially whensystems are included that could provide areasonable estimate of position whensatellite position was denied, use of suchan INS could totally alleviate the onus onthe OOW to be performing manual checkson position.

The prospect of high integrity position-ing also creates the possibility of arevamped high integrity AIS as part of afuture e-navigation world.

This would conceivably allow‘enhanced’ AIS to be used as the majorsource of data for collision avoidance deci-sions, at least if supported by high defini-tion radar and perhaps even by new elec-tronic aids operating in the visual spectrum.

It is the lack of integrity of present-dayAIS that prevents it being used as a pri-mary aid for collision avoidance.

Perhaps it is surprising how little usehas been made of optical detection at sea,given the significant role that the humaneye has in current navigational practice.Automatic target detection and accuratecoastal positioning are certainly feasibleusing optically-based instrumentation.

In the eventual future, any navigationby ‘looking out of the window’ could con-ceivably even become frowned upon sim-ply because of its relatively low integrity,

accuracy and availability compared to thepossibly available electronic systems.

But today, visual navigation remainsnecessary and important, simply becausepresent-day electronic instrumentation isnot able, on its own, to provide a completeand reliable depiction of the navigationalsituation.

Machine integrityA glimpse of the future pressures on theintegrity of modern electronic navigation-al equipment has come from recent con-cerns from maritime administrations onthe hazard warning alarms of some ECDISequipment, under certain conditions.

In particular, there was an observedinability of some ECDIS equipment to iden-tify all potential hazards when set to auto-matically check an initially planned route.

There is no doubt that such equipmentmust be designed to always do this cor-rectly, and so action to resolve theobserved problems was obviously urgent-ly necessary.

Despite this, an automatic route checkon ECDIS rightly remains as being supple-mentary to the currently essential fullmanual check for charted hazards whenplanning a voyage.

However, because of the increased vig-ilance on the automatic checking process-es of ECDIS, it will inevitably lead to afuture when the proven integrity of theautomatic check far exceeds the integrityof an average manual check.

It may then be argued that manualchecks become superfluous – at least forchecking there are no problems withcharted hazards on the planned route.

The route also needs to be planned andchecked against many other sources ofinformation other than that containedwithin the ENC. Such checks, for instance,include compatibility with the latestMaritime Safety Information, sailingdirections, tidal stream data, weather dataand port information.

Today’s navigator has access to all thisinformation, albeit often in a clumsy for-mat. The e-navigation user requirement isfor such data to be readily accessible andto be more easily used for ECDIS-basedchart activities.

When e-navigation makes such dataavailable in an accessible form for the userit could also prove suitable for increasinguse by automatic systems.

It then gives the prospect of the com-plete route planning process being fullyautomated – and that would certainly be amajor change to current practice...

Dr Andy �orris has been well-known in the maritime navigation industry for anumber of years. He has spent much of his time managing high-tech navigationcompanies but now he is working on broader issues within the navigationalworld, providing both technical and business consultancy to the industry, gov-ernmental bodies and maritime organizations. Email: [email protected]

IMO’s e-navigation plan, under discussion for many years already, is slowly closing in on having an agreedimplementation plan. Dr Andy Norris looks at some of the fundamental aspects of e-navigation,

and the central role of technology in the whole system

The e-revolution in navigation

The goal of e-navigation is to utilisetechnology to prevent accidents by

removing human error as far as possible.Photo: ATSB

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