seaspan to roll out gl in this issue hullmanager …c181984.r84.cf1.rackcdn.com/dsapril13.pdfusers...

SS easpan Ship Management ofVancouver is to implementGermanischer Lloyd's GL

HullManager system to be used aspart of its in-house hull integritymanagement system.

The condition based monitoringsoftware will be implemented acrossSeaspan's entire fleet of 76 vesselsover the next several years.

"We developed our own tempo-rary Hull Structure monitoring sys-tem at Seaspan in order to help usunderstand our needs and to quicklyhelp us manage hull defects until wecould assess and decided on our pre-ferred system," explained PeterJackson, director of the Projects andTechnology Department at SeaspanShip Management Ltd.

"Three different systems werereviewed and as a result, GLHullManager was selected as the soft-ware most closely meeting our needs."

GL HullManager is a part of GL'sfleet management software portfolio,providing hull inspection and thick-ness measurement support.Inspection, reporting and conditionassessments of tanks, cargo holdsand coatings are supported,throughout the vessel's lifecycle, bymeans of crew inspections and thick-ness measurements.

A vessel-specific 3D model allows

for visualisation and assessment ofthe hull's structural condition, wherethe crew can mark any coating orstructural failures on the 3D model,such as marking an individual find-ing or adding a photo and descrip-tions, which can then be assessed bysuperintendents onshore.

Ryan Bishop, GL's vice presidentbusiness development for theAmericas, noted: "Clients are finding

that the system is one that they caneasily integrate into their existingmaintenance processes, with theadded benefit of on- and offshoreteams having access to the samedata."

"With the training we can providefrom local offices, we are confidentthat this partnership with Seaspanwill see them roll out GLHullManager without a hitch."

IN THIS ISSUE

April 2013

electronics and navigation

continued on page 2

software

satcomsSPECIAL FEATURE

Broadband Revolution Infrastructure upgrade projects at:

� Odfjell Management – 6�Westfal-Larsen – 10� Eletson Corporation – 14� Torvald Klaveness – 18

Grant offered by PortVision for maritime software development – 22OSM to equip 14 ships with BASS – 24

Tools for tanker vettingmanagement – 26

Seaspan to roll out GLHullManager across fleet

Arcadia upgradesECDIS to go paperless – 27

e-navigation for North Sea safety – 30

The unmanned vessel – Dr Andy Norris – 34

Canadian shipping company Seaspan Ship Management has agreed a deal to roll out a new software system across its fleet, with the aim of improving

management of the integrity of the hulls of its vessels and increasing efficiency

The software will be implemented on 76 vessels

(+47) 77 62 19 00 or [email protected]

”We are deploying Dualog Connection Suite on 83 ships in less than 12 months with only good feedback from the vessel users and offi ce staff ”, says Tormod Johannesen, the IT Manager of Wilson Ship Management in Bergen.

“Dualog Connection Suite is a modern and fl exible product and this fact, combined with internal planning, has brought us into a brand new world in a minimum of time”, adds the happy IT Manager.

“A Brand New World”Tormod Johannesen, IT Manager Wilson Ship Management, Bergen

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Digital Ship April 2013 page 2

UPCOMING CONFERENCESDIGITAL SHIP CYPRUSGrand Resort, Limassol

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PUBLISHERStuart Fryer

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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

Printed by The Manson Group Ltd

Reynolds House, 8 Porters' WoodValley Road Industrial Estate

St Albans, Hertz AL3 6PZU.K.

GL HullManager can make informa-tion on the condition of hull structuresavailable to any employee across the com-pany once the inspection results havebeen approved and synchronised.

Stored in a lifecycle database, hull con-dition data for each individual vessel canbe traced over time and sister vessels from

the same fleet can be compared. A dash-board overview of the ship makes it easyto pinpoint any critical findings by crewor third-party inspectors.

Introduced in 2011, GL HullManageris used on 350 vessels of all kinds world-wide, and has recently been upgradedwith a mobile client version for use

in compartments.Upcoming additional features in

development include an automatic pro-posal for the amount of steel to bereplaced for a dry dock tender specifica-tion, integration of hatch cover tightnessmeasurement results and hot spot mark-ing functionality. DS

www.kvh.com

KVH reports that it has recently shippedits 3,000th TracPhone terminal for themini-VSAT Broadband network.

Launched in 2007, KVH’s mini-VSATBroadband network uses spread spec-trum technology and a combination of 14Ku-band transponders to provide cover-age throughout the northern hemisphereand to major continents in the southernhemisphere.

In 2012, KVH completed its rollout of amajor upgrade to the network, addingthree global C-band transponders to deliv-er a global overlay to the Ku-band service.

The company's dual-mode TracPhoneV11 antenna tracks both C- and Ku-bandsatellites, allowing users to switch to C-band when Ku-band is not available.

The company says that its maritimecustomer base is diverse, including the USCoast Guard, US Navy, ship managementcompanies like Vroon and V.Ships, com-mercial fishing companies, offshore serv-ice vessels and yacht owners.

“We built the mini-VSAT Broadbandnetwork because we saw a huge opportu-nity from a potential market of 250,000commercial, government, and leisure ves-sels that needed affordable offshore dataconnections that would allow crew mem-bers to use the internet onboard and bene-fit from the efficiencies of the digitalworld,” said Martin Kits van Heyningen,KVH CEO.

“Our global network is now complete,and our TracPhone product line offers acomplete end-to-end solution to quicklyand easily bring the benefits of fast, afford-able VSAT service to vessels.”

KVH hits3,000

The TracPhone V11, combining Ku-bandand C-band, is the latest addition

to the range

www.shipz.net

German company bobz GmbH haslaunched a mobile broadband systemcalled shipznet, to provide near-shorecommunications to shipping vessels.

The system has been specifically devel-oped for the marine environment andoperates up to 20 miles from the coast of anumber of countries across the world.

Using 3G networks, shipznet will pro-vide internet access onboard without asatellite connection.

Data rates up to 20 Mbps are available,offering 5 GB monthly packages for a fixed

monthly price worldwide, without roam-ing charges. There are no installation costs.

The above-deck component is a stain-less steel unit, which is water resistant anduses two antennas.

The below-deck unit consists of a router,which allows each of the eight availableports to be used independently for shipcommunication, such as for e-mail, remotemanagement or crew communication.

It is connected to the above deck unitusing a single coax cable.

Different access rules and forwardingof network traffic can also be configuredfor each port.

German company launches near-shore comms system

Maritime Broadband has appointedRevmar Dynamics as the exclusive distrib-utor of its C-Bird VSAT system in Greeceand Cyprus.

www.maritimebroadband.com

Astrium extends C-band deal with Intelsat

www.astriumservices.com

Astrium Services and Intelsat have signeda multi-year renewal agreement for C-band capacity to be used by AstriumServices’ maritime customers in theMediterranean, Atlantic Ocean, North Seaand Gulf of Mexico.

The agreement will enable the newBusiness Communications unit of AstriumServices, incorporating the former Vizada, tooffer C-band customised VSAT via the capac-ity provided on Intelsat 907 at 332.5° East.

“With Ku-band VSAT showing consid-erable growth over the last few years, it’simportant to recognise the strong need for

C-band connectivity in the specialist sec-tors that Astrium Services is committed tosatisfying,” said Tore Morten Olsen, headof maritime services at Astrium Services.

“Cruise ships and ferries require signif-icant bandwidth to support passengerwelfare and business applications, whilstoffshore vessels and platforms need highlevels of connectivity for critical opera-tions and production optimisation.”

“Securing improved C-band capacityon Intelsat 907 supports our customisedVSAT users in enhancing operations andoffering improved connectivity servicesfor business, crew and passengers, even inthe most challenging of environments.”

www.nsslglobal.com

NSSLGlobal has announced the additionof global C-band services to its Cruise IPportfolio.

This network will initially offer usersaccess to three global satellites – NSS9,Intelsat 902 and SES 4 – and will see theservice offered alongside NSSLGlobal’sexisting Ku-band Cruise IP service.

The company’s Service Assurancepackage will be included with the service,which will feature seamless failoverbetween C- and Ku-band services along-side an additional L-band backup.

The C-band offering uses the same net-

work, modem and hubs as NSSLGlobal’sKu-band service, providing the same weband e-mail control services, and is avail-able immediately.

“Our customers, both at sea and onshore, increasingly depend upon theirinternet connection for a variety of mission-critical operational functions, as well as improving crew welfare by enabling them to keep in touch with home,” says Sally-Anne Ray, COOof NSSLGlobal.

“Our ability to provide L-, Ku- and C-band solutions offers our customers alevel of choice few other providers arecapable of.”

NSSLGlobal launches C-band VSAT

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+31 (0)183 401025 | [email protected] | WWW.OCEANSAT.COM

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windows rattled, signs and parts of build-ings flew off and trees were toppled.”

“C-Bird held the signal perfectly withno indication of any stress whatsoever onthe system.”

The C-bird antenna is designed andmanufactured to track in up to 85knots/98 mph head winds.

With Hurricane Sandy wind speeds

reaching 90 mph, the company says that thisrepresented a perfect opportunity to test theantenna’s performance in winds near themaximum specified operating range.

Maritime Broadband notes that theantenna is non-critically balanced and thegears and motors have been specificallychosen to handle 1,500 lbs/6,700 Newtonsof force on the dish.

www.maritimebroadband.com

Maritime Broadband has reported that itsC-Bird VSAT antenna has survived anexacting trial of its ability to deal withextreme weather conditions after the com-pany’s New York headquarters experi-enced the full force of Hurricane Sandy.

Hurricane Sandy wreaked havoc acrossthe Caribbean and the Mid-Atlantic andNorth-eastern United States towards theend of 2012, causing widespread damage.

Maritime Broadband’s office in SunsetPark, Brooklyn, was among the affectedareas, suffering 85 mph winds thatdestroyed local monuments.

The company has a C-Bird antennalocated on top of the two-storey officebuilding in which it is located, and thecompany notes that the unit managed tomaintain tracking of its connected satellite

uninterrupted throughout the entire dura-tion of the storm.

The C-Bird is a military-style antennawhich, unusually for a commercial VSATsystem, is designed to operate without thetraditional radome found on most ship-board satcom installations.

The company notes that the antennahas already been installed aboard com-mercial tankers, containerships and bulkcarriers travelling worldwide.

“I debated whether or not to secure theantenna for the storm,” said Zevi Kramer,Maritime Broadband’s chief innovationofficer and C-Bird design engineer.

“Ultimately, we decided to take advan-tage of the extreme storm conditions fore-casted for Hurricane Sandy to test C-Birdin a Beaufort Scale 12 environment. Weobserved the tracking performancethroughout the height of the storm, as the

C-Bird survives Sandy test

www.ozsaysatellite.com

Ozsay Satellite Communications, part ofthe Ozsay Group of Companies in Turkey,has agreed a deal to provide VSAT servic-

Besiktas Shipping rolls out VSAT to tanker fleet

es to oil and chemical tanker companyBesiktas Shipping.

Ozsay Satellite Communications, anInmarsat and Astrium partner, will pro-vide Ku-band communications to thecompany's fleet of 16 tankers under thecontract.

The long term agreement includes thesupply of SAILOR 900 Ku-Band VSATantennas, with FleetBroadband andIridium Pilot backup systems, as well asiDirect x5 modems, the Astrium Xchangebox and Astrium Pharostar global connec-tivity services.

Ten tankers have been installed to date,with the remaining installations expectedto be completed by the end of the firstquarter of 2013.

The package includes SAILOR 900antennas and the Vizada XChange box

$1M Chinese order for Beam www.beamcommunications.com

Beam Communications Pty Ltd, a sub-sidiary of World Reach Limited, has won a$1 million deal to supply Chinese compa-ny MCN (Marine Communications &Navigation Company) with Inmarsatmarine satellite terminals.

Last year, MCN tested Beam’s Oceanaterminals on fishing vessels in China.These terminals are designed and manu-factured by Beam to support the voice,data and tracking communications thattake place over the Inmarsat satellite net-work via its FleetPhone maritimeservice.

MCN is the only companyauthorised to supply theseInmarsat services in China.

Delivery of the initial order,valued at $1 million, will com-mence this quarter and be com-pleted by 31st May 2013, accord-ing to Beam. At that time MCNwill be required to make furthercommitments to Beam in order tomaintain its exclusive rights fordistribution of the Beam products

in China.Yumin Zhao, director at MCN, notes

that “there are many thousands of fishingvessels in China that have a need for high-quality and reliable satellite communica-tions along with land-based applicationsin smaller villages.”

“MCN will be targeting these key landand maritime customers with an aggres-sive campaign to promote, exclusively, theBeam products and we are anticipatingthis to be very successful, therefore wouldanticipate placing additional orders withBeam in the coming months.”

$1m worth of Oceana 400 and 800 terminals will be delivered

A C-Bird antenna like this one (centre of picture, without radome) survived the 90mphwinds of Hurricane Sandy at Maritime Broadband’s New York office

www.cht.com.twwww.thuraya.com

Chunghwa Telecom’s subscribers inTaiwan can now use Thuraya’s voice, dataand maritime services, the Dubai-basedsatcoms provider has announced.

The NCC, Taiwan’s national telecomsregulator, has granted approval, licensingThuraya to provide its mobile satelliteservices in the region.

The licensing agreement means thatindividual consumers and corporate userswill no longer need to apply for individual

Thuraya granted Taiwan licence approval from the NCC to use mobile satel-lite services in Taiwan. Previously, onlyenterprise users were eligible to do so.

“We are grateful to the NCC for granti-ng licensing approval of Thuraya’s satel-lite services, which will enable Taiwan’scitizens to stay connected across our glob-al network on land and sea, beyond theconfines of terrestrial networks,” saysThuraya’s CEO Samer Halawi.

Thuraya, whose products include theSF2500 and the Seagull 5000, says that itsees strong demand for voice and data serv-ices from the Taiwanese fisheries sector.

www.buzzconnect.co.uk

UK-based Buzz Marine, the suppliers ofHubbaX mobile broadband for maritime,has developed a system for its mini-dometo allow automatic switching from a ves-sel’s VSAT.

HubbaX operates using the land-basedGSM mobile system in the UK. The‘switchbox’ manages the changeover fromthe VSAT when a 3G signal is in range.When no 3G signal is available, the VSATconnection continues as normal.

Buzz says that the HubbaX is able tomake 3G connections up to 20 miles off-shore. The new software it has developedwill enable the HubbaX to recognise whenit is in range and automatically switch. No

VSAT switchbox added to HubbaXmanual intervention is required.

“There is an increasing demand fromboat owners to be able to stay connectedwhile cruising and they expect to do thiswith a download speed similar to thatexperienced at home or via their VSAT,”says Steve Smith, managing director ofBuzz Marine.

“For the first time this is now achiev-able without the need for more expensivesatellite communication costs until youare up to 20 miles offshore.”

The HubbaX is a stand-alone inshorecommunications unit with typical down-load speeds of 7 Mbps and uploads of 1Mbps, for a recommended retail price of£595 plus VAT. The new VSAT switch sys-tem costs an additional £125 plus VAT.

www.selex-es.com

The UK Marine business of Selex ES, aFinmeccanica company, reports that it hascompleted a contract to supply a Ku-bandVSAT system to Serco.

The system was installed on the Sercovessel SD Victoria, as part of a package

Second Selex VSAT deployment for Sercoincluding a five-year airtime contract.

Engineers from Selex ES’ UK office net-work carried out the installation and com-missioning.

This is the second time Selex ES hasdeployed VSAT for Serco, having origi-nally installed a system on the SDNorthern River.

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NN orwegian tanker company OdfjellManagement, managing a fullyowned or bareboat chartered

global fleet of 50 chemical tankers, has, inthe last twelve months, been engaged in asatellite communications roll-out projectwhich has seen the introduction of Ku-band VSAT services to its ships.

The company provides a whole rangeof core services such as fleet management,crewing, technology management, riskand QHSE management, and corporateprocurement for its ships, and has seenconnectivity requirements expand inex-orably in recent years.

These requirements helped to drive thecompany’s decision to review its satellitecommunications infrastructure and investi-gate how it might improve its ability totransfer data between ship and shore, andled to the initiation of an evaluation and test-ing project whereby Odfjell examined themerits of a number of competing systems.

The criteria used to compare the differ-ent technologies were drawn up based onthe particular priorities important to thecompany and most relevant to its ownoperations, according to Vidar Børve, elec-trical and automation manager at Odfjell.

“When we started this we had somerequirements. We wanted high qualitybroadband, which should be reliable as it iscritical to support a variety of applicationsfor the company, including improved oper-ational efficiency, crew welfare and busi-ness administration,” he explains.

“The first thing we started with was crewwelfare. That was really important becausewe know that when the internet was comingonboard the crew was really happy. Crewretention is important to us, we don’t wantpeople to finish their career with Odfjellbecause they don’t have the internet.”

Beyond crew usage, there were a numberof specific operational goals that the compa-ny was also looking to be able to achieve.

“We wanted to improve our operationalefficiency to have remote access for thirdparties, for navigational equipment, enginemonitoring systems, cargo monitoring sys-tems and so on. There are a lot of systemsout there that can be more easily serviced byremote support,” said Mr Børve.“Then we have our own business adminis-tration tools, which we would like toadapt to use with this kind of system.”

“We also set down some other criteriawhen we started working on this.Communication costs should be low, weshould not overspend above what wewere already using on the Fleet77 and theInmarsat-B. It should provide global andsecure internet, e-mail and phone services– being global was important, so we need-ed a backup system.”

The criteria that Odfjell identified as

priorities for its new services formed thebackbone of its subsequent evaluationprogramme, to support the decision onwhich technology would be best suited tothe company’s specific needs.

“During the decision process weanalysed different networks, Ku-band ver-sus C-band, and we had a FleetBroadbandas well,” said Mr Børve.

“We did some live trials with differentVSAT vendors for two years, and did acost/benefit analysis. We wanted thereturn on investment to be approximatelytwo years.”

“Our ICT department in Odfjell was alsoinvolved regarding the design of the infra-structure on shore. This has to be integrat-ed with the Odfjell office in a secure way.”

ChoiceHaving completed its evaluation project,Odfjell decided to opt for a Ku-band VSATsystem from Marlink, a WaveCall productwith bandwidth speeds of 512 kbps on thedownlink and 256 kbps on the uplink.

“Marlink was offering us a good solu-tion, so we went to them for a workshop atEik (Marlink’s own teleport), and then we

decided to sign a contract with Marlink inSeptember 2011,” Mr Børve recalls.

“A global system was important for us.Even though Ku-band is not global, it’salmost there and there are not many blackspots left. To have a global and secure sys-tem we also installed a FleetBroadbandbundle with the VSAT. We had one price,which included the VSAT and

FleetBroadband bundled together.”This satcom system is integrated with a

specially designed network infrastructureboth on the vessel and on shore, withaccess separated by function.

“On board we have three VLANs, anadministrative LAN, a public LAN for thecrew, and a technical LAN for our techni-cal system,” explains Mr Børve.

“For the security, we have a VPNbetween Marlink and Odfjell. This is for theICT department to make sure everything’sworking and that it’s very secure. All therouting, from our three LANs on board, isnow routed directly to the Odfjell office.”

“We have four VSAT IP phone lines,and one FleetBroadband backup phoneline. We have web filtering on shore, doneby Marlink at Eik, and we also had web fil-

tering and proxy management on boarddone by Odfjell ICT. We have a firewall onboard and we have VPN access for thirdparty companies to the technical LAN,through Marlink.”

The company also has onboard wire-less Gigaset phones, again managed byOdfjell ICT, and a CommBox (designed byNorwegian company Virtek before it wasbought by KVH). The CommBox is con-nected to the VSAT and FleetBroadband,which is connected to the Marlink teleportat Eik, and manages the connection sothat, if the VSAT is down, theFleetBroadband will be used.

Roll-out of the system has progressed atpace since the contract was signed approx-imately 18 months ago, with the first vesselinstalled late in 2011 and another two ves-sels done by the end of that year.

“The VPN was established in the thirdquarter of 2011, one for VSAT and one forthe FleetBroadband. The first vessel, BowCecil, was installed in October 2011,” saidMr Børve.

“Then we installed 28 or 29 vessels dur-ing 2012, and we plan to install another 14by the end of the second quarter of 2013.That will give us an installed total of 44vessels – and I think that is pretty impres-sive work, by us and by Marlink.”

“Now we are working with the VPNfor the third party access to the technicalLAN. It has been tested by us in Bergenand we are able to ping our computerwhen it’s out there, so we’ll finish testingin the first quarter of 2013. We will be test-ing it on some engine control systems onboard, for example.”

Planning of the installation process wasdone by Odfjell in conjunction withMarlink’s project engineering teams atEik, supplemented by weekly status meet-ings conducted over the phone.

One aspect of the process decided uponat an early stage was that Marlink wouldsend all of the necessary hardware forinstallation to the shipping company viaOdfjell’s logistics partner, rather thansending it directly onboard.

“We learned that this was more effi-cient for us, as we are good at supplyingour vessels ourselves. If they send it to ourown logistics partners then that worksbest,” notes Mr Børve.

“There are three packages, fromMarlink, from our own office where we dothe firewall and ICT extension package,and we have another package comingfrom another supplier with our wirelessphones, repeaters, and access points forthe installation material.”

“On board, we always have an on-siteproject manager from Odfjell. He coordi-nates with the crew and the Marlink tech-nician who comes on board to do the com-

VSAT – from ‘nice to have’ to ‘must have’

Having spent two years evaluating a variety of satcom systems, in late 2011 Odfjell Management signed a deal to roll out Ku-band VSAT across its fleet. By the second quarter of 2013, 44 vessels will have implemented

the new systems – and the benefits have been significant, as Vidar Børve, Odfjell, explains

Odfjell will have 44 vessels installed by the end of the second quarter of 2013

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Sailing at sea and always online_

Fastest speeds in the industry now available 8Mb / 1Mb

Please contact NSSLGlobal Ltd w w w . n s s l g l o b a l . c o m

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missioning of the antenna and connectingit up to Marlink’s system.”

Implementation of the systems alsoincludes on-site training of the crew insome very basic elements of its operation,a procedure which Mr Børve sees as a veryimportant part of the process.

“That’s crucial, because if you have afault, we need to know where to turn it onor turn it off – to turn it off and turn it onagain is always the first step, and it usual-ly helps! So this training is very impor-tant,” he notes.

“However, when it comes to reliability,we have not had many faults. We had threeantennas that we had some small faultswith, but these have been solved quickly byMarlink sending a technician on board.”

“The performance is as we were told –on average, very good performance in allspots. As for the speed, we are getting the512 kbps we were promised.”

ResultsHaving completed implementation of itsnew VSAT service on dozens of vesselssince this project began, Odfjell has seen anumber of noticeable improvements, bothto its operations and in the feedback itreceives from its seafarers about their

experiences on board.“The crew are really satisfied. We

installed public free Wi-Fi in the cabins, soall the crew has free Wi-Fi internet,” saidMr Børve.

“This has been very important, we havea lot of Filipino crew and they are usingFacebook a lot, I think they use it morethan the Norwegians.”

“It’s also cheaper to make calls, theVSAT crew phone is cheaper than theInmarsat crew phone, and that has been abig benefit for them.”

The company has its own firewall andcontent filters to manage security on theWi-Fi connection, and Marlink has its owncontent filters which are also applied,restricting access to undesirable traffic.

Discussions were also held betweenMarlink and the company to look at block-ing applications like Skype, which can eatup a lot of bandwidth just while runningnormally. Theoretically Skype is availablevia the connection, but as it could harmthe availability of the system to other userson the vessel various levels of trafficblocking had to be introduced.

Outside of crew access, the biggest busi-ness benefits have come through the provi-sion of remote support and the ability to

access onboard IT networks from shore,though the company is also now experi-menting with new applications that itmight like to add to those it typically uses.

“It’s now easier to connect to the vesselfor remote support, and it’s much easier tomanage the ICT equipment on board,”said Mr Børve.

“We have been pleased with Marlink’sunderstanding and flexibility when wehave been looking at new solutions andtesting things. For example, if we want totest a new medical video conferencing sys-tem, it is possible to do things like that. Itis also possible to use things like MS Lyncand Communicator, not with video but weare able to use it for speech.”

“The remote access to the technicalLAN is something we’re also working alot with. It’s an area where we can save alot of money, on the support and servicewe need for our systems. In many cases itcan be very good if the company can go onto the remote support to do diagnostics onthe system before they go on board, andmaybe they can even solve the problembefore they go there.”

Odfjell is currently testing IPSec tech-nology for use in this regard, to ensureexternal access could be provided secure-

ly. Internet Protocol Security (IPsec) isused to securely manage IP communica-tions by introducing authentication andencryption for each IP packet of a commu-nication session.

“We’re also going to test packet shap-ing technologies, like BlueCoat, thoughwe are not convinced by this yet, as it willmean another ‘box’ on board – and wedon’t like too many boxes on board,”notes Mr Børve.

“We like to remove boxes from the ves-sel, it’s easier to have the boxes on shore,and have one box instead of 50 boxes onthe vessels.”

“We are also testing new online webapplications, for shore and on board.We’re going to test using Citrix, andthings like this will help to make the ves-sel the same as any external office that wehave around the world. We also hope thatwe’ll get increased satellite link capacityfrom Marlink.”

While these technologies may representthe future for Odfjell, for the moment thecompany has been satisfied by its progressto date in its satcoms upgrade project.These experiences have convinced MrBørve that his VSAT technology is now nolonger a ‘nice to have’ but a ‘must have’ inmaintaining a competitive advantage.

“We’ve had a high delivery rate, 27 ves-sels in one year, which is a lot,” he said.

“Our crew is really satisfied, gettingmore bandwidth than they expected.Operationally, our vessel is now almostlike an ordinary external office. Our head-quarters has direct connections to all ourVSAT vessels, and overall we have lowercommunication costs.”

“Our vessels are directly connected tothe Odfjell LAN, and this has been veryimportant for us. It’s the most crucialthing that has been delivered for us.”

The company is providing Wi-Fi for its crews and running remote connections to onboard systems

DS

www.intelliantech.com

Maritime satellite antenna manufacturerIntellian has introduced three new termi-nals for use with the InmarsatFleetBroadband network.

The company will produce all threeFleetBroadband product variants, FB150,FB250 and FB500.

All terminals will be equipped to offersimultaneous voice and data services, IPconnections for e-mail, internet, faxand SMS, LAN inter-facing and single-user and multi-userrouter features, IPhandset interfacing,firewall capabilitiesand vessel fleet track-ing.

The first 150 and250 FleetBroadbandterminals will weigh4.4kg (9 lbs) andmeasure 44cm (17.3inches) in height. TheFB150 can reach datarates up to 150 kbps,while the FB250 cango to 284 kbps.

The FB500 termi-

nal, with its 432 kbps capability, weighs15.5kg (34.1 lbs) and is 71.8cm (28.3 inch-es) in height.

Intellian says that all three new prod-ucts will complement the company’sGlobal Xpress hardware systems, and areXpressLink capable.

Available since early March, with athree-year warranty, they will be priced at:FB150 - $7,300; FB250 - $11,000; and FB500- $17,000.

Intellian introduces FleetBroadband range

The new Intellian FB500 will retail at $17,000

www.imtech.eu

Imtech Marine has extended its global Ku-band VSAT network to add coverage inthe South Atlantic Ocean, between SouthAmerica and Africa.

The network utilises the iDirectEvolution platform, supporting capabili-ties such as automatic beam switching.

Imtech Marine, together with itsFlorida-based partner ITC, has recentlyupgraded to the latest version of theiDirect Evolution software, version 3.1,

which the company says will allow mar-itime terminals to switch beams faster andmore easily than before.

The new software is also claimed to beable to improve IP throughput and to offermore efficient multicasting, making videoapplications more efficient.

Eric van den Adel, Imtech Marine manag-ing director, thinks that “by upgrading ourglobal VSAT network, we can offer our cus-tomers a higher throughput, better coverageand provide the most economical and effec-tive business and crew communications.”

Imtech Marine extends Ku-band VSAT network

MTN and BATS exclusive partnershipwww.mtnsat.com

www.extendingbroadband.com

MTN Satellite Communications (MTN) isgoing to partner with Broadband AntennaTracking and Stabilization (BATS) todeliver the BATS wireless system tocruise, ferry and large yacht markets.

Florida-based MTN has announced thatboth companies have entered into an exclu-sive partnership to offer those vessels in-portand near-port maritime wireless broadband.

BATS is a hybrid network service,leveraging both satellite and terrestrialbroadband. It provides a software and

hardware platform that locates, locks andtracks wireless broadband access points.

The system also delivers an automatedconnection to communications antennas.

MTN says this is “ideal” for vessels thatare entering and leaving ports withobstructed terrain and buildings.

“It is imperative that we provide theindustry’s best terrestrial connectivity inand near ports,” commented Bob Wise,chief innovation officer, MTN.

“The BATS solution is one that provedto not only meet, but exceed, our customerrequirements, as well as address the uniquemake-up of each port around the world.”

p1-20:p1-14.qxd 08/03/2013 18:29

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SATCOMS


Using VSAT – stage twoHaving embarked on its first VSAT installation project as far back as 2006, Norwegian shipping company

Westfal-Larsen is now involved in what it describes as ‘stage two’ of its use of the technology, as it upgrades to new systems on its vessels. Stig Hilland and Are Andersen, Westfal-Larsen, describe the project

II n shipping since 1905, the Westfal-Larsen Group has seen many ups anddowns in the maritime sector, and

has had to adapt to various demands onthe way it does business over the courseof its history.

Currently, the company has 35 vesselscurrently owned or under management.Management of these vessels is splitbetween the company’s offices in Bergen,in Norway, and those of its wholly ownedsubsidiary Masterbulk in Singapore

17 of the ships are managed from Bergen,comprising five open hatch dry cargo ves-sels, 10 chemical tankers, and two prod-uct/chemical tankers. Trade for theseNorwegian managed ships includes routesfrom the Arabian Gulf to the Far East as wellas from South America to Europe and Asia.

For Westfal-Larsen, efficiency is thename of the game when it comes to stay-

ing competitive in the maritime marketand maintaining an edge over larger com-petitors. Communications plays a particu-larly important role in this, as Stig Hilland,senior vice president fleet managementdepartment, Westfal-Larsen, explains.

“We have over 1,000 seafarers in total.The largest group of employees are 950 sea-farers from the Philippines, and the secondlargest group are 100 seafarers from Latviaand eastern Europe,” he explains.

“About 120 persons are employed in the shipping offices in Bergen,Singapore, Manila, Livorno, Rio deJaneiro, Dubai and Shanghai. We have abusiness reaching around the world, sowe require good communication.”

“Our mission is to provide first classmarine transportation services to our cus-tomers. But how can a small business likeours aim to do this and compete with thebig companies? I think that we need anattractive fleet of vessels, that’s numberone, and we need good organisation, bothashore and aboard. But one of the mainthings for me is communication. We needgood communication to be able to survivein a very tough market.”

Cutting edge satellite systems have

formed a significant part of this communi-cations strategy for a number of years,with the company having already begunusing VSAT systems in 2006.

However, Westfal-Larsen has contin-ued to look at ways to expand andimprove its capabilities, and is currentlyinvolved in what Mr Hilland describes as“stage two” of its use of VSAT.

“Whatever we talk about in terms ofmegabytes, we know that tomorrow wewill need more. So we have looked toupgrade the system further,” he said.

Communications driversMr Hilland believes that Westfal-Larsen’sability to remain successful in the ship-ping business has been built on its abilityto manage and leverage its data to max-imise the efficiency of its operations, andto introduce applications that assist in

achieving these aims.“As a small company we do everything

in-house. We have a fleet of very modernvessels which means that in order to sur-vive we need to stay on top of things – andthat means communication,” he said.

“We need good feedback from the oper-ations and chartering departments, there’sno room for any hiccups when it comes tocommunication between chartering andthe vessels. They have to be available.”

Operationally, there are a number offocus areas for the company where theapplication of technology is deemed par-ticularly important.

“Technically, we want to do things liketransfer of data, troubleshooting, andupgrading,” said Mr Hilland.

“We think there are a lot of additionalthings we’ll be able to add to this in thecoming years too with good communica-tion equipment onboard.”

“Another thing we are focused on issafety. We are trading in some high riskareas, like the Gulf of Aden, which meansthat communication is very important. Formedical issues it is also important to havegood communication, in case somethinghappens with the crew.”

Crew safety is a key issue for Westfal-Larsen, but so too are other aspects ofcrew welfare – and the choice of commu-nications systems on the ships plays alarge part in the company achieving itsaims in that area as well.

“Communications have to be availablefor the crew. As a small company we arecompeting in a very tough market, so wehave to be attractive, and we have to havemotivated crew that can communicatewith their family,” said Mr Hilland.

“We recruit mainly young seafarerstoday, and, of course, there’s no way theywill leave their laptop or cellphonebehind. They need to have them, even ifthey’re onboard for a couple of months.”

“We are not working in offshore, weare deep sea, so this means that they areonboard for two to four months, even thetop officers.”

VSAT – the story so farHaving first installed VSAT systems in2006, Westfal-Larsen has been able tomake some notable advances in theseareas in the intervening years, startingwith crew welfare.

Using its satellite systems the companyhas been able to provide free internetaccess to its seafarers, with private e-mailand chat facilities, and most of the supportthat they would need.

“For us, because we are working veryclosely with the owners it gives us theopportunity to have a direct line to a deci-sion, and we were able to test it out on thefirst vessel as early as 2006. I think we wereamong the first to do some of these thingsfor deep sea vessels,” explains Mr Hilland.

“When we started this in 2006, crewwelfare was probably at the top of the list.That was during the ‘hot’ shipping mar-ket, and in order to be attractive as a smallcompany we had to be a little bit ahead ofthe big ones. (The communications servic-es) kept us attractive and we have beenable to keep our crew. The officers espe-cially have been very happy with it.”

“The retention rate of our top officersand crew is very, very important to us. I’m100 per cent sure that the VSAT systemswe have today are one of the most impor-tant things we have onboard to keep toour key performance indicator (KPI) whenit comes to crew retention.”

From an operational standpoint therehave also been a number of advances,mainly in areas where an improved flowof information can help the vessels to runat their optimal level.

“We have been able to use the VSATand the communication we have today todo much more troubleshooting in a short-er time frame,” notes Mr Hilland.

“Off hire is, of course, a big, big costand this gives us the opportunity to domore online troubleshooting.”

“We have a ship management businesssystem with continuous replication, and

we have direct access to relevant websitesand online databases. All of this is justpure benefit.”

The mere fact of eliminating delays inmessages being exchanged between shipand shore has also created a range of ben-efits, as Mr Hilland notes.

“There’s very close cooperation nowbetween the vessel and chartering depart-ment, they are online, they are available,there is no delay in the communication.We exactly know where the vessels are,what cargo they can take, if they’re readyor not ready,” he said.

“It also allows us to do more with doc-umentation and larger attachments on e-mails are allowed.”

“We have good communications withagents and have direct access to all sorts ofwebsites, so it gives the crew more avail-ability in terms of communication andthey are also more motivated because theyhave the opportunity onboard to searchfor all kinds of information they need.”

VSAT – stage twoThe successes achieved by Westfal-Larsenin its first experiences with VSAT haveemboldened the company to push its useof technology even further, and it is cur-rently in the middle of an ongoingupgrade project – the ‘stage two’ that MrHilland described.

This will see the company roll out theXpressLink service from Inmarsat, combin-ing Ku-band VSAT with FleetBroadbandfor a fixed monthly fee, as Are Andersen,Westfal-Larsen IT manager, describes.

“We have been using VSAT servicesfrom the former Ship Equip, now InmarsatMaritime, for six or seven years already,and now we are moving forward to phasetwo,” he said.

“The suppliers call it XpressLink, andwe are expecting to deploy the basic serv-ice during the first half of 2013, though wemight have to wait until the second half of

‘Whatever we talk about in terms ofmegabytes, we know that tomorrow we willneed more’ – Stig Hilland, Westfal-Larsen

Westfal-Larsen will upgrade the VSAT systems on 10 vessels during 2013

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SATCOMS


the year on some of the vessels.”“We will do 10 upgrades, and we have

done three out of 10 so far. All of themhave been quite successful.”

There are a number of specific benefitsto the system that the company has identi-fied – one of which is the fact that the costsof any back up L-band usage are alreadyincluded in its monthly fee.

“The combination gives us 100 per centinternet availability, and since this is afixed costs product with those two carrierscombined, we can also wave bye-bye,hopefully, to most or all of the additionalcommunications costs that we have had,”said Mr Andersen.

“As we all know, the prices (onFleetBroadband) have increased, so therewould still be significant additional costswhenever we are offline from the regional

VSAT services that we are using.”Another major advantage identified by

Mr Andersen is the provision of a globalroaming IP address for the ship with theXpressLink service.

“This means that our vessel, or the sys-tem onboard the vessel, will have the samepublic IP address wherever it is in theworld,” he said.

“That’s a huge benefit for us, we don’thave to maintain a complex infrastructure– it is significantly simplified.”

“We are also, according to the supplierat least, very well prepared for the nextgeneration, which is the step up to GX(Global Xpress) Ka-band. 2014 is not faraway, so we are, of course, looking for-ward to having another step up when itcomes to the bandwidth. We know forsure that all of the bandwidth given to thevessels is utilised – that’s a fact.”

One additional benefit that MrAndersen is hoping for soon, though it hasyet to be delivered, is an integrated over-arching firewall that can assist in makingmanagement of the various ships in thefleet a simpler process.

“We are still waiting for a fleet firewallservice that we have been promised,” henoted.

“I’m sure it is only the quality checkingthat has been delaying it, from 2012 andnow into 2013. It’s surely just around thecorner – I hope.”

“That would also help for us, today wehave individual firewall set-ups on eachand every ship.”

Having access to such a firewall will be

particularly important in maintaining secu-rity now that Westfal-Larsen has used theXpressLink systems it has installed so far toprovide Wi-Fi internet access to its crews.

“We have given the crew some freedom(to access the communications), we haveWi-Fi hotspots where they can come toconnect, though they have to come to theDay Room to use their own personal lap-top,” notes Mr Andersen.

“They can’t sit in their own cabins anduse internet freely. When it comes to con-trol of the rest hours, we also trust the cap-tain in full – he is the one in charge and heshould be the one to make sure that all ofhis crew are well rested and well preparedto do a good job.”

Further opportunitiesAs Westfal-Larsen continues on itsupgrade programme, and draws nearer tocompleting the installation of its ‘secondstage’ VSAT systems on its ships, the com-pany is looking ahead to what kind ofapplications it can introduce to takeadvantage of these capabilities, and stayahead of the game when it comes to thecompetition.

“I think we have prepared well for theever increasing bandwidth demand wesee in our fleet,” said Mr Andersen.

“We are preparing to go online withECDIS and ENCs, all the structured sys-tems that we have onboard will be contin-uously replicated instead of replicatingonce per week or once per day – now theywill be on a continuous link. So all busi-ness systems are updated both shipside

and shoreside – continuously.”“We are looking forward to testing

video conferencing maybe. We are alsolooking to provide our suppliers with realtime updates, or maybe even real timeconnections, to their own equipmentonboard to do troubleshooting and proac-tive servicing. This is also a significantstep forward.”

Mr Andersen is hopeful that the mar-itime IT providers across the industry willadd a number of new innovations to thislist of potential technologies in the nearfuture, providing the tools that will helphighly-connected companies to optimisetheir operations.

“I hope the supplier industry will domore to explain what they can do to utilisethis kind of onboard infrastructure if we have a reliable, always-on, connection,” he said.

“What kind of possibilities will it pro-vide to the suppliers of the hardwareonboard the ships? I’m thinking of naviga-tional equipment, all kinds of propulsionequipment, and so on. There’s a lot oftechnology onboard these vessels today.”

Mr Hilland also agrees that, followingthe completion of its ‘stage two’ VSAT proj-ect, the challenge will be to push the tech-nological boundaries as far as possible.

“Developing this further is a priorityfor us, but the problem is finding enoughtime,” he said.

“We can do video, we can do liveupgrading – we have all these possibili-ties. The challenge we have in the future ishow best to utilise the system.” DS

‘All of the bandwidth given to the vesselsis utilised – that’s a fact’ – Are Andersen,

Westfal-Larsen

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SATCOMS


GG reek shipping company EletsonCorporation is currently enteringthe final stages of a communica-

tions upgrade project that has seen thecompany exponentially expand its datausage across its fleet of vessels, movingaway from legacy satcom services and intothe broadband era.

The project stretches back more thantwo and a half years to the middle of 2010,when the company was approached byInmarsat and asked to become one of theearly trial customers for a new range ofpricing schemes it intended to introduceto the market, branded as LargeAllowance (LA) packages.

The project was managed by Inmarsatpartner Navarino, which also included itsInfinity communications managementsystem as part of the installation. Thesesystems would then be compared withanother satcom product, for testing pur-poses, before the company would thinkabout whether a fleet-wide communica-tions upgrade was something it reallyrequired.

The early results of using the new sys-tems made a big impression on Eletson, asManos Kothris, the company’s CIO, notes.

“Around the summer of 2010 we had aproposal from Inmarsat to test their newLAs before this service was available tothe market. Eletson was selected alongwith five other companies to trial the sys-tem,” he told us.

“The first system installed was aFleetBroadband 500 from JRC, and wetested it for six months. After that, becausewe had very good results, we decided toproceed and replace the old mini-M sys-tems onboard with FleetBroadband 250.”

“All of the vessels had at least two sys-tems, mostly using Fleet77 and mini-M.

Now we have started replacing the mini-M with FleetBroadband 250, and there arealso plans for the future to also replace theFleet77. But for now we are very close tocompleting our plans to replace all of themini-M units onboard withFleetBroadband 250.”

The airtime package chosen by Eletsonfor its vessels was a 3GB SCAP whichwould see each of the company’s shipsinstalled with the system allocated a 3GBallowance per month, though Eletson hasalso opted to agree to have a 5GB packagefor one of its vessels, for further testingpurposes.

“Most of the vessels have a 3GB plan,but we have one vessel on a plan up to 5GB.It is able to move from a 3GB to 5GB planwith no problem, in order to exploit thebenefits of the combination of the data andvoice,” notes Michalis Kantartzoglou, sys-tem and network administrator at Eletson.

“We didn’t know exactly how the sys-tem would operate in the beginning, so wepreferred to have the two plans so we couldrun to 5GB if it is needed. For flexibility.”

“I think that for many vessels wewould be able to see usage from 3GB to10GB at this time.”

Mr Kothris agrees that maintainingflexibility in these data packages was animportant aspect of the project for Eletson,given that it incorporated a new way ofworking with which it was unfamiliar.

“As you know, this service is a newservice so there is not a lot of experience inthe market and when we started this wedidn’t know how this service would workonboard, particularly the combination ofdata and voice,” he told us.

“So we decided to have two differentplans, one 3GB and one 5GB, to see how itworks with our needs. After two and ahalf years we have seen that probably wewill need more than 3GB.”

“Now we are checking through previ-ous months and examining the volume ofdata and voice to see how we will proceedin the future.”

Eletson’s LA (Large Allowance) wasalso part of a wider Shared CorporateAllowance Package, which meant thatunused portions of the 3GB allowance onsome ships could be reused by other shipsin the fleet that were exceeding their own3GB limit.

Inmarsat has generally increased itsbasic LA packages for FleetBroadband,with the company doubling the 3GB pack-age to 6GB, at the same price, in late 2012.

As Eletson’s contract was agreed priorto this change the company will continuewith its 3GB allowance, however it willalso be able to benefit from continuing touse voice minutes as part of thisallowance, an option that has beenremoved by Inmarsat from new packages

as of May 2012 – a situation Eletson ispleased to be able to exploit.

ProgressProgress on the roll-out of these new sys-tems over the last two and a half years hasbeen steady, and Eletson believes that it ison track to have the updated technologyon all of its ships by this summer.

“I believe that in the first half of thisyear we will finish the replacements. Wehaven’t had any trouble doing the installa-tions, for most of them the crew haveundertaken to install the FleetBroadbandand we even have two or three exampleswhere the crew installed the Infinity sys-tem too,” notes Mr Kantartzoglou.

“Now, we have 23 vessels installed.One of these vessels has twoFleetBroadbands, a 250 and a 500, andanother one has a FleetBroadband 500 andthe Fleet 77. All the other vessels haveFleet77 and FleetBroadband 250.”

“The fleet is 28 vessels. We have onevessel with a VSAT system, so we willinstall the FleetBroadband and Infinitysystem on 27 vessels.”

While the complete list of installationsis not yet finished, with the new systemsup and running on 23 vessels Eletson isnow beginning to appreciate some of thebenefits that the improved bandwidth andadditional gigabytes of data are bringingto its operations.

“The speed of data is good, it’s fasterthan the Fleet77, the Fleet77 seems to be avery old system now,” said MrKantartzoglou.

“I think now that data is far cheaperthan it was before using Fleet77, so the costof the communications for the companycan be reduced if you have a good IT planand you carry out a project like this well.”

Crew welfareMr Kothris agrees that the difference incost for data within the new arrangementdoes have a major impact on how the com-pany approaches communications – andnowhere more so than in the usage of theservices by the company’s seafarers.

Crews are able to purchase Infinity PINnumbers to gain access to the system, forvoice and data use. These PINs include 87.5minutes of voice usage or 115 MB of data.

Wi-Fi points have been installed onaccommodation decks on the Eletson ves-sels, allowing crew members to get onlineusing their own devices.

“If we calculate the total cost for thebusiness and the crew, the cost that theseafarers spent to buy scratch cards formini-M and Fleet77, per minute, wasmuch higher than the rate per minute withthe FleetBroadband system,” Mr Kothrisexplained.

“So, it is very important that, with this

system, we not only have better rates forthe crew and for business usage, but alsothat we have additional services. The wel-fare of the seafarers onboard is veryimportant, and now they have an oppor-tunity to feel more like they’re at home,because they have the opportunity to havean internet connection to get news, to getphotos from their families, to use theirown e-mail address that they use at home.That’s very important.”

“On the other hand, we all know that inthe general market we have increased thedata exchanges between shore and vesselfor business purposes. So, if we look at allthis together, we see that this step is veryimportant.”

While, as Mr Kothris has noted, opera-tional data exchanges between ship andshore have indeed increased, the trafficinvolved in carrying business communica-tions pales in comparison to the huge vol-umes being generated by the seafarersthemselves.

“Usually the crew uses more than 2GBof the package, and we’ve even seen themgo up to 8GB using the internet. But about20 of the vessels have been installed inrecent months, so it is still quite early tosay what the average will be,” said MrKantartzoglou.

“Every month I can see that the crew isusing the internet more than before,every month it is increasing. But when avessel sails to the US coast they prefer touse their mobile phone cards, because themobile providers in the US offer cheaperbandwidth.”

“However, the crew are the main users,the business data is a small amount of thewhole package, about 300 to 400 MB. Thecrew is the reason that we use this system,and I think that the lower cost is a bigissue.”

The enthusiasm of the crew to getonline is a major part of the rationale thatmakes an investment like the one Eletsonhas made on its LAs workable.

‘The cost of communications for thecompany can be reduced if you have agood IT plan and you carry out a projectlike this well’ – Michalis Kantartzoglou,

Eletson

Sharing the broadband benefitGreek shipping company Eletson is currently rolling out multi-gigabyte data packages to its ships, having committed to

a deal that will see each vessel have access to 3GB of satcom traffic. Both the crew and the business have been able to takeadvantage of new applications and cheaper rates as a result, explain Manos Kothris and Michalis Kantartzoglou, Eletson

‘After two and a half years we have seenthat probably we will need more than

3GB’ – Manos Kothris, Eletson

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SATCOMS


From a business point of view, crewretention is a significant driver when itcomes to considering a new satcom sys-tem, but the company’s ability to pay forthat system can be enhanced if crew mem-bers are willing to invest a significant por-tion of their own earnings into buyingaccess for personal use.

The result will be a shipping companythat can commit to larger data packagesand is consequently able to enjoy lowerper megabyte rates, without having to sig-nificantly increase its monthly operationalexpenditure.

There is a chicken and egg elementinvolved – a company needs to be sure ofthe level of crew usage before signing acontract, but gauging usage will be verydifficult before signing the contract.

However, in the modern world it seemsthat in the vast majority of cases it is thecrew that will consume most of the band-width available onboard, meaning thatshipping companies can have a degree ofconfidence that their seafarers will sup-port their satcom investments.

“The investment is based on manyissues. The most important is that we would like to offer the best environ-ment onboard that we can offer. This is influenced by crew availability,” notesMr Kothris.

“We would like to be able to offer inter-net free of charge, but unfortunately thecost of the connection from Inmarsatremains high. On the other hand, becausewe want to offer the best rates that we canto the crew, we offer the crew megabytesat a rate that is cheaper than our cost.”

“I can say that the crew is happy – butof course they always ask for better rates!”

Operational benefitsOne of the most important advances thecompany has made on the operationalside, as opposed to crew welfare, is anincrease in the remote support that it isable to offer in managing and maintainingthe IT infrastructure aboard its ships.

The company has been able to gainremote access to computers on board via thenew setup, using VNC (Virtual NetworkComputing) and remote desktop services.

“With this system we have the possibil-ity to log in from the office to the vesseland to offer remote support, which ismuch better than having the captain onthe phone and our office trying to explainseveral things to him,” notes Mr Kothris.

Mr Kantartzoglou takes this point fur-ther by explaining that the direct effect ofthis increased level of access is a hugereduction in the travel that is required byengineers and IT personnel to fix prob-lems that arise on the ships.

“It’s really very important that we cansupport the vessel, we have reduced thetravel about 70 per cent because we areable to protect the IT environment fromviruses by updating the server on the ves-sel regularly and can maintain the IT envi-ronment,” he said.

“So it is not often necessary to travel to theships now, usually just for installation pur-poses or if there is any hardware problem.”

This process is partly facilitated by theInfinity unit supplied by Navarino, whichallows Eletson’s ICT department on shore

to maintain a higher level of control overits connectivity systems than was previ-ously possible, both from a usage stand-point as well as monitoring security.

“I think that Infinity operates very well.It’s a robust system and offers many sta-tistics to check and see how the data isbeing used,” said Mr Kantartzoglou.

“It also provides very good compres-sion, and the level of compression is visi-ble. We can view the real amount of datathat is exchanged with the vessels and thecompression that has been done. It is usu-ally about 50 to 60 per cent, so that meansthat the crew pays less for their usage andgets more value.”

“We manage what the Infinity system isable to communicate with, the ports of thesystem. There is a firewall built into Infinitythat gives you the ability to open or closespecific ports or specific URLs. It needsmanagement from us, but it is a strictlycontrolled network on the vessel. The crewLAN is also separate to the business LAN.”

All of the rules governing usage ofthe system are configured at an Infinityhub, which is hosted on Navarino serverson shore.

“Whenever I want to change anythingall I have to do is open a URL atNavarino’s hosting address, and I willhave access to all of the vessels throughthe portal,” notes Mr Kantartzoglou.

“I can manage each vessel individually,or I can configure rules to the root system,that will be inherited by all the vesselsbelow. Before Infinity, the only place wecould see some of this data about the net-work was via the Inmarsat portal, but wecould only see a few things.”

“(Being able to see exact details of datatraffic) provides value to the ICT depart-ment. We have an overview of the vesselsso they’re easier to manage.”

Outside of remote support, greateraccess to online services and cheaper datahas meant that Eletson can increase itsusage of a number of other maritimeapplications, and improve the benefits itderives from them – including updates foranti-virus, weather and charts automatedand sent through GTMail.

“Most of the maritime applications can be updated very easily, and we alsohave vessels navigating ‘paperless’,” saidMr Kantartzoglou.

“For instance, we had a problem withthe navigation chart application on onevessel. It was very simple for our providerto connect to us and then for us to connectto the vessel, and the problem wasresolved in a few minutes. We couldn’t dothis previously.”

“We have other services that we usewhere the vessels need to be online in orderto operate. We have Voyager replication,

and data replication for the maintenanceand purchasing application, for example,and there is another new service of naviga-tional warnings that needs the vessels to beonline in order to be updated, and we havethings like the ISM or operation systemprocedures files, which are exchangedbetween the vessel and the shore.”

In general, Mr Kantartzoglou says thatthese capabilities just “make operationsbetter.”

“I haven’t measured how much moneywe have saved with these new ways ofworking, but we are saving money by hav-ing all of our applications running betterthan before,” he explains.

“Now, whenever a system on the vesselhas a problem, it is very easy for us to actand to solve it.”

FutureFor now, Eletson is happy with thechanges it has made to its onboard ITinfrastructure.

The FleetBroadband systems it hasintroduced have increased the speed atwhich it can connect ships to shore, whileits SCAP agreements have brought datacosts down to a level that has so far been acceptable to both the business andthe crew.

The Infinity equipment installed on theships and the new levels of remote accessit has introduced have made managementof vessel IT simpler, and have introducedadditional operational savings not possi-ble using the older technology.

Eletson will look forward to completingthe roll-out of this set up to the remainderof its fleet in the next few months – butafter that the company says it intends to continue to look to the future and possi-ble additional improvements for its nextIT project.

“Maybe the best approach is to have thevessel as part of our domain on shore,”notes Mr Kantartzoglou.

“To design this we need reliable band-width and a reliable network, but I thinkwe need a faster and cheaper connection.”

In that regard, Mr Kothris says he islooking forward with great anticipation tothe launch of Inmarsat’s Ka-band GlobalXpress network, to see what the next gen-eration of satellites may be able to offer.

“We think, and we hope, that it will bevery interesting for shipping companieswhen the new service from Inmarsat,Global Xpress, will be available in 2014,”he said.

“In that case, the combination of thetwo systems, FleetBroadband and GlobalXpress, will offer the possibility for a realonline connection. And that will give us a whole range of new opportunitiesto explore.”

Most of Eletson’s ships have been installed with a FleetBroadband 250 antenna, thougha few FleetBroadband 500 systems have also been used DS

Eletson provides Wi-Fi services on the vessels, managed via the Infinity box on board

p1-20:p1-14.qxd 08/03/2013 18:30

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p1-20:p1-14.qxd 08/03/2013 18:30

SATCOMS


Enabling the one-man IT departmentAs pressure on costs continues to grow, the ability to do more with less is a major objective for many companies.

Technology provides important tools to help people push their resources as far as possible – and helps Tore Meum of 99X keep 15 Klaveness vessels running single-handed, as he explained to Digital Ship

NN orwegian-headquartered Tor-vald Klaveness, in describing thehistory of the shipping company,

declares with pride that ‘innovation’ hasformed a core component of its successesin the last 65 years, which has seen thecompany grow since its founding in 1946by Mr Torvald Klaveness to today operatemore than 100 vessels carrying some 40million tonnes of cargo per year.

Responsible for managing the technolo-gy requirements of a portion of this fleet isTore Meum, senior consultant at 99X, anIT outsourcing company partnering withKlaveness in running its vessels. In thisposition Mr Meum acts as head of IT-shipsolutions for Klaveness.

Oslo-based 99X has 200 employees, 100in Oslo and 100 in Sri Lanka, and performsoutsourcing and consulting services, serv-ice management in IT and applicationservices (development and management).

Currently it is responsible for runningthe IT ship systems for Klaveness, as wellas the rest of its IT systems, for operationsin both Oslo and Asia, helping the vesseloperator to choose the right partners andintegrate the right systems.

“We are concentrating on the core sys-tems – the office onboard the vessels,”explains Mr Meum.

“We are not alone. We want good part-ners with us, as Klaveness want us to be agood IT partner. Even though there arequite a few suppliers for Klaveness for ITsystems, we are the single point of contactfor them. They call, and we put them intouch with the right people.”

Mr Meum is currently coming to theend of a two-year project that the compa-ny has been working on, based aroundintroduction of a new network and com-munications infrastructure on board theKlaveness fleet, as it looked to replaceexisting obsolete equipment.

“Like many others, Klaveness has had todeal with the challenges of old systems, andnew communications solutions coming upand giving us new challenges,” he explains.

“When Klaveness came to the end oflife for the hardware on the old solution,we took the opportunity to prepare a newone, cleaning out our main challenges.”

The top five problems with the oldersystems, as Mr Meum describes it, includ-ed viruses, getting patches out on an oldstandalone system with PCs and oldservers, seeing the hardware getting oldand having breakdowns, and the need forextensive administration in buildingimages for the PCs on board and keepingall of the assets straight.

This state of affairs was unacceptable tothe company – and so, Klaveness decidedto begin a project to upgrade its onboardIT to a level that would remove theseissues and help to drive efficiency.

“We have a pretty fixed structure.There’s a ship’s office with workstations, a

bridge with workstations, and then anengine control room,” he said.

“The previous infrastructure was madefor operation with one carrier only, oftenInmarsat-B. There was no internet.”

“So, together with Klaveness we out-lined some requirements. Of course, theyhave an application package that changesover time, and they have the same needsas most companies. We highlighted somekey factors that would be part of us build-ing a new solution for them.”

One of the key priorities for the projectwas to create an infrastructure that wouldbe easy to install and could be identical onall of the ships.

“What we wanted to do was use the‘best practice’ out there in the IT market.We wanted it to be as robust and virus-free as possible, and we wanted to stan-dardise on a good hardware package forthem, so that when we need to deploy anew vessel we can click one button andhave a standard package coming in,”explains Mr Meum.

“We wanted it to be replicable, some-thing that we could have 40 to 50 per centready once we had the hardware in-houseand did the basics on the system.”

“Together with that, we wanted it to beeasy, with our partners, to get a new vesselup and running. In that regards there weresome choices made, though nothing revo-lutionary – just some good standards andgood routines, things that are repeatable.”

Vessel set-upThe new infrastructure created during thisproject was based around the application ofVMware server virtualisation technologyand Wyse Thin Clients, with the aim of cre-ating a simple, but robust IT environment.

“We are using virtualisation on a goodhardware box, where we can add orremove services or servers in a very easymanner,” notes Mr Meum.

“We have chosen to use Wyse termi-nals, thin clients, for the daily operationonboard and for the crew to actually dotheir work. We have one captain’s laptopin order to get new data into the serverstructure, and also take things out. Wehave chosen HP printers, to make it easy

to get drivers and supplies around theworld, so we don’t have to ship things outfrom the head office.”

“We have Cisco unmanaged switcheson board, so if something dies you cantake another one and put it in and you’reback up.”

Redundancy, to make sure that anequipment failure doesn’t knock out the entire network, is ensured through the use of redundant backup hardware onthe server.

“This is the best practice for the virtual-isation solutions we are using elsewhere,there’s a multi-disk system on the server,”said Mr Meum.

“It’s split up into several servers withseveral services, so we have a main serverrunning all the core services, like DNS,DHCP or file print, and we have a sepa-rate terminal server, of course, for the thinclients, not affecting the main server,should there be an attack or any severeissue. We have another separate mainte-nance server on board, with properdefences running. So we have separatedthe servers into several different servers.”

“We have used the same solution in anon-virtualised environment for manyyears on Klaveness vessels, so we knowthe stability of the server is very good. Sofar, having been with Klaveness for 10years, I’ve seen just one serious servercrash in that period.”

On the communications side, the com-pany introduced KVH VSAT systems,delivered as a turnkey solution that is test-ed and then shipped out. The satcom sys-tem is linked to Dualog’s Connection Suitemiddleware application, which is used tomanage the satellite connection.

“(Dualog allows) fleetwide configura-tion, so that when we deploy a new vesselwe just add it and add the configuration –and we’re up and running,” said Mr Meum.

“We are using all the bits and pieces (ofthe Dualog system), firewall and webcompression, as well as the e-mail and filetransfer system.”

“We are using a self-deployingantivirus system from Dualog, so we arealways up to date. We run a good patch-ing routine to maintain security, at the OS

level, and we have the same for the appli-cations on the terminal servers as well.There’s no such thing as a totally failsafesystem out there, but you can reduce therisks and the downtime by having goodroutines and thinking twice before you letgo and have the internet open.”

Mr Meum notes that, while these tech-nologies form part of a new standardisedpackage, standardisation on hardwareand processors was already part of theprevious ship IT solution that Klavenesswas using – the difference now justinvolves moving to a more efficient plat-form.

“What we have done now is just devel-op a good platform, taking away all themain time-consuming tasks like cleaningup viruses, or reimaging and reinstallingapplications. It’s all on the server now,and we can manage it from the office veryeasily,” he explains.

“A project like this takes a lot of workand a lot of hours. We pretty much had thestructure ready and knew what we want-ed from the start, and very much usedtechnologies used by the rest of our cus-tomer base. So we were on a familiar basiclevel when we started this project forKlaveness.”

“A base set-up for a standard packagelike we have done for them is stillbetween 350 and 400 hours. Nevertheless,when you’ve got 15 vessels to deploy,with deployment, development costs,and the reduced annual run cost, youhave a return on investment within a yearactually. In addition, you have a stable,modular solution ready to handle tomor-row’s challenges.”

The company has also introduced adefined life cycle length for the standard-ised network, to assist in forward plan-ning and budgeting for vessel IT.

“Any hardware put on any ship, or inany office, has a lifecycle. For the newcomponents we have added to theKlaveness system we have a life cycle ofA typical Klaveness bridge installation

‘When we deploy a new vessel we just addit and add the configuration – and we’re

up and running’ – Tore Meum, 99X

p1-20:p1-14.qxd 18/03/2013 09:18

Digital Ship


five years,” said Mr Meum.“Now that we have that in place we

have a good base for the ship managementto budget ahead, knowing exactly the nexttime they will need new hardware. Thebeauty of it is that we can then move theexisting solution from the existing hard-ware over to the new hardware, withouthaving to start from scratch, because of thevirtualisation.”

Comparing old and newTo really understand the particular bene-fits of upgrading its IT infrastructure, MrMeum draws some parallels between thetwo generations of systems used onboardthe Klaveness vessels.

“The old system, built from scratch ona dedicated hardware server, had PCsand drivers and things like that, imagesand applications. Adding new kit, even

standardised things, was a 40+ hoursjob,” he explains

“With the new system it takes 20 hours.From having the packages in-house it takesme 20 hours before I can ship it out, ready.”

“Onboard, even more importantly, itused to take another 40+ hours to fit with theinfrastructure that was in place. You’d haveto run around, put in images to add com-puters to the domain, add user access andyour ‘locking down’ policies. On the newsystem we are doing that in 10 to 15 hours.”

On an on-going basis, one of the biggestdifferences is in the number of peoplerequired to keep the vessel IT systems run-ning – which has now been reduced to asingle person, Mr Meum himself.

“Even though we have had a very goodremote connection system, even on theInmarsat-B it has been working quite well,we needed many more people to create

and maintain images for PCs and worksta-tions, constantly sending out anti-virusupdates, patching things – it was horri-ble,” he notes.

“We had two or three people workingon it, on the old solution. Today there’sjust one person – that’s me.”

Being the single point of contact for thevessels also allows Mr Meum to collectstatistics on IT support to illustrate theextent of the changes.

“When we rolled out the new solutionin 2010 we had approximately five to 20(support) cases per month. Mainly thatinvolved cleaning out viruses and re-imaging PCs on board. In the worst casewe had to clean out a server as well. Therewere a lot of jobs, and it was very slow onInmarsat-B if we wanted to do it remote-ly,” he said.

“Today we have, from the first deploy-ment and with two years’ experience onthe new solution, we have between zeroand four (support) cases per month.Mainly these cases are on straight commu-nications issues, where they’ve suddenlygone out of coverage or several worksta-tions have gotten too eager on Facebook.We have nowhere near the kind of prob-lems we had on the old solution.”

“As of today we have 15 vessels, andhave six new ones coming in. At themoment we don’t need any additionalresources to run the IT solution for thecompany, and I think 25 to 30 vessels willstill be within the range where we canrealistically support the ship IT solutionwith a single person.”

The effect of this reduction in travel andstaffing on IT costs has been significant,and Mr Meum notes that Lars ErikLuthman, VP, strategy and businessdevelopment at Klaveness has stated thatthe company’s deployment cost of IT fornew vessels has been reduced by 50 percent, and that annual operating IT expens-es have been reduced by 90 per cent.

This has created an accumulated annualsaving of US$500,000 for the Klaveness fleet.

“That relates to the current number ofvessels, 15, so they will know exactly whatto expect from the next six as well,” notesMr Meum.

With these positive cost effects,reduced complexity and better communi-cations to and from the ships, it seems thatthe upgrade project has been a wide-rang-ing success – an encouraging result for MrMeum as the outsourced head of IT, andbeneficial for Klaveness as it looks for-ward to the rest of the decade and contin-uing its investment in innovation.

“We’ve got a happy customer, and westill have a happy IT outsourcing depart-ment,” he said.

“We have a happy crew, they haveinternet suddenly, though with a bit ofrestriction on what sites and what servicesthey can use. Facebook is one of the thingsthat they can use, and we’ve had a verygood response on that.”

“The solution is working well, it’s sta-ble and needs a minimum of maintenanceand manpower to run as expected. Thatwas, and is, the main goal for introducingthis new solution.”

Rugged, Weatherproof &

Seaworthy Are you transmitting voice, video and data via satellite to offices onshore? By deploying our solutions, you can improve communications to your vessels at sea – even in extreme environments.

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15 vessels are currently being supported, soon to become 21

DS

p1-20:p1-14.qxd 18/03/2013 09:18

p1-20:p1-14.qxd 08/03/2013 18:30

SOFTWARE Digital Ship


www.interschalt.de

Interschalt Maritime Systems has devel-oped new software that aims to assist ves-sel operators in keeping trim at the opti-mum level, and consequently save fuel.

The TROP trim optimisation module,now integrated into Interschalt's MACS3loading computer system, calculates howthe tanks need to be filled to achieve theideal trim.

"The user can now even automaticallydetermine the best ballast distribution nec-essary to save the greatest amount of fuel,"says software developer Bernhard Finke.The module also takes into account allsafety regulations pertaining to stability

and strength.Interschalt claims that by using TROP,

a medium-sized container ship transport-ing some 7,500 TEU at 20 knots could save2 to 3 per cent on fuel, and thus save in theregion of $1,500 to $2,200 a day.

During the 1990s, ship-owners wereusing models in towing tests designed todetermine the trim that produced thelowest resistance as a ship movedthrough water, notes the company basednear Hamburg (Germany). These testsshowed that, in many cases, a slightlylower forward draft yielded the idealtrim.

Based on these findings, Interschaltadded a ballast-optimisation tool to its

MACS3 loading computer system. Overthe next 15 years however, interest in themodule declined because of the costs ofconducting the associated towing tests,says the company.

"These days, towing tests can be realis-tically and economically simulated withspecial software," said Mr Finke.

"However, determining the optimumtrim is one thing; being able to practicallyapply these findings in actual ship opera-tion is another."

After a ship has been loaded, the crewusually has only one method left to alterits trim: using the ballast tanks. TROP cal-culates how to fill the tanks to achieve theideal trim.

www.marisec.org

The International Chamber of Shipping(ICS) has announced that it will be makingits publications on best practices for ship-ping companies available as eBooks fromApril 2013.

This will start with the ICS BridgeProcedures Guide (4th edition), the ICSGuide to Helicopter/Ship Operations (4thedition) and the ICS/ISF Guidelines on theApplication of the ISM Code (4th Edition).

Other publications will be made avail-able as eBooks when new or revised edi-tions of print versions are published.

In its press release, ICS says it will beusing the eReader technology developed byWitherby Seamanship Group (WPG), whichis already being used by other bodies pro-ducing maritime publications, including theInternational Maritime Organization (IMO).

The ICS eBooks will be available as singleuser versions (with the same recommendedretail price as the existing print editions) oras network versions whereby a customerwill have access to five copies of the eBookfor twice the cost of the single user version.

ICS director external relations, SimonBennett, explained: “As well as respondingto the demand from shipping companies toproduce ICS publications as eBooks, webelieve that by using the proven WPG sys-tem it will be helpful to ship operators forour books to sit alongside IMO regula-tions, as well as useful advice produced byother maritime bodies, in electronic form.”

New trim optimisation module from Interschalt

The new software includes options for ballast and trim optimisation

ICS to publish eBooks

www.eagle.org

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

p21-26:p1-14.qxd 08/03/2013 18:57 Page 1


SOFTWARE

www.awtworldwide.com

www.seagull.no

Norwegian company Seagull announces ithas introduced two new computer basedtraining modules (CBT) – a SeafarerAppraisal course and a Behaviour-basedSafety course.

The company says that these two mod-ules aim to help ships’ officers and crewmanagers to raise safety awareness amongthe seafarers under their supervision.

CBT # 0259 Seafarer Appraisal isdevised for management level officers onboard ships, and human resource andcrewing managers ashore involved in sea-

New computer-based safety training modules

Applied Weather Technology(AWT) has appointed Haydn Jones asthe company’s director of internationaloperations, responsible for sales, market-ing and business development. Mr Jones,who has worked with a number of well-known marine organisations includingNera, the UKHO, ChartCo and, mostrecently, Fugro, will become a memberof the AWT parent company’s board ofdirectors.

farer appraisal. The course introduces theappraisal process and explains the sup-porting documentation involved.

CBT # 0260 Behaviour-based Safety isaimed at shipboard deck and engine offi-cers. Seagull says that this course uses an‘Observe, Assess, Provide Feedback andEvaluate’ methodology to prompt safetybehaviour modification.

Vibeke Nordahl-Paulsen, Seagull’sdirector training content, says: “Thecourse takes a ‘hands-on/toolbox’approach because it is critical that the con-tent is immediately applicable to dailyoperations.”

For more information

Jeppesen Phone +47 51 46 47 00 Fax +47 51 46 47 01 [email protected]

Through our Jeppesen ENC Service and Jeppesen Primar ECDIS Service, we

provide official ENCs with our proprietary compact file format, which means

installations and updates take just minutes and are contained on one DVD.

We offer several flexible licensing options so you choose what works best

for your operation, including OpenENC (Pay-As-You-Sail) licensing for

access to ENCs wherever you need them.

ENCs from Jeppesen are authorized for paperless navigation and

meet the requirements for the ECDIS mandate.

Once you know the facts, the choice is clear.

Get official ENCs from Jeppesen.

Haydn Jones, new man at AWT

PortVision grant to support maritime IT development

www.portvision.com

PortVision has launched a new initiativeoffering $500,000 to fund the develop-ment and implementation of web-basedsolutions that help non-profit maritimeorganisations enhance port and water-way efficiency, safety and security fortheir stakeholders.

Eligible grant participants for thePortVision CONNECT initiative willinclude harbour safety committees, tradeassociations, marine exchanges and otherindustry organisations that have a prima-rily maritime mission.

The grant initiative will include thecommitment of dedicated PortVisionstaff members who will collaborate withgrant recipients on development andimplementation.

Pending projects include gate pass por-tals that streamline terminal access, infor-mation portals for real-time data access,real-time resource scheduling, and water-way alert systems.

Heading up the PortVision CON-NECT initiative is Jason Tieman, the company’s director of maritimeoperations.

“As a maritime industry partner and aleader in providing vessel traffic analyticsand intelligence for this domain, we know

how to bridge the critical information gapbetween waterway stakeholders,” saidMr Tieman.

“Our goal is to help grantees facilitatebetter coordination and awareness ofwaterway impacts and vessel schedul-ing, so they can greatly enhance safetyand achieve the most efficient waterwayutilisation.”

“These efforts will also help improvevisibility so these organisations can makemore informed decisions for their stake-holders, while delivering a number ofother benefits including less congestion,better traffic prioritisation, and a reduc-tion in fuel consumption, excessive emis-sions and wait times.”

Maritime organisations interested inparticipating in the grant programme canobtain more information and downloadan application at www.portvision.com/connect.

As part of the grant applicationprocess, organisations must demon-strate that their project will enhanceefficiency, safety or security for theirstakeholders, and that it can serve as a model for expansion across theindustry.

PortVision says it will fund up to 100per cent of software development andoperating costs for approved projects.

p21-26:p1-14.qxd 08/03/2013 18:57 Page 2

www.ppg.com

PPG Protective and Marine Coatings (PPG)has reached the milestone of installing itsSIGMACARE PLUS system, used for man-agement of ship coatings, on 1,000 vessels.

PPG claims to be the first company tohave offered an online shipboard mainte-nance tool for its paints and coatings, andhas continued to refine the product sinceits launch in 2011.

The latest release also features ‘offline’functionality to accommodate vessels withlimited internet access at sea, as well ashaving onboard maintenance charts avail-able in 12 languages.

The next language set to be added isMandarin, due for release later in 2013.

SIGMACARE PLUS aims to allow own-ers, vessel managers and crew members tobetter organise coatings management,eliminating the complications associatedwith onboard maintenance.

It includes inventory control and aproduct ordering system, allowing vesselsto place stock inquiries whilst at sea, as

well as the ability to create maintenancecharts that can be printed out and used inthe vessel’s paint locker.

“Managing coatings onboard a vesselcan be quite complex,” said Sijmen Visser,global marketing manager M&R, PPGProtective and Marine Coatings.

“Keeping track of what coatings to useand where to apply them, of which colourand mixing ratios, means giving the crewa system that is clear, easy to understandand which will improve the overall quali-ty of onboard maintenance. SIGMACAREPLUS is all about taking away the com-plexity in managing all coating-relatedactivities for a fleet. We believe the sim-pler and clearer something is, the better itwill work.”

“Orders can be controlled more effec-tively and placed while at sea if requiredwith a dynamic map showing which portsand products are available in real time.The paint inventory and the paint lockerbecome better organised and the crew alsowork more safely because they can watchtraining videos on coatings application.”

PPG coatings software passes1,000 installations

The software has been updated a number of times since its launch in 2011

Digital Ship


www.trainingonboard.org

A new website, called Training on Board,has been launched to help ship crews tostay fit.

The www.trainingonboard.org site hasbeen developed by the NorwegianMaritime Authority for the InternationalCommittee on Seafarers' Welfare (ICSW),and funded by the International TransportWorkers Federation Seafarers Trust.

The aim of this initiative is to promoteunderstanding of the link between physi-cal training, nutrition, and fatigue.

Seafarers can measure their fitnessthrough an online calculator, start on aprogramme of physical training andrecord their workout. They can also com-pete amongst themselves, and againstother crews and companies.

“In Norway we are finding that seafar-ers are losing their health certificates asthey have BMIs of more than 35 and are

Seafarers fitness website launchedbecoming vulnerable to diabetes and heartconditions because of lack of exercise andpoor diet,” said Torbjørn Husby of theNorwegian Maritime Authority.

The physical training programmes forseafarers on the site have been designedby a professional physiotherapist, MonaWoll Haland. The exercises can be under-taken onboard.

The programmes contained on the web-site have already been tested with the help ofthe Norwegian shipping company, Odfjell.

Roger Harris, executive director of theICSW, commented: “With the ILOMaritime Labour Convention (MLC) com-ing into force later this year it is importantfor crews to be fit and healthy.”

“The MLC emphasises the importanceof health and welfare. The Training onBoard site encourages seafarers and ship-ping companies to actively participate inthe fitness programme and learn abouthealthy nutrition.”

Best Man in Place.

www.gl-maritime-software.com

GL CrewManager.Let GL CrewManager support you in optimally manning your vessels and in making intelligent use of your crew pool, while assuring full compliance with rules and regulations like MLC 2006.

GL CrewManager – part of most innovative and comprehensive software portfolio in the maritime industry.

p21-26:p1-14.qxd 08/03/2013 18:57 Page 3

SOFTWARE


www.evry.com/marinelink

Evry’s MarineLink has announced that ithas upgraded its SupplierOnline e-com-merce software system for the maritimeindustry.

SupplierOnline is an online, web-based sales order management toolwhich helps suppliers to receive andprocess Requests For Quote (RFQs) andPurchase Orders (POs) from their cus-tomers electronically.

It provides a single common interfacefor all the transactions, so users don’t need

to access different websites or handle anumber of spreadsheets to process e-com-merce transactions.

The new version offers new search fea-tures and direct access to documentsthrough e-mail link, explains MarineLink.

“We are striving to make our free serv-ice SupplierOnline as pain-free as possiblefor the supplier,” says departmental man-ager Ché Geldard.

“This is just the first version of our newgeneration of SupplierOnline, with moreexciting developments coming later in the year.”

E-commerce upgraded

SupplierOnline provides a single interface for electronic transactions

Online viewer for Singapore and Malacca Straits tidal models

www.videotel.com

Videotel reports that it has revised andupdated its Piracy and Armed Robberytraining programme.

Designed to assist shipping companiesand their crews to safely transit piratezones anywhere in the world, the pro-gramme places emphasis on BMP (BestManagement Practices) as the core toolhelping ships avoid, deter and delaypirate attacks.

Available in multimedia formatsincluding Videotel on Demand (VOD), itfeatures ships making preparations priorto transiting the Indian Ocean High Risk

Area (HRA), interviews with senior ship-ping industry personnel and representa-tives from naval/military forces, as well asother organisations.

It also includes maps showing the con-centration of piracy incidents and graph-ics illustrating how ships can make eva-sive manoeuvres.

Nigel Cleave, CEO of Videotel, under-lines the industry’s need for support andguidance: “In the last few years alone thenumber of alternatives available in the arse-nal of anti-piracy measures has increased,but all have their benefits and drawbacksand the legal implications of many of theseoptions to the ship owner are considerable.”

Videotel upgrades anti-piracy programme

Proper training can be critical in dealing with pirate attacks

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Our New 2013-2014 Catalogue Coming Soon

www.tidetech.org

Tidetech has released tidal models for theSingapore and Malacca Straits in an onlineviewer, called OceanView, which makes itpossible to access the data on the internet,including on mobile devices.

OceanView provides an atlas of tidalcurrents, with predictions at 1km resolutionfor every 30 minutes. Other features includelatitude and longitude, place names, speedof current, and shipping lanes.

Users can check the data online, down-load it as PDF and/or print it using thisentry-level version of its tidal models.

Tidetech managing director PennyHaire notes that there was a “black hole”

for detailed tidal current information inthe Malacca Straits region.

“This is a region that experiences veryhigh traffic density and is faced with com-plex tides that have a significant effect onpassage time and fuel consumption,” MsHaire says, adding that accurate tidal cur-rent data “hasn’t previously been available.”

“While the online viewer is not as pow-erful as the fully integrated version, itdoes provide detailed information wherethere hasn’t been any before.”

Tidetech says that trials with bothOceanView and fully integrated oceano-graphic data are being run with containervessels, cruise ships and ferries in variousregions around the world.

OSM to equip 14 vessels with BASS moduleswww.bassnet.no

www.osm.no

Software provider BASS announces it hasstruck a deal with OSM Ship Managementto equip 14 of its vessels with the BASSnetMaintenance and Procurement modules.

OSM manages a fleet of more than 430vessels. It is based in Norway, whereBASS is also located.

This new agreement is an extension ofan existing relationship between the com-panies, with OSM having signed up twovessels for the Maintenance and

Procurement modules in 2011.“The BASSnet software modules have

proven their worth in terms of cost sav-ings, higher productivity and streamliningof operations in our demanding businessenvironment,” says OSM’s general man-ager, Captain Rajan Mathrani.

BASS’ vice president of Asia, MarkRavi, noted: “Following the switch toBASS software solutions from othermarine applications, the OSM manage-ment is clearly convinced about theadvantages of our state of the art systemsagainst our competitors.”

p21-26:p1-14.qxd 08/03/2013 18:58 Page 4

CONNECTINGOCEANS

Eutelsat Maritime SolutionsWith capacity commercialised on 30 satellites, Eutelsat is one of the world’s leading satellite operators. Eutelsat has pioneered the development of today's maritime telecommunications and continues to build its success on the reliability of its in-orbit resources, its expertise and continuing commitment to innovation. Our VSAT technology provides corporate class networking services, interconnectivity and real-time data applications for all business, leisure and crew welfare needs.

eutelsat.com

p21-26:p1-14.qxd 08/03/2013 18:58 Page 5

SOFTWARE


www.oceanfile.com

Oceanfile has launched a softwaredesigned to help tanker operators managevetting and inspections.

Called Oceanfile, after the companythat has developed it, the system providesweb-based applications, integrating themain functions associated with the majorinspection programmes and managing alldetails of the inspections conducted oneach vessel.

The Oceanfile Observation History tool

lists every instance of observations associ-ated with each Inspection Report question,which helps keep track of past observa-tions and of the operator’s responses tothose observations.

The Oceanfile Chart Wizard can createuser-defined charts, with filters to selectdate range, IMO vessel types, sister ves-sels, or personnel.

The software can also search and dis-play performance results for individualvessels, sister ships, vessel type, regionalmanaging offices and personnel responsi-

bilities, as well as a Planner functionwhich sends reminders when action isrequired.

Additional features are under develop-ment, such as an Inspection CostsManager and Audit tools to facilitate self-inspections and navigation audits.

Oceanfile is a subscription-based pro-gram designed for oil, chemical and gastanker operators who deal with oil compa-ny vetting programmes.

A free trial of the software is availableat www.oceanfile.com.

The Oceanfile Chart Wizard generates numerous user-defined charts, while the Oceanfile Observation History tool displays all observations relating to each VIQ question

Tanker vetting management tool launched

New XFR system to detect sulphur in diesel fuelswww.eurocontrol.ca

Canadian group Eurocontrol hasannounced that its subsidiary Xenemetricshas introduced an onboard X-rayFluorescence (XRF) analysis system.

The XRF system will allow vessels to

detect sulphur in diesel fuels, collectingdata on these levels for management andanalysis by the vessel operator.

In addition to measuring sulphuroxides in diesel fuel, Petro-Marine XRFcan also monitor wear metals in enginelubricating oil, spot Cat Fines (compounds

www.bureauveritas.com

Tecnitas, the consultancy arm of BureauVeritas, has launched a new software tool,E2, aimed at optimising energy usage forboth individual ships and across fleets.

E2 aims to assist shipowners in max-imising the potential gains in energy effi-ciency and emission reduction which canbe obtained through the proper applica-tion of IMO’s Ship Energy EfficiencyMonitoring Plan (SEEMP).

The software includes a number of dif-ferent modes. Initially it is used by ships’crews in the Acquisition mode to monitor,measure and record actual consumptionon board in a variety of different cargoand navigation conditions.

The software can then calculate the cor-responding fuel Key PerformanceIndicators (KPIs) and emissions KPIs.

Two additional modes are available forrunning E2 software: the Simulation modeand the Benchmark mode. In Simulationmode, E2 will give access to reference val-ues for a given voyage and to the corre-sponding calculated reference fuel KPIs.

Data collected in the on-goingAcquisition mode can then be comparedwith the Simulation to deliver the infor-mation needed to implement improve-ment measures and calculate the YearlyEnergy Efficiency Operating Index (EEOI).

The purpose of E2’s Benchmark modeis to benchmark, follow up and monitorthe energy efficiency performance of dif-ferent ships within the fleet, or of the sameship for different voyages.

“The SEEMP seeks to improve a ship’senergy efficiency through four steps: plan-ning, implementation, monitoring andmeasurements, and self-evaluation andimprovement,” said Claude Andreau,head of engineering, Tecnitas.

“We hear a lot about energy savingdevices which can be fitted and opera-tional savings which can be made, but inour experience shipowners do not knowwhich measures provide the best savingssimply because they don’t have the rightinformation to base decisions on.”

“E2 solves that problem by collectingand evaluating all the information neededto make energy saving decisions. It thenproduces KPIs and benchmarks individ-ual ships or whole fleets against them.”

The currently available version of E2software (v1.2) is based on manual acqui-sition of the input data, such as the fuelconsumption recorded onboard.

The company says that developmentwork is also underway on an upgradewhich will acquire the inputs automatical-ly through flow meters and GPS. Thesenew capabilities will enhance the accuracyof the data acquisition and will give accessto more advanced analyses and diagnosis.

The company says that a demo versionof the current software, with limited timeaccess to its full capabilities (acquisition,simulation and benchmark modes), isavailable upon request.

The use of E2 can be licensed either forAcquisition mode only, or for Acquisition,Simulation and Benchmark modes.

Tecnitas launchesSEEMP software

of silicon and aluminium) in fuel, anddetect fraudulent mixing of bunker fuels.

The system is equipped with GPRS/Wi-Fi/satellite data transfer and GPS connectioncapabilities, which makes it possible to imme-diately upload location-based data to the ship-ping company for reporting and monitoring.

To enquire about participation opportunities, please contact: Youngsuk Park �: [email protected] � +44 20 7017 0680 www.thedigitalship.com

DIGITAL SHIP @ NOR-SHIPPINGMaritime CIO Forum 5 June 2013, Thon Hotel Arena, Lillestrom

The Maritime CIO Forum is designed to be a meeting

point for business leaders to share knowledge

and collaborate with peers on strategic IT &

communications issues – and learn from other

senior professionals in the shipping industry.

Who should attend: • Chief Information Officers (CIO)• Chief Technology Officers (CTO)• Chief Operating Officers (COO)• Other senior business and technical executives technology,

communications, information management, operations, and finance functions

• Suppliers providing Ship Shore Communications, Software / Data Services and Shipboard Electronics / Safety / Navigation Systems

Digital Ship magazine June/July isuewill be distributed at the

Nor-Shipping exhibition as well asthe Digital Ship Maritime CIO Forum

To discuss available positions andrates please contact

Ria Kontogeorgou Tel +44 (0)20 7017 3401

Mob: +44 (0)7815 481036 email: [email protected]

NEW FOR 2013!

p21-26:p1-14.qxd 08/03/2013 18:58 Page 6

India’s Ministry of Shipping has intro-duced a new amendment to the ship secu-rity plans for Indian flagged ships whichwill require them to be equipped withCCTV cameras as part as their anti-piracymeasures.

“Fitment of CCTV on such vessels maybe undertaken by 30.6.2013 or the date ofthe vessel’s next annual ISPS(International Ship Security Certificate)audit, whichever is later,” writes theMinistry of Shipping in an addendum to asecurity circular.

Ships operating solely on the Indiancoast are exempt from this obligation, as

are vessels which don’t operate in theHigh Risk Area (HRA) defined in the BestManagement Practices (BMP) guidance.

In a circular published in October2012, owners and managers of Indianflagged ships were asked to ensure thattheir Ship Security Plans (SSP) include“effective use of monitoring and/or sur-veillance equipment.”

This new addendum, published inJanuary, clarifies what kind of equipment isexpected and which ships have to install it.

The measures are a response to the actsof piracy that continue to take place in theGulf of Aden and Western Arabian Seas.

CCTV requirement for Indian vessels


ELECTRONICS & NAVIGATION Digital Ship

www.arcadiasm.grwww.transas.com

Transas says it is to upgrade the dualECDIS on Arcadia Shipmanagement’sfleet so it can shift to paperless navigation.

Arcadia, an Athens-based company,operates 14 oil tankers, and will workwith Transas Hellas to deploy officialcharts (from Transas Admiralty DataService), navigation tools and a chart han-dling system so as to exceed the latest car-riage requirement.

Arcadia’s first vessel, Aegean Dignity,moved to paperless navigation at the end

of February, says Transas. The companieshave scheduled to proceed to install thesystems on one vessel per month.

At the same time, Arcadia’s trainingcentre, which is accredited by Det NorskeVeritas (DNV), will be upgraded to com-ply with the 2010 Manila amendments tothe STCW (Standards of Training,Certification and Watchkeeping forSeafarers) convention.

Arcadia’s training centre is equippedwith Transas bridge, engine room,GMDSS and liquid cargo handling simula-tors, making it possible to conduct ECDIStype-specific training for bridge officers.

Arcadia’s 14 oil tankers are set to sail paperless

Arcadia upgrades its dual ECDIS to go paperless

www.transas.com

Transas reports that it has successfullyinstalled and commissioned a stand aloneAIS solution at the Port of Aqaba, Jordan,as part of the EU-funded SafeMed IIProject.

Intended to cover Aqaba Port, its innerport waters, navigational channels andfairways, the primary purpose of the proj-ect is to provide a comprehensiveoverview of maritime traffic to relevantparties, to help to forecast dangers andrisks related to marine pollution.

Transas’ stand alone AIS solution incor-porates VTS technology and the TransasAIS Base station T214 system designed forcoastal surveillance, vessel traffic monitor-

ing and ports management.In addition, an AIS VTS Server, web

server and related hardware equipmentwere supplied to the Jordan MaritimeAuthority, also financed by the EUSafeMed II regional project.

This project has been implemented inthe Mediterranean region by the RegionalMarine Pollution Emergency ResponseCentre for the Mediterranean Sea (REM-PEC) on behalf of the InternationalMaritime Organization (IMO).

REMPEC is based in Malta and assiststhe Mediterranean coastal States in ratify-ing, transposing, implementing andenforcing international maritime conven-tions related to the prevention of, andresponse to, marine pollution from ships.

AIS system implemented in Jordan

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

Marinestar assists manoeuvring in restricted

calculation aids berthing of large vessels.

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

Fugro Satellite Positioning, NorwayTel: +47 21 50 14 00 Fax: +47 21 50 14 01E-mail: [email protected] Web: www.fugromarinestar.com

KNOW WHERE YOU’RE GOING...

p27-36:p15-25.qxd 08/03/2013 19:16 Page 1

ELECTRONICS & NAVIGATION


www.nautinst.org/pubs

The Nautical Institute has published apractical guide for mariners whichexplains the benefits and limitations ofNumerical Weather Prediction (NWP).

The book “cuts through the jargon andcomplexity to provide mariners with theconfidence and knowledge to exploit all ofthe advantages of modern meteorologyand to avoid the pitfalls,” says authorHuw Davies, a former Commander in theRoyal Navy.

Entitled ‘Numerical Weather Prediction– a practical guide for mariners’, it explainsthe NWP production process and examinesthe accuracy and characteristics of the mainmeteorological and wave models.

It demonstrates how seafarers can eval-uate the many digital weather products onoffer and also create their own forecastsusing freely available NWP sources.

The Nautical Institute notes that, whileNWP has made forecasts more accurateand helped develop services such asrouteing advice, weather still accounts fora significant share of total losses of ship-ping (45 per cent between 2006 and 2010,according to the International Union ofMarine Insurance).

Mariners need to be able to recognisewhen they are being presented withNWP, establish its source and the charac-teristics and performance of the particu-lar NWP model and make informed

judgements on suitability and use, theInstitute notes.

“Information should be reliable and ina format that supports decision-making,”sums up David Patraiko, director of proj-ects at the Institute.

“This guide should help mariners tomake the best use of the technology in apractical and professional way.”

‘Numerical Weather Prediction – apractical guide for mariners’ is availablefrom The Nautical Institute at the price of £30.

Guide to Numerical Weather Prediction published

www.marineserve.dewww.navico.com

Maritime training company MSGMarineServe GmbH has reached an agree-ment to act as the official worldwideECDIS training agent for Navico SimradECDIS systems.

The ECDIS training will be provided byMSG and its ECDIS Training Consortium(ETC), or by sister company Safebridgeusing its online simulation and e-learningcourses.

The courses will provide trainees withall required instruction, leading to full cer-tification upon completion, and alsoallows third party authorities and cus-tomers, such as Port State Control, to ref-erence trainee database services.

The course content will be deliveredover original Simrad ECDIS software

running either on dedicated MSG-con-trolled local servers at each ETC partner’sclassroom facilities, under MSG’s remotecontrol and management system, or onthe Safebridge server within its e-learn-ing programme for delivery online viathe web.

“We are very pleased to offer our cus-tomers online training for Simrad ECDISsystems, this training enables operatorsacross the globe to achieve the requiredtype-specific training in a very flexible andcost efficient manner,” said president andCEO of Navico, Leif Ottosson.

“The Simrad CS68 ECDIS was designedwith input from experienced operators,with ease of use as one of our highest pri-orities. The service and experience thatMSG provides is completely in line withour mission to provide the very best prod-ucts for safe navigation.”

MSG to provide Simrad ECDIS training

www.tugcam.com

GM Engineering Services has released anew TugCam which can help tugboat cap-tains to see in complete darkness.

The Virginia-based company is addingto its range of wireless CCTV cameras for vessels with the TC115 / TC116 range,which features infrared illuminators

designed specifically for use on thewater.

The camera can be tilted in any direc-tion and the zoom and focus are easier toadjust than in previous versions, accord-ing to GM Engineering Services.

Like the rest of the TugCam range,TC115 / TC116 contain a wireless trans-mitter with rechargeable battery.

Night vision TugCam

Technology, communications and training continue to play a major role in the development of Japan's shipping sector,

with stakeholders needing to remain up to date with new technologies and strategies to ensure their operations are as

efficient as possible.

In this regard we are happy to announce the launch of the inaugural Digital Ship Japan conference and exhibition.

This event will provide you with an opportunity to discuss the latest developments in IT & communications with

Japanese shipping companies and industry experts.

技術・通信は日本の船舶産業の発展において中心的な役割を担い続けています。船舶関係者らはこの産業を出来る限り効率よく

運営していくために最新の技術と戦略を維持し続ける必要があります。この様な理由から、今回デジタル・シップ・ジャパンコンファ

ーランスを開催させて頂きたく存じ上げます。このイベントは日本の船舶会社やその他の専門家と最新のIT・通信開発に関し論じ

る機会を提供致します。

To enquire about participation opportunities, please contact: Youngsuk Park � [email protected] �+44 20 7017 3409

Free of charge for shipping companies and shipyards この会は、船舶会社及び造船会社関係者様は無料となります。

Digital Ship Japan Conference & Exhibition3 - 4 September 2013, Capitol Hotel Tokyu, Tokyo

NEW FOR 2013!Conference to be conducted with simultaneous

translation service in Japanese and English

コンファーランスは日本語・英語に同時通訳されます。

p27-36:p15-25.qxd 18/03/2013 09:21 Page 2


Digital Ship

www.sam-electronics.de

SAM Electronics, an L-3 company, reportsthat it has supplied a range of technologysystems for installation on the world’slargest container vessel.

Via its associate L-3 Marine SystemsKorea subsidiary in Busan, the companyhas provided a combined NACOSPlatinum integrated navigation commandsystem and MCS Platinum automatedmonitoring and control assembly for theCMA CGM Marco Polo, which recentlybegan service between Europe and Asia.

The 396-metre-long vessel was built byDaewoo Shipbuilding & MarineEngineering (DMSE) in South Korea forCMA CGM of France.

The CMA CGM Marco Polo has beenequipped with a navigation control sys-tem comprising X- and S-band radarslinked to three multifunction Multipilotworkstations and an ECDISpilot for cen-tralised control of all main radar, ECDISand conning operations, in addition tothose for automatic steering, track controland voyage planning.

Supplementary sensors for the integrat-ed bridge configuration include AIS, VDR,GPS, doppler log and echosounder

navaids, as well as SAM Electronics’ newBridge Navigational Watch Alarm System(BNWAS).

“This order confirms the continuedhigh-level acceptance of SAM’s latestseries of advanced, ergonomically-designed Platinum systems now in wide-spread use aboard all classes of commer-cial shipping, as well as luxury yachts andmany of the world’s leading cruise liners,”said Holger Mahnke, senior vice-presidentof SAM Electronics.

The NACOS assembly is complement-ed by an integrated MCS Platinum moni-toring and control system governing all main ship operating components,including 4,500 I/Os on a redundantLAN network.

It incorporates a series of seven high-resolution multifunction display consolesvariously sited on the vessel bridge and incentral and engine control rooms.

The Marco Polo is the first of a series ofthree 16,000 teu vessels ordered fromDMSE by Marseille-based CMA CGM,the world’s third-largest container ship-ping group.

Delivery of the next two vessels, whichare also being equipped with similar sys-tems, is expected later this year.

SAM systems for world’s largestcontainer vessel

Raytheon Anschütz GmbHD-24100 Kiel, GermanyTel +49(0)4 31-30 19-0Fax +49(0)4 31-30 19-291 www.raytheon-anschuetz.com

Raytheon Anschütz navigation systems combine reliability with advanced technology and superior performance.

Our navigation solutions cover:

R Anschütz

ADVANCED NAVIGATIONTECHNOLOGYProven experience for more than 100 years

www.ecdis.org

ECDIS Ltd reports that it is now offering acourse that combines generic and type-specific training on ECDIS.

On completion of the Generic module,based on the IMO 1.27 model course, stu-dents proceed to the short Type Specificcourse - and can thus receive twoapproved certificates.

“The combined Generic and TypeSpecific ECDIS course is a cost effectiveand productive way to ensure marinersare trained to an excellent standard in theuse of their ECDIS equipment,” says JoeSloly, customer development manager atECDIS Ltd.

The IMO 1.27 ECDIS course lasts 40

hours over four or five days and is accredit-ed by the Maritime and Coastguard Agency(MCA) and Det Norske Veritas (DNV).

The Type Specific course, which wasaccredited by the Nautical Institute in April2011, normally takes one day (eight hours).

It includes presentations and practicalexercises on the actual ECDIS equipment,which can be chosen from OSI, KelvinHughes, JRC, Transas, PC Maritime,Simrad and Totem.

ECDIS Ltd also delivers on-board famil-iarisation courses, brought to the marinerson their vessel. The one-day training,which hasn’t received accreditation to date,uses the vessel’s installed ECDIS. It is avail-able for all the previously mentionedbrands, as well as Furuno and Maris.

Two-in-one ECDIS training

ECDIS Ltd is offering courses combining generic and type-specific training

p27-36:p15-25.qxd 08/03/2013 19:16 Page 3

www.accseas.eu

ACCSEAS, a project funded in part by theEuropean Union, is developing e-naviga-tion tools to help mariners navigate safelyin the North Sea region, particularly inrelation to the expected growth in windfarms in the sea area in the coming years.

ACCSEAS (Accessibility for Shipping,Efficiency Advantages and Sustainability)tested a prototype resilient PNT system(Positioning, Navigation and Timing) inte-grated into the bridge of a vessel at theend of February, in Harwich, UK.

The demonstration aimed at highlight-ing GPS vulnerability to jamming andshowing the benefits of having a resilientPNT solution.

In research published on February 26th,ACCSEAS calculated that navigable spacein the North Sea region could decrease by5.5 per cent as the surface allocated towind farms could go from roughly440km2 to about 23,500km2 “within just afew years”.

This would occur at a time when ship-

ping traffic and vessel sizes are expectedto rise, in a region that already hosts someof the busiest shipping lanes in the world.

Renewable energy deployments could“pose a significant threat to maritime safe-ty as shipping traffic continues to grow,”warns Alwyn Williams, ACCSEAS projectmanager.

“We believe that e-navigation technolo-gies have the potential to reduce theserisks through safer, more accurate naviga-tion in order for turbines, other offshoreobstacles, and ships to co-exist safely inthe North Sea Region.”

“Greater navigational accuracy from e-navigation technologies will help lead tosafer seas,” adds David Balston, directorof safety and environment at the UKChamber of Shipping.

The ACCSEAS partnership consists ofeleven organisations in seven countries:General Lighthouse Authorities (UK),Chalmers University of Technology(Sweden), Danish Maritime Authority,Federal Waterways & ShippingAdministration (Germany), Rijkwaterstaat,

e-navigation for North Sea safety

Minesterie Infrastructuur en Milieu(Netherlands), Swedish MaritimeAdministration, Norwegian CoastalAdministration, SSPA Sweden AB,Flensburg University of Applied Science(Germany), NHL Hogeschool,

Leeuwarden, Maritiem Instituut WillemBarentsz (Netherlands), World MaritimeUniversity (Sweden).

The initiative held its first annual confer-ence at the Flensburg University of AppliedSciences in Germany, March 5-7th.

ACCSEAS is studying shipping density and the affect of wind farms on shipping lanes in the North Sea



http://bit.ly/admiralty-genuine

The UK Hydrographic Office (UKHO) hasissued a short guide to help users distin-guish between its genuine Admiralty nau-tical charts and counterfeit products.

UKHO notes that the use of counterfeitcharts can seriously endanger the safetyof vessels, crews and cargoes, as well asleading to potentially significant legalconsequences.

“Because counterfeit versions have notbeen through the same rigorous checkingprocedures as official Admiralty chartsand publications, they cannot be trustedfor voyage planning or navigational pur-poses,” warns John Dawson, head of mar-keting at the UKHO.

“As well as failing to comply withSOLAS (International Convention on theSafety of Life at Sea) carriage regulationsand possibly also Flag State and Port StateControl regulations, the use of counterfeitcharts and publications poses a seriousrisk to vessel safety.”

After noticing an increase in the number of counterfeit versions of itsAdmiralty charts in circulation, the UK

Hydrographic Office has produced aguide to help users and inspectors to dis-tinguish official Admiralty charts andpublications from counterfeit versions.

The two-page document can be down-loaded online. It explains that genuinecharts bear the Admiralty ‘Flying A’watermark within the paper, which can beseen by holding the chart up to the light,and that they all carry on the reverse a‘thumb label’ strip that contains theAdmiralty logo, chart number, geographicarea, barcode and date.

The UKHO says suspect publicationscan be identified by comparing themagainst official Admiralty versions, wherevariations may be spotted in the height,look, feel and weight of the product, thecolour tone and strength of the ink, or thequality of the binding.

Anyone with suspicions over the authen-ticity of their Admiralty charts and publica-tions is asked to contact the UKHO by e-mailing [email protected].

Copies of the UKHO’s guide to identify-ing genuine Admiralty products can bedownloaded from http://bit.ly/admiralty-genuine.

Guide to counterfeit nautical charts released

The use of counterfeit publications, such as the one shown here (left), could lead to significant consequences

www.sevencs.com

SevenCs has partnered with Australiansoftware company VoyageBank to deliverPortable Pilot Unit (PPU) technology to 50marine pilots at the Great Barrier Reef.

The three year deal, signed recentlywith Australian Reef Pilots (ARP), willadd to the region’s centralised manage-ment of pilotage activities via its PilotageSafety Management System (PSMS), usedto manage navigation and real-time moni-toring.

“We are excited to have chosenSevenCs and VoyageBank to help us raisepilotage safety to a new level within thereef,” said Simon Meyjes, CEO ofAustralian Reef Pilots.

“Our new PPUs are tablet devices thatconnect our pilots to ship systems, busi-ness systems and each other in ways thatwere impossible only a year ago.”

“This investment in new technologywill make a profound and immediateimpact on shipping safety within the reefand further strengthen the quality of serv-ice ARP provides to its customers.”

The new PPUs are touchscreen devicesthat run SevenCs Orca Pilot G2 pilotagesoftware, and have been customised bySevenCs for the requirements of pilotagewithin the reef.

“Bringing together the knowledge ofVoyagebank and SevenCs allows our cus-tomers to utilise modern technology at awhole new level,” said Bjoern Roehlich,sales director of SevenCs.

PPU systems supplied to Great Barrier Reef

Furuno has established a subsidiary inCyprus. The new office, based in Limassol,started operations in November 2012.

http://furuno.com.cy

50 marine pilots will be supplied with the technology

p27-36:p15-25.qxd 08/03/2013 19:17 Page 4

p27-36:p15-25.qxd 14/03/2013 11:22 Page 5



www.furuno.com

Furuno has announced that it has accred-ited the Veritas Maritime Training Centrein Manila to provide Furuno type-specificECDIS training.

Under the ‘NavSkills’ agreement,Veritas MTC will accommodate six train-ing workstations (four FEA-2107 worksta-tions and two next-generation FMD-3200workstations) and have three of itsinstructors trained by Furuno.

Veritas MTC, formerly known asEpsilon Maritime Training Center, wasestablished in January 2012.

The ‘NavSkills’ programme ensuresthat the course in an accredited facility isconducted in the same way, with the samecontent and duration and using the sameteaching methods, as employed by Furunoin its own training centres in Denmarkand Singapore.

The Japan-based company says it is nowable to provide type-specific ECDIS trainingin Germany, Turkey, Greece, Singapore,India, The Philippines, China and Denmark.

It also wants to expand its the trainingnetwork by establishing similar co-opera-tions with training centres in the USA,Europe, Africa and Asia.

www.km.kongsberg.com

Kongsberg Norcontrol IT (KNC) has beenchosen by the Norwegian CoastalAdministration (NCA) to develop a newnational Vessel Traffic Service (VTS),which will use its C-Scope maritime sur-veillance system.

Norway has five VTS centres coveringship traffic along its coast; they are locatedin Horten, Brevik, Kvitsøy, Fedje andVardø. Under the five-year contract,which started this February, Kongsbergwill replace the VTS systems currently inuse at all five centres.

The company says it will implement itsC-Scope system at the centres, which firstentered service for the Maritime and PortAuthority of Singapore (MPA) in 2011.

"The C-Scope system for NCA willbuild upon the VTS system in Singapore,so it will be based on a proven installationin one of the world’s busiest waterways,"says Fred Fredriksen, senior project man-ager, KNC.

Headquartered in Kongsberg (Norway),the company explains that its system pro-vides satellite-based earth observationdata integrated with terrestrial RADAR,AIS, and electro-optic sensors in additionto Radar Data Processing and automaticde-clutter technology.

The Norwegian VTS will include anumber of additional new features, suchas remote traffic display for mobiledevices, 3D traffic visualisation and anintegrated chat client.

Under the contract, Kongsberg will alsodeliver a VTS simulation system, to be locat-ed at the NCA office in Haugesund, whichis the national centre for VTS competence.The simulator will be able to display both asimulated and live VTS traffic image.

In addition to the installation inHaugesund, smaller VTS simulators willbe set up at the other VTS centres to con-duct local training.

"With simulators based on and inte-grated with the real systems, Kongsbergcan provide the ‘Full Picture’, supporting

the strict training requirements for VTSoperators and helping to ensure high com-petence throughout the organisation,"

says Tone-Merete Hansen, sales managerNorway, Kongsberg Maritime, simulation.

By 2018, the regional VTS centres ofHorten, Kvitsøy, Brevik, Fedje, and Vardøwill be completed and online with the newNorwegian VTS, says Kongsberg.

Kongsberg to develop Norwegian VTS

Kongsberg will replace the VTS systems in use at five Norwegian coastal centres

Type-specific ECDIS training in Manila

The Veritas MTC will provide accredited Furuno ECDIS training

www.orbcomm.comwww.terramarnetworks.com

Two new developments involving satelliteAIS data providers ORBCOMM andexactEarth have been announced, whichshould see the companies’ data morewidely available to the maritime market,

TerraMar Networks has reached anagreement with ORBCOMM to incorpo-rate its satellite AIS data into a fleet man-agement portal called tracpoint.

ORBCOMM provides satellite-basedAIS services, providing a ship’s identifica-tion, position and other critical data. Thisdata will now be integrated intoTerraMar’s tracpoint portal for a range ofapplications.

Some of the applications will includefleet monitoring (ability to filter ondefined vessels only to create a fleet-spe-cific view), trading pattern analysis (visi-bility of the movements of all vessels of acertain type, such as tankers, worldwide),and logistics scheduling and optimisation(visibility of progress of ships comparedwith the schedule).

Anti-piracy and other maritime safetysecurity applications, using the ability tomonitor vessels when in high-risk or high-traffic areas, are also planned.

The tracpoint portal already supportsapplications delivered over GSM and satel-lite networks, as well as displaying datafrom private terrestrial AIS receivers. Theyinclude ‘track and trace’ on a mappinginterface, a database for centrally recordingdetails of all assets in the fleet, and a report-ing module for analytical support.

Gwyn Roberts, managing director atTerraMar Networks, says: “The addition

of ORBCOMM’s satellite AIS data rein-forces our commitment to providing flexi-ble, customisable solutions to the mar-itime and energy sectors.”

“We offer the most complete situationalpicture of logistics activity in a given geo-graphical area – onshore, offshore and indeep oceans, on one convenient platform.”

Meanwhile, satellite AIS data providerexactEarth has announced the release ofits new Geospatial Web Services (GWS)product, allowing users to access satelliteAIS data on request.

Data can now be integrated with othergeospatial datasets dynamically, and canbe immediately consumed and displayedin any Open Geospatial Consortium(OGC) compliant geospatial system suchas the Esri or Google Earth platforms.

This new capability gives users accessto daily live tracking of over 90,000 shipsglobally. Customised ship data can be dis-played, allowing for current ship informa-tion to be available on request with nonew platform purchases required.

“We are extremely proud and excitedto announce this addition to our serviceoffering,” said Graham Stickler, seniordirector of global marketing forexactEarth.

“exactAIS is already the leading sourceof global AIS data, providing the mostcomplete and comprehensive picture forglobal maritime domain awareness.”

“GWS now opens this powerful infor-mation source to a much broader audiencewithout the need for sophisticated data-bases and maritime analytical systems. Weare very eager to make these data morewidely available than has ever been possi-ble before.”

Satellite AIS data deals

www.captec-group.com

Captec reports that it has introduced twonew marine certified computers, availablenow.

The equipment is designed for criticalship systems, such as navigation, propul-sion control, machinery control and moni-

toring, cargo management and safety sys-tems.

The computers, featuring Intel Core iprocessors, are approved for use with arange of graphics and I/O extension cardsand operate without fans.

Mounting kits are available for installa-tion on desks, walls, or in 19-inch racks.

New marine certified computers

Keep your finger on the pulse with our weekly e-mail newsletter

and our online network for maritime IT professionals

www.thedigitalship.com

p27-36:p15-25.qxd 08/03/2013 19:17 Page 6

SPONSORED BY:

OPENING CONFERENCEJUNE O4 2O13

9:30 WELCOME & AWARDS

10:25 WHAT’S NEXT?

11:15 THE CHANGEMAKERS

Nor-Shipping asks, “What’s next?” Be part of the answer! Join the movers and shakers of the shipping world when they discuss future scenarios and share their insights at the Nor-Shipping Opening Conference.

BY INVITATION ONLY. REQUEST YOURS AT

www.nor-shipping.com

MASAMICHI MOROOKAPresident, ICSRep. Director, NYK Line

ALI OBAID AL-YABHOUNIUAE Governor, OPECCEO, ADNATCO & NGSCO

STURLA HENRIKSENDirector General, Norwegian Shipowners’ Association

CLAUS V. HEMMINGSENCEO, Maersk Drilling

HENRIK MADSENCEO, DNV

ANDREAS SOHMEN-PAO CEO, BW Maritime & BW Gas

PETER NEFFENGERDeputy Comander for Operations, US Coast Guard

KOJI SEKIMIZUSecretary General, IMO

WALTER QVAMPresident & CEO, Kongsberg Group

BJÖRN ROSENGRENPresident & CEO, Wärtsila Corporation

TROND KLEIVDAL President, Norwegian Shipowners’ Association

KOJI SEKIMIZU Secretary General, IMO

TROND GISKE Norway’s Minister of Trade and Industry

KRISTIN HOLTHGroup Executive VP, DNB

WHAT’S NEXT?

Complimentary networking luncheon follows the conference at 12:00

p27-36:p15-25.qxd 08/03/2013 19:17 Page 7

Automated transport is now a feature of urban travel in many cities around the world – the technologybehind these systems could drive renewed interest in similar initiatives for the maritime industry,

writes Dr Andy Norris

The unmanned vessel



EE ver increasing attention is beinggiven to unmanned transport sys-tems.

In fact, fully automated rail transporthas been common for a number of years,especially on shorter distance networkssuch as the London Docklands LightRailway and many other metro systemsthroughout the world.

The present growth in interest is drivenby what has now become truly feasible formore complex transport systems, particu-larly in the air and on the road.

At the heart of this is the affordable tech-nology now available – including immenseprocessing power, advanced sensors andsophisticated digital communications.

It is not surprising that all this activityis causing a growth of interest in the mar-itime sector.

Particular attention is being given tosmaller craft but many of the issues aredirectly related to vessels of any size. Also,some of the areas of interest, such as auto-matic collision avoidance systems, alsopotentially provide highly useful decisionsupport on manned vessels.

Particular examples of unmanned craftbeing considered and trialled includethose for hydrographic survey and for theinspection of marine structures, such as oilrigs and wind farms.

These tasks can typically be performedby quite small vessels – somewhat lessthan 10 metres in length. However, cur-rent military interests include much largervessels, with applications for surveillanceand the safe handling of dangerous situa-tions at the forefront.

Right now it does not appear that anycurrent IMO regulations or guidelinesexplicitly mention unmanned vessels but itis difficult to argue that existing regulationsfor manned vessels do not generally apply.

Even so, military vessels are normallyconsidered exempt from IMO require-ments, whether manned or unmanned.

The COLREGsCompliance to the COLREGs appears to bea particularly clear requirement forunmanned commercial or private vessels,not least because Rule 1(a) states that“These rules shall apply to all vessels uponthe high seas and in all waters connectedtherewith navigable by seagoing vessels”.

This is amplified in Rule 3(a) where itstates that “The word ‘vessel’ includesevery description of water craft ... used orcapable of being used as a means of trans-portation on the water”.

In territorial waters, restricted areascould presumably be nationally definedthat allow ‘COLREG-ignorant’ unmannedvessels to operate – such as close to windfarms – but generally prohibiting entry ofthose areas to other vessels.

In fact, automatic collision avoidanceconforming to the requirements of the

COLREGs is far from being an insur-mountable obstacle.

Since the late 1990s, experimental colli-sion avoidance advice systems have beendemonstrated on simulators and at sea,apparently with good success – at least asan advisory system to an onboard humannavigator.

An important missing factor with suchsystems has been that they generally onlytake inputs from the radar, AIS and chart-ed data. The COLREGs have words suchas “when the vessel sees the other ahead”and “sees the masthead lights”.

This wording implies that an automat-ed system must also use optical tech-niques to corroborate the direction andaspect of surrounding vessels. In addition,‘hearing’ is used within the COLREGs,implying that effective acoustic detectiontechniques must also be employed on anunmanned vessel.

The regulations do not assume that ves-sels necessarily have radar to help anti-collision decisions but they particularlyemphasise the appropriate use of sightand sound.

They do require radar to be additional-ly used where fitted – together with allavailable means appropriate to the pre-vailing circumstances and conditions.

There is no implication that radar canbe used in place of sight and hearing onany vessel, effectively underlining that useof the bridge windows on manned vesselsremains highly important to navigation.

It would be interesting to hear how alegal system would actually interpret the

words ‘sees’ and’ hearing’ when appliedto an unmanned vessel.

Keep out of the waySome have been wondering whetherRules 18 and 27 of the COLREGs can beapplied to unmanned vessels, effectivelyimplying that other vessels should keepout of their way.

But just because a vessel is unmannedis there any justification for it to be consid-ered to be grouped under vessels “notunder command or restricted in their abil-ity to manoeuvre”?

Unmanned vessels today and into thefuture should surely be designed specifi-cally to behave like their ideal mannedcounterparts. Nevertheless, it would per-haps make sense that that they wereobliged to carried distinctive lights as wellas a special daylight-visible indicator.

The broadcast of a unique AIS identifi-er should perhaps also be compulsory. Inaddition, maybe smaller unmanned ves-sels should be obliged to carry a passive oractive radar reflector to aid their funda-mental detection by other vessels.

On the other hand, it could be arguedthat none of these are necessary. If anunmanned vessel could be designed thatbehaved identically to a manned equiva-lent, would it really need to stand out,either visually or electronically?

Indeed, this should be the immediategoal of the emerging technology – to makethe vessel’s behaviour replicate the actionsof one that is being handled by a compe-tent onboard human navigator in any situ-ation, either under full automation or byremote control.

The safe conduct of a vessel basicallyrequires good and continuous situationalawareness, together with the knowledgeand ability to fulfil the vessel’s missionwithin the legal framework applying tothe areas within which the vessel operates.

For unmanned vessels, whether fullyautomatic or remotely controlled, the main-tenance of high integrity situational aware-ness is perhaps the most difficult to achieve.

If the surrounding situation can beproperly captured then an expert systemwith appropriate database access can thendetermine the safe actions of the vessel –whether the expert is a remotely situatedhuman operator or an on- or off-boardprocessor-based system.

Automatic or remotecontrol?

Manned small vessels, even in close prox-imity to shipping traffic, are consideredable to be safely navigated just by human

sight and hearing, aided by standard nav-igational sensors and information sources,not necessarily including radar.

Especially on smaller vessels, theinbuilt ability of humans to sense motionand touch also contributes to their aware-ness of the situation, such as the respon-siveness of the vessel and the immediateeffects of waves and wind.

On a remotely controlled vessel, do wejust need to collect and transmit suitableimages of the visual situation, togetherwith real-time information from naviga-tional and motion sensors?

Then the vessel could surely be safelynavigated from an onshore simulator-likeenvironment. Even VHF voice trafficcould be accommodated via the digitallink from the unmanned vessel to theremote operating location.

A number of practical issues, such asthe costs and integrity of current commu-nications, immediately step in the way ofmaking such a simple concept actuallyviable. However, maybe it just needs someclever ideas in bandwidth reduction andintegrity enhancement.

Perhaps because of such difficultiesmost business interest appears to be con-centrated towards totally automaticunmanned systems – although the per-ceived cost savings in reducing the humanelement is likely to be the main driver.

It is not difficult to imagine the imagefrom a sophisticated camera system beingdigitally analysed onboard to ascertain thepresence and aspect of surrounding ves-sels and/or their lights, together withother navigationally significant features.

Especially if correlated with radar andAIS, such data could prove to be at least asreliable as that determined by an experi-enced human navigator, and thus be able toform the input to a totally automatic system.

Of course, the unmanned vessel mustbe conventionally visible to other seafar-ers, by sight, radar and also by AIS. Inaddition, for the foreseeable future, thevessel needs also to be able to appropri-ately react on VHF voice channels, per-haps via a digital link to its onshore man-agement centre.

IMO certainly needs to look at theissues that will arise with automated ves-sels. In fact, they are already in use – withno international guidelines or recommen-dations pertaining to them.

In particular, interim guidance isurgently required to enable responsibleapplication providers to be able to consid-er the relevant issues. Without such guid-ance it may be difficult to prevent unsuit-able systems coming into use.

London’s Dockland’s Light Railway is oneof a number of examples of driverless

transport around the world

DS

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]

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