March 2010 - Digital Ship

Transcription

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March 2010
Out of date charts lead
to accidents
The London P&I Club has released a bulletin warning of the danger
of navigating with incorrect and out-of-date charts, citing this issue
as a contributing factor in a number of claim cases – a situation that
could be vastly improved through the use of navigational technologies
he London P&I
Club's latest StopLoss Bulletin contains a warning about the
possible consequences of
sailing with navigational
charts not containing the
latest updates and corrections, noting that it has
seen a number of cases
arise from the use of older,
incorrect data.
The Bulletin says: "The
International Convention
for Safety of Life at Sea
(SOLAS) requires that, 'All
ships should carry adequate and up-to-date
charts, sailing directions,
lists of lights, notices to
mariners, tide tables, and
all other nautical publications necessary for the
intended voyage'."
"Yet, from time to time,
the Club receives a report
from a ship inspector that
the charts or other nautical
publications on an entered
ship are out of date. Two
incidents reviewed recently
by the Club emphasise why
compliance
with
the
requirement is imperative."
© 2009 DUALOG AS. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
T
"In the first case, a
telecommunications company alleged that a submarine cable had been damaged by a ship’s anchor.
The first assumption was
that, if the anchor had con-
been completely unaware
of the hazard beneath
them. The surveyor identified that the ship had used
an old edition of the chart,
which predated the laying
of the cable."
Ship inspectors are still finding charts and publications
on ships that have not been updated
tacted the cable, then it
must have been because it
was dragging and the ship
had not been able to recover the anchor in due time."
"However, the Clubappointed surveyor quickly established that the ship
had, in fact, anchored
directly over the cable but
that the bridge team had
"Apparently, on preparing the passage plan, the
second officer had not
checked that he had the current edition of the chart."
"In the second case, the
investigation into the circumstances in which a
ship suffered damage as it
struck a hazardous wreck
confirmed that the current
edition of the chart was in
use but that it had not been
properly corrected."
"A chart correction
showing the wreck had
been issued some three
years previously."
The
Bulletin
also
recounts some of its
inspectors' experiences in
reviewing passage plans
created by onboard navigational teams, observing
that its ship inspection
programme "occasionally
identifies a passage plan
that is little more than a list
of waypoints entered into
the ship’s GPS."
It continues with an
example of what it
describes as inadequate
passage planning: "A bulk
carrier grounded heavily as
it slowed to pick up a pilot
while inward-bound to a
discharge port. The ship
was set off course by a
strong cross-tide and struck
a shoal that was clearly
marked on the chart."
"Professional salvors
refloated the ship but the
IN THIS ISSUE
satcoms
Globalstar shows off
new satellite – 4
What’s all the fuss about comms costs? – 8
Hellespont begins C-band
VSAT trial aboard the
vessel Progress – 12
Inmarsat global handheld completes
first call successfully – 14
software
Integrated weather and sea
conditions management system
for 680 NYK vessels – 16
An IKEA approach to maritime software – 21
Creating a comprehensive
information management system
– Capital Shipmanagement – 23
electronics and
navigation
New ECDIS adds internet connection – 25
World Shipping Council proposes
vessel emissions scheme – 31
Galileo finally edges
closer to deployment’ – 32
Creating better navigational
integrity – Dr Andy Norris – 34
continued on page 2
“Everyone is happy!”
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SATCOMS NEWS
continued from page 1
Vol 10 No 6
Digital Ship Limited
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grounding had caused it significant damage."
"The investigation into the many
causative factors highlighted that the
effect of tides and tidal streams was completely absent from the entire passage
plan, which is contrary to the requirements of Chapter V of SOLAS."
"That the ship would be set across the
track should have been clear from the
information provided in the tidal table
printed on the chart. But the failure to
allow for set was even more surprising
given that the ship had been at anchor for
several days and had to reposition after the
strong tides caused the anchor to drag."
Solutions
Issues like the ones raised by the London
P&I Club would seem to act as a strong
endorsement of industry moves towards
increased integration and connectivity in
onboard navigation systems.
IMO’s push for e-Navigation and the
introduction of a mandatory carriage
requirement for ECDIS (electronic chart
display and information system) from
2012 could help to reduce the possibility
of vessels sailing with charts that do not
represent the most accurate and up-todate representation of their navigational
environment.
The transmission of digital chart data,
whether by satellite or using other broadcast systems, is quite obviously the fastest
way of getting the latest corrections on to
a vessel bridge.
Satellite connectivity can allow a vessel, in the deepest parts of the ocean and
far from land, to be updated with the
most accurate charts available almost
instantaneously.
Electronic charts and ECDIS can make it easier to update folios,
and may also reduce the burden on the navigator
In addition to this, onboard ECDIS
systems dealing with digital data could
also create the benefit of removing the
burden of updating the onboard chart
folio from the navigator, giving him more
time to concentrate on the task at hand –
ensuring safe passage for the vessel.
One recent example of how this technology could be applied is a new ECDIS
system released just weeks ago by
Swedish company Adveto, which comes
with a built-in connection to communicate
directly over the internet (see page 25).
Using this kind of technology with an
ECDIS could help to remove the spectre of
out-of-date charts almost completely, with
the system able to automatically connect
with ENC (electronic navigational chart)
databases onshore at commencement of
the voyage to get the latest chart editions.
Updates could be constantly transmitted as they are produced, and applied
automatically without the navigator having to intervene.
IMO’s vision of e-Navigation is “to integrate existing and new navigational tools,
in particular electronic tools, in an allembracing system that will contribute to
enhanced navigational safety (with all the
positive repercussions this will have on
maritime safety overall and environmental
protection) while simultaneously reducing
the burden on the navigator.”
The ECDIS is sure to play a central role
in the evolution of this strategy – and will
hopefully live up to the claims that it will
positively reduce the number of accidents
and incidents in the shipping industry. DS
Wired Ocean broadband system approved by Thrane
www.wiredocean.com
www.thrane.com
Wired Ocean has been awarded the official status of Thrane & Thrane 'Accredited
Solution', confirming the compatibility of
Wired Ocean's S-Box and service for use
with SAILOR FleetBroadband and Fleet
terminals, and a forthcoming line of
SAILOR SAT TV antennas.
The accreditation follows a period of
testing by Thrane of the Wired Ocean 'hybrid' technology, which integrates mobile
satellites and television broadcast satellites to deliver high speed broadband.
Typical internet use consists of relatively small amounts of data (such as
webpage or search requests) being sent
from the vessel (uplink), with much larger amounts of data (for example web
pages, manuals, software upgrades,
weather and navigation information)
The Wired Ocean S-Box has demonstrated compatibility with a number of Thrane terminals
being received (downlink).
By utilising a vessel's satellite TV
antenna for the downlink portion, Wired
Ocean aims to reduce airtime costs for the
downlink, whilst the primary satcoms
system is used as normal for the uplink.
"Although our services are already
used aboard many SAILOR fitted vessels
we are delighted that Thrane & Thrane
has officially recognised Wired Ocean's
Ship Equip buys 51% of Exectiva
www.ship-equip.com
Ship Equip has acquired a majority 51 per
cent stake in consulting company Exectiva
from its two owners, Stig Even Larsen and
Lennart Utgård.
The company will become part of
the Ship Equip Group while a long term
consulting agreement is agreed between
the two companies.
Exectiva works in the development
and support of IP telephone systems, with
experience in broadband deployment,
telecoms and programming. The companies say that the new team will work
closely with the R&D department at Ship
Equip on a number of different projects.
"With their long time background in
Digital Ship March 2010 page 2
ability to significantly improve the performance and affordability of onboard
internet," says Victor Barendse, managing
director, Wired Ocean.
"Combining Wired Ocean's S-Box with
SAILOR FleetBroadband and SAILOR
SAT TV provides ships with cost-effective
broadband, in addition to the voice, data
and television services available through
the SAILOR equipment."
development and maintenance of IP based
telephony systems the Exectiva consultants are a good match with the current
and future needs of Ship Equip," said Ship
Equip CEO, Ivar Nesset.
"We saw that they would be able to
contribute and found it right to invest in
the company."
Following the acquisition Mr Nesset will
become the new chairman of the Exectiva
board and Morten Qvigstad (Ship Equip
CTO) will become a new board member.
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SATCOMS NEWS
Globalstar shows off new satellite
www.globastar.com
Globalstar has publicly displayed the first
of its new second-generation constellation
satellites, nearing completion at the Thales
Alenia Space satellite manufacturing facility in Rome, Italy.
Globalstar says that it expects to begin
launching the new constellation this summer, with a 90-day launch window for
the first of four launches of six satellites
each having been scheduled to begin on
July 5, 2010.
“Completing construction of the first of
our production satellites and scheduling
the window for our satellite launch are
two key and highly essential operational
milestones for Globalstar,” said Tony
Navarra, president, global operations for
Globalstar.
“To complete the design and manufacture of a new second-generation satellite
network is a time consuming and often
painstaking process that has taken nearly
four years to deliver. Beginning this summer we expect this process to culminate in
the launch of the first of our new satellites.”
The process reaches back to the autumn
of 2006, when Globalstar contracted
Thales Alenia Space for the design, manufacture and delivery of up to 48 new second-generation satellites.
In the summer of 2007 this was followed by the signing of a launch services
contract with Arianespace.
The four launches of six satellites each
are to be conducted using the Soyuz
launch vehicle. These satellites will be
integrated with the eight Globalstar satellites launched on the Soyuz in 2007.
The deployment process has also been
boosted by confirmation from Globalstar
that it has commenced installation of satellite telemetry control unit (TCU) upgrades
at a number of locations.
The hardware and software upgrades
provided by Thales Alenia Space are being
installed at Globalstar gateway ground stations in Argentina, Australia, Botswana,
France, Korea and the United States.
These initial pre-launch upgrades
One of Globalstar’s new satellites, under construction at Thales Alenia Space in Italy
VSAT company launches with
$800/month Ku-band
www.dtscom.com
Louisiana-based
Data
Technology
Solutions (DTS) has launched a new integrated Ku-band VSAT satellite broadband
offering for the maritime market, with flatfee service plans starting at a list price of
$800 per month.
The DTS Global Connect Solution is built
on iDirect's Evolution DVB-S2 platform and
works with a 60cm Ku-band antenna.
The service is offered at a wide range of
flat-fee subscription plans with multiregional coverage.
Monthly rates start at $800 for 512 kbps,
without the requirement to sign a 12month contract. DTS says that customers
can purchase the service based on a day
rate, if required.
Bandwidth can also be pooled and
shared among multiple vessels in a fleet to
support bandwidth intensive applications.
For example, one vessel could access a
fleet's pool of available capacity to support
a video feed. Once the video feed is concluded, bandwidth can then be returned
to the rest of the fleet without incurring
additional costs.
DTS notes that the entire hardware system required to install the VSAT service can
be shipped to a port overnight via delivery
services, anywhere in the world, or transported to a vessel at sea via helicopter.
A remote network management system is
available for incorporation into the system,
allowing IT personnel to access networking
equipment onboard the ship for monitoring,
troubleshooting and maintenance.
will provide Globalstar with the capability to globally monitor and control the
orbital deployment of its new satellite
constellation.
“The TCU gateway upgrades represent
a significant milestone for the company as
we prepare for the launch of our new
satellites,” said Peter Dalton, CEO,
Globalstar.
“We anticipate that 2010 will be a
game-changing year for Globalstar.
These planned gateway upgrades help
pave the way for the launch and management of our new satellites and all the
potential associated with our next-generation constellation."
Once the satellites are deployed and
operational, the TCU upgrades will provide Globalstar with an improved ability
to communicate with and monitor the condition of the new constellation from its
two satellite operations and control centre
locations in California.
Globalstar says that the new satellites
are expected to provide global satellite
services beyond 2025, and that its customers should expect to experience
improvements in service as the new satellites are progressively brought online.
In other news, Globalstar has also
announced that it has received written
notification from the NASDAQ informing
that it has regained compliance with its
listing rules, removing the threat of a possible delisting through a failure to meet
NASDAQ requirements.
Globalstar had been given notice of a
possible removal of its listing during the
second half of 2009, due to the fact that, for
30 consecutive business days before 29th
September 2009, the bid price of
Globalstar common stock had closed
below the minimum $1.00 per share NASDAQ requirement for continued inclusion.
The notice informed Globalstar that it
had 180 days, or until March 29, 2010, to
regain compliance, or to meet certain standards for an additional 180 day compliance period.
The company has now achieved compliance once more, as a result of
Globalstar's common stock trading above
$1.00 for a period of 10 consecutive days,
according to the announcement.
Radio Holland introduces prepaid
VSAT calling card
www.radiohollandgroup.com
Radio Holland Connect has introduced
a new prepaid calling card for use on its
‘Connector by Radio Holland’ VSAT
network.
To use the cards a regular phone on
board will be selected as a calling card
phone. The user then dials a short
number to enter the Radio Holland
voice portal.
Following this the crew member will
be asked to enter his prepaid card number and will hear the current balance.
They can then enter the phone number
they wish to dial and will be connected.
The calling card is available in a virtual format, to reduce administration
requirements.
The calling card works over
the Connector VSAT system
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Digital Ship
MCP links terrestrial phone signal to onboard network
www.mcp.com
At-sea
GSM
provider
Maritime
Communications Partner (MCP) has successfully completed a unique experiment to
carry land-based mobile phone signals
onboard a ship in the Port of
Spain, Trinidad, for an intergovernmental conference.
The
seven-day
Commonwealth Heads of
Government
Meeting
(CHOGM) was recently held
onboard the Princess Cruises
vessel the Caribbean Princess
at the port. During preparations for the event it was discovered that land-based cellular phone signals would
penetrate only a short distance into the vessel’s hull.
MCP already provides
at-sea
mobile
phone
services to the Caribbean
Princess, so to combat the
problem MCP directed its
technical staff to work with
Telecommunications Services
of Trinidad and Tobago
(TSTT) to set up a new tem-
porary base transceiver station (BTS)
onboard.
Connected directly into MCP’s communication rack, the BTS accessed the ship’s
antenna system granting passengers full
cellular communication throughout the
entire vessel.
“This ‘first-of-it’s kind’ attempt to provide shore based cellular coverage deep
inside a luxury cruise liner was a huge
success,” said MCP president and CEO,
Pål Bjordal.
VSAT for REMI
Maritime
www.setel-group.com
Greek shipowner REMI
Maritime has agreed a deal
to install VSAT satellite communications systems aboard
its fleet.
The contract was agreed
with Setel Hellas, following
the completion of a satcom
trial and evaluation cycle.
REMI Maritime's agreement covers the installation
of CapRock VSAT services,
as well as Setel's 'Intelligent
Vessel' solution, on part of its
fleet.
REMI will use the VSAT
service to expand its corporate IT network and software
applications to its vessels
and provide onboard welfare services.
Under the terms of the
agreement REMI Maritime
will be provided with a managed
turnkey
service
enabling VoIP, internet
access, e-mail service, crewcalling and corporate networking capabilities for the
real time exchange of reports
and monitoring data.
Telaccount
Solutions
Overseas
has signed an agreement
with Stratos to become a
Stratos Distribution Partner
for satellite solutions.
www.telaccountoverseas.com
www.stratosglobal.com
"TSTT utilised MCP’s distributed antenna
system (DAS) onboard the Caribbean Princess
and passengers used their calling devices
just like at home. Princess is the first company to successfully launch this type of
temporary enhanced-coverage system.”
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SATCOMS NEWS
Globe Wireless acquires Zynetix
www.globewireless.com
www.zynetix.com
Globe Wireless has acquired Zynetix, a
UK-based company specialising in GSM
solutions for the maritime market.
The two companies had already been
working as partners in the provision of the
GlobeMobile service, a shipboard GSM
system that can operate over VSAT,
Iridium OpenPort and FleetBroadband
terminals.
Under the terms of the deal Globe
Wireless will acquire 100 per cent of
Zynetix issued share capital, with all
Zynetix staff remaining in place.
Zynetix CEO Ian Taylor will continue
to lead the company, with Frank Coles
and Rhonda Landers, CEO and CFO
respectively of Globe Wireless, joining
him as Zynetix directors.
“This is a significant step for maritime
communications. It solves the problem
of providing cost effective, private and
convenient ship communications,” said
Mr Coles.
“Mariners will use personal GSM handsets without paying premiums for that
convenience. By seamlessly blending IP
satellite systems such as FleetBroadband,
OpenPort and VSAT with the Zynetix
technology, Globe has created the perfect
maritime GSM solution.”
“Customers can now address voice,
data, and GSM usage with a single bundled solution that reduces costs for business and crew alike.”
Mr Taylor noted that he expects the
deal to be synergistic for both parties, and
that it gives Zynetix a solid platform for
continued growth.
“Specifically, it enables greater focus
and innovation in Zynetix’s two strategic
business areas,” he said.
“This will accelerate the deployment of
GSM on merchant ships, exclusively
through Globe Wireless, making GSM a
base-level expectation for on-board communications.”
“Zynetix will also continue to serve its
extensive non-maritime GSM business,
and is tasked with continuing to grow in
the remote GSM solutions market.”
News of the deal has been closely followed by confirmation that Globe
Wireless has become a full Inmarsat distribution partner for the FleetBroadband
satellite communications service.
“Our [FleetBroadband] solution is
aimed at the needs of the crew and business,” said Mr Cole.
“Our bundles are complete, compelling
and competitive and they are designed for
mariners by mariners.”
Zynetix technology is already used as part of the GlobeMobile vessel GSM system
CMA Ships to install
FleetBroadband
www.marlink.com
Marlink reports that it has signed a
new three-year contract with CMA Ships,
a subsidiary of CMA-CGM, one of the
world's largest container shipping
companies, for the provision of
FleetBroadband services.
As part of the new agreement Marlink
will install the Thrane & Thrane SAILOR
150 FleetBroadband system onboard an
unspecified number of CMA Ships vessels, as well as providing 'Value Added
Services' (VAS) such as its CrewEmail
system and prepaid calling cards.
Commenting on the new agreement,
Tore Morten Olsen, CEO of Marlink said:
"Our new contract with CMA Ships is a
prime example of our ability to provide a
broad range of satellite communications
solutions which can be developed to meet
specific customer requirements."
"In this instance we have worked with
CMA Ships to put together a cost-effective and efficient FleetBroadband and
airtime bundle which also incorporates a
range of crew-focussed Value Added
Services to meet CMA Ships' requirement to provide internet and e-mail services to crew."
Marlink says that CMA intends to
implement the service to provide internet
data and voice for business usage, as well
as operational and recreational applications for crew.
Universal calling card from Vizada
www.vizada.com
Vizada has launched a new generation of
its Universal Card, a prepaid service
enabling crew members to use the internet on board ship, in addition to making
voice calls and sending e-mails and text
messages.
With the Card, crews can use their
internet connection for instant messaging,
webmail and browsing. Costs are charged
directly to the crew member on their single reloadable card, to reduce administration requirements.
The company says that it is particularly
suited for use with Inmarsat's
FleetBroadband system.
Vizada has also developed a web compression tool to make crew web surfing as
efficient as possible, which reduces the
size of web page images and blocks applications such as video streaming or flash
animations, which typically consume high
levels of data.
The company says that this should allow
crew members to get up to four times as
much out of their Universal Card credit.
Ship operators can activate and manage
Harris joins T11N maritime VSAT party
www.harris.com
VSAT provider Harris Corporation has
signed a multi-year agreement for Atlantic
Ocean region capacity on Telesat’s Telstar
11N satellite, in an effort to extend coverage for its maritime satellite services.
Harris Maritime Communications
Services (MCS) says that it has selected
Telstar 11N as part of the launch of its next
generation maritime broadband offering.
Harris MCS will be landing traffic over
the Telstar 11N service at its primary teleport in Melbourne, Florida, using a networking platform provided by iDirect.
“Our maritime customers, such as
Carnival Corporation, expect a broadband
service that provides passengers and crew
with communications that are comparable
to what they would experience on land,”
said Rick Simonian, president, Harris
MCS.
“iDirect’s platform was part of the
solution but we could not implement it
for the Atlantic crossings without Telstar
11N’s superior Atlantic coverage combined with the satellite’s outstanding
performance.”
The Atlantic Ocean coverage provided
by the T11N has been snapped up by a
wide range of maritime VSAT companies,
with KVH, Radio Holland and Ship Equip
just some of those contracting for
transponder space on the new satellite.
the web compression tool remotely via
Vizada's onine portal, avoiding the need
for software or a separate device to be
installed on board ship.
“This is an important step for crew
communications as it gives personnel
on board the freedom to completely
manage their own communications
budget,” said Erik Ceuppens, CEO,
Vizada EMEA & Asia.
“The Universal Card is really unique in
providing a simple, all-in-one service at
significantly less cost than other solutions
on the market.”
The CMA Ships will install
FB150 terminals under the deal
Fixed-price FleetBroadband bundles from Marlink
www.marlink.com
Marlink has introduced a range of new
fixed-price 'FleetBroadband Bundles'
which can be purchased with two and
three year price plans.
The new bundles will enable customers
to lease equipment from a choice of three
different vendors, as well as purchase
broadband time for data and voice, all at a
fixed monthly cost.
Marlink says that customers of the new
bundles will benefit from low equipment
and airtime prices.
"The launch of our new FleetBroadband
Bundles is part of our ongoing commitment to provide exceptional flexibility and
value to maritime satellite communications
customers worldwide," said Tore Morten
Olsen, CEO, Marlink.
"FleetBroadband provides customers
with high quality connectivity at sea and
costs that are dependent upon usage.
However, some ship operators prefer
fixed charges to ensure predictability."
"Our new FleetBroadband bundles
have been designed to help customers regulate communications costs, as they will
be able to purchase an amount of airtime
and data at a fixed cost. In addition, the
FleetBroadband equipment is included in
the monthly bundle price, which means
that customers won't have to make heavy
investments in hardware."
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MTN BRINGS BROADBAND
CONNECTION TO SEA
OVER 20 YEARS EXPERIENCE IN DELIVERING INDUSTRY LEADING
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MARITIME INDUSTRY.
FOR MORE INFORMATION ABOUT MTN’S PRODUCTS AND SERVICES, CALL +1-954-538-4000;
HAMBURG OFFICE +49 40 38079-556; LONDON OFFICE +44 203 286 52 50;
EMAIL: [email protected]; OR VISIT WWW.MTNSAT.COM.
ATHENS | HAMBURG | HOUSTON | LONDON | MIRAMAR | PARIS | SEATTLE | SINGAPORE
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SATCOMS
What’s all this fuss about
communication costs?
Vessel operators often complain that satellite communications providers are charging too much for their services –
however, these costs are typically less than 1 per cent of operational expenses, and can provide a wide range of value
to the business. So, writes Baret Kouyoumdjian, Monarch Telecom, what is all the fuss about communication costs?
s people working in the maritime
IT sector we are constantly
expected to examine the telecommunication and electronic technology
aspects of a ship’s operation.
We discuss and carefully analyse, strip
down into bits, criticise and praise any
hardware, software or ideas that we get
our hands on.
We also get hold of the providers, land
Earth station operators (LESOs), satellite
owners and operators and discuss the
service which they maintain. Then we try
to suggest new ideas to all of these people.
And then the cycle begins all over
again.
What we never had until now is an
owner or an accountant who would actually tell us how communication costs really affect vessel expenses – if indeed they
affect them significantly.
So let’s start with a quick breakdown of
costs of what’s on the market. Essentially
there are three big types of players –
Inmarsat, Iridium and VSAT.
Inmarsat and Iridium offer affordable
equipment and incremental costs for
usage, whether that’s by minute or
megabyte. VSAT offers expensive equipment but with high usage included.
Inmarsat’s Mini-M and traditional
Iridium are only good for very small traffic exchanges. In a modern environment,
with big file sizes, this technology could
be considered to be obsolete.
Irresponsible use could bring bills of
$10,000 per month if the system was
forced to struggle to send big attachments
at speeds of 2.4kbps. In our experience
Mini-M bills are usually around $1,000$1,500 dollars per month per vessel.
A
cost of $2 dollars per minute for data, we
see Inmarsat-B bills in the range of $1,500$2,000 per month.
Inmarsat’s Fleet range delivers faster
speeds than the Inmarsat-B and Mini-M.
The Fleet range serves the intermediate
range between the Inmarsat-B and
Broadband, as it offers ISDN speeds.
The Fleet range is proving to have the
smallest practical life span of all the
Inmarsat technologies due to the introduction of FleetBroadband. Many owners
have skipped the Fleet and jumped from
Mini-M to Broadband.
Typical Fleet bills we see range around
$2,000 dollars, which partly come from
increased usage.
A lot of these older terminals have
slowly become obsolete due to the low
transfer rates they offer compared to the
new technology now available, and the
fact that spare parts are scarce.
Inmarsat’s
FleetBroadband
and
Iridium’s OpenPort have switched philosophy and now charge by volume, in
megabytes instead of minutes.
Packages are now the order of the day
which promise customers a flat fee of
$500, $700, $1,000 dollars, and so on.
Practically though, monthly bills we see
tend to run in the $1,000-$1,500 dollar
range due to the fact that the ease of use
and the hunger for more data contribute to
higher usage.
It is now easier for the master to press
the send and receive button as he knows
that he will not pay any money for the
connection time if no traffic is generated,
but only for the bytes that he is about to
send/receive.
Going to the last option, a VSAT solu-
When adding up operating costs from a typical small LPG vessel,
telecommunications costs were less than 1 per cent
would like to pay on a monthly basis. That
is especially true now, with the financial
crisis, as owners look to save money on all
aspects of their ship running expenses,
and this includes high flat monthly communication fees.
Having said that, for the last eighteen
months there has been a seductive appeal
in the ability to go for flat monthly rates to
avoid unforeseen surprises, and we have
seen ship owners moving towards VSAT
solutions on Ku- and C-band.
Comparisons
Summarising from the above, we see that
there doesn’t seem to be major differences
in telecom expenses, whatever solution
is selected.
We see that there doesn’t seem to be major differences in telecom expenses,
whatever solution is selected. This point becomes important when we start
comparing telecommunication costs with all other running expenses.
The Inmarsat-B system allows for faster
communication, of up to 56kbps. Its usage
is somewhat more expensive for telephone
calls and quite high for data connections
as the charging is by minute usage. With a
tion can offer $2,500-$3,000 packages for
leasing with high volume usage included.
The problem with VSAT is that the
service is not always global and the cost is
relatively more than what a lot of people
This point becomes important when we
start comparing telecommunication costs
with all other running expenses.
As an example, think about the owner’s
costs in running a typical small LPG vessel
of 3500 cubic meters (cbm), and compare
the communication expenses with the running expenses.
Crew Costs are about $800,000;
Insurance, $180,000; Lubricants, $50,000;
Repairs, $200,000; Classification Costs,
$50,000; Management Costs, $100,000;
Port Calling Costs for two voyages per
month (2 load port and 2 discharge ports),
$576,000; Marine Gas Oil, $360,000; Fuel
Oil, $1.1Million; Other costs come to about
$60,000 – and then there are
Telecommunication costs of $20,000.
The total costs above of running the
ship come to just under $3.5million – so
the communications expense is under 1
per cent, a tiny amount of the overall
expenses for the vessel.
The above example refers to a small
LPG vessel, so for larger vessels the running cost of the vessel will increase, especially bunker costs, lube oil costs, repairs,
port costs and insurance costs.
Crew, Management and Class costs are
expenses that cannot be reduced, and
Communication costs will remain the
same, so therefore the percentage for communication costs for larger vessels will
drop even more – to an even smaller fraction of 1 per cent.
However, even within that cost there
are factors that can contribute to lower
expenses such as better fleet management,
when the vessel becomes part of the office
network, and, on the vessel side, fuel efficiency, proper voyage planning, weather
routing, speed optimisation, better optimum trim, optimum ballast, optimal use
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where to next?
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SATCOMS
of rudder, propulsion system maintenance, maybe even waste heat recovery
and energy management.
So if in general our expenses are moreor-less the same or difficult to reduce, why
do we always point our finger at the
telecommunication costs?
Two choices
There are two viable scenarios with broadband systems regarding the likely usage of
telecommunications on board the vessels
using the new broadband technology.
One scenario is that the broadband
technology, when used in direct replacement of dial-up services, has the potential
to drop communication costs as long as
usage does not increase.
One piece of research has shown that a
FleetBroadband terminal dropped the airtime communication cost of the vessel to
at least one quarter of the communication
costs compared to using Inmarsat-B technology.
Monthly bills of around $2,000 using
Inmarsat-B were reduced to $650 when
using a Fleet Broadband package of
35Mb, even though it exceeded the data
usage by 15Mb. This is a very attractive
scenario for the owners during the financial crisis!
However, I am not sure if this situation
can continue for much longer as new regulations will enforce increased telecommunication expenses, irrespective of
our wishes.
Examples of this include the eNoad
(electronic notification of arrival and
departure) forms required by the US Coast
Guard to allow the arrival of vessels in US
waters. The Coast Guard has insisted on
these forms being filled in online, regardless of whether broadband technology
even existed aboard the vessels.
A second example of regulations coming into force is that of ECDIS (electronic
chart display and information systems)
requiring that charts be downloaded to
the vessels, while there are also further
regulations on Long range identification
tracking (LRIT) and Bridge Navigational
Watch Alarm Systems requiring more
telecom usage.
These will increase communication
costs, but overall will improve efficiency
and reduce the costs of obtaining the same
results with traditional methods.
The second general scenario regarding
the contribution of telecommunications to
our expenses allows for increased communication usage in order to bring the vessel
closer to the office and become part of our
office network, so that we have better integration with the enterprise resource planning application in the office.
Increased communication usage in this
sense can also contribute to the reduction
of the running expenses of the vessel
when used in a proper way.
Applications
So the question is the following; which
scenario should be chosen? To help us
select, we need to see what applications
are available and how we can use them.
One of the problems that the maritime
industry faces in trying to adopt highlevel sophisticated systems is the lack of
what it sees as useful maritime applications designed to work with the latest
advances in communications.
A few years ago, the maritime world
was not ready for VSAT, broadband or
whatever open pipe there was available.
There were no marine applications on the
market designed for true broadband.
In the last few years or so, we have seen
new systems coming into the market or
getting ready to catch up with what they
missed in the past, to be able to do the job
with ‘always on’ connections.
What is also important is that now
we can begin to look at non-maritime
software as we will have the extra capabilities of high bandwidth or an ‘always on’
connection.
Companies like engine manufacturers
and manufacturers of other onboard
equipment and systems will take advantage of monitoring, controlling or repairing systems remotely.
Remote Administration is one of the
tools that VSAT companies are using to
attract shipowners to switch over from
volume based Inmarsat and Iridium, so
that engineers or IT administrators can log
on with ease to the vessels’ networks, and
do necessary work.
Why spend $2,000 to fly in an engineer
when you can do it for ‘free’ (ie no additional cost over the monthly fee) with a
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New requirements, like the US Coast
Guard electronic notice of arrival/
departure (eNOAD), have increased the
need for satellite communications
VSAT or $200 with a FleetBroadband
solution?
Crew Retention is another major factor
that cannot be overlooked. With broadband technology onboard crew can now
communicate with their loved ones, in
some cases free of charge.
We also have seen lately the move
towards VSAT not only for telecommunications, but to provide television to the
crew, again free of charge.
If you consider crew retention an
important factor in your business, then
higher communication costs that result
should be considered as an additional
benefit given to the crew, and not simply
as higher communication costs.
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Digital Ship
Online updates, weather reports for
voyage planning, and managing fuel costs
are other areas of interest.
Voyage planning will allow for less fuel
usage by planning the voyage in advance.
Cheaper routes through less congested
areas, combined with weather information, will allow quicker and more efficient
voyages.
Part of this planning can be made at the
office allowing the captain more time for
more important processes on board.
With new regulation requirements constantly being introduced, the administration work the captain is now carrying out
on board has increased so significantly
that some masters claim that have become
secretaries of the vessel with the danger of
neglecting their real job on board – namely to steer the ship.
Online procurement is also a huge
opportunity. In most companies the masters forward their requirements with
regards to supplies, spares and stores
on board, and these are then entered
manually in the systems of the office
for processing.
This step can easily be avoided if the
master or the chief engineers can update
the databases themselves, or even carry
out the procurement electronically from
the vessel.
Then there is basic physical security, a
very recent problem that’s been escalated
due to piracy.
Why not have cameras that transmit
images of the vessel to the office?
Webcams and sensors are basic gadgets on
shore, very cheap to buy and install and
very efficient to set alarms on.
Imagine having automated alarms sent
out if the ship’s integrity is compromised.
Even before pirates board the vessel, the
alarm has already been sent out.
The technology is there. Ways need to
be found to use it.
Should we consider the increase in
communication costs from such a service
as a ‘high communication cost’, or do we
debit our ‘ship security expenses’ account?
Telemedicine is another service that can
contribute to higher communications
costs.
Article 4 and 7 of ILO convention 164
states that each Member shall ensure that
measures providing for health protection
and medical care for seafarers on board
ship are adopted with a service that would
be comparable to that which is generally
available ashore.
Such medical advice will cost some
satellite time, but can you afford not to
provide good health care to your crew?
All this means more and more communications to be carried out from onboard
the vessel.
Applications like fast e-mail, internet
and intranet access, e-commerce, video
and digital image communications, crew
calling, Computer Based Training, ship
management applications, cargo data,
engine alarms and many others are among
those that are making today’s environment onboard more complex.
Again, do we debit our telecoms
account in our balance sheet for the
increased communication costs or do we
debit the ‘vessel efficiency’ account?
The requirements of the operators to
bring the vessel closer to the office are
growing day by day as they need to be
able to manage, monitor, control, act and
improve processes dealing with on-line
planned maintenance, TMSA, KPIs, and
everything required to be able to deal with
the various regulations and conformances.
All this needs to be better allocated in
our balance sheet – not because communications are excessive in relation to other
expenses, but simply to have a better picture of what’s going on with our vessel
expenses.
Under 1 per cent
What remains is that, having said all of
this we really need to ask ourselves the
question ‘So what’s all this fuss about
communication costs?’
Really, what’s going wrong? Why does
everyone think that reducing telecommunication costs will significantly make any
difference? Isn’t 1 per cent low enough?
Part of the problem lies in the telecoms
industry; the recent acquisitions of Land
Earth Station Operators by each other has
shrunk the supply market and created
fierce competition as the remaining companies struggle for bigger slices of the pie.
Dropping the price has been the only
way of stealing business from competitors. This has encouraged the customers to
ask for lower and lower prices, simply
because they can get it!
Shrinking supply will result in telecoms companies going out of business.
This will eventually lead to less choice for
the customers, and prices will go up again
as collusion forces start picking up.
An unfortunate consequence will also
be less of a drive for innovation. Why
should anyone think of offering innovative products and services when margins
have shrunk to low levels?
Why should anyone create solutions
that are desirable to the marine industry,
when the industry is not willing to pay
for them?
Why are some of them concentrating
only on the price factor and are not interested in their own long term benefit?
This brings us to the other part of the
problem, that of the attitude factor of some
shipowners and managers. The lack of
momentum created by an unwillingness
to invest, will discourage innovation innovation that would ultimately have
benefited them.
Can the marine industry afford to dismiss the efficiencies achieved through
proper use of telecommunications, as only
1 per cent of the running expenses of their
vessels? I think not!
DS
Baret Kouyoumdjian is managing
director of Monarch Telecom, a
satellite communications provider
based in Limassol, Cyprus
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SATCOMS
Hellespont installs C-Bird VSAT
German shipping company Hellespont Hammonia has installed a C-band VSAT system onboard one of its vessels
on a trial basis, with a view to potentially signing a multi-year communications agreement if it proves successful.
ellespont Hammonia of Hamburg, Germany, has completed
the installation of a new VSAT
system featuring the Maritime Broadband
C-Bird antenna system, aboard the MT
Hellespont Progress.
The installation represents a 90-day trial
of the antenna, which is integrated with the
iDirect 5100 modem and utilises global
satellite services provided by Maritime
Telecommunications Network (MTN).
Hellespont says that it intends to evaluate the results of the trial of the system
before committing to a 3 year agreement.
The company has installed a full 2.4 metre
C-band system with global coverage, featuring 64Kbps/64Kbps bandwidth speeds, provided with a Minimum Information Rate.
“It was seen in the company that we
must improve on our offer of modern
communication tools to the vessel and
particularly to the crew,” explained
Matthias Edler, manager, information systems at Hellespont.
“From the technical point of view we
have to follow the path to purely IP protocol based connections which are the next
H
generation communication infrastructure
in the shipping industry.”
“As a quality ship manager and operator we must also look at the well being of
our crews. The importance of them being
able to communicate with their families on
a regular and cost efficient basis must not
be underestimated.”
The MT Hellespont Progress, a 1996-built
228.6 metre product carrier, trades worldwide, and first began using the system during a voyage from Flushing, Netherlands to
El Segundo, California, USA.
Captain of the vessel, Larry Deluna,
commented that: “The C-Bird antenna is
amazing. Cheaper telephone calls for the
crew at any time, internet, updated news,
chats and even typhoon tracking through
the internet.”
“The crew loves the antenna. They call
their family or chat with them everyday.
We have a happy crew.”
Antenna service
The team behind the Maritime Broadband
C-Bird system includes a number of people involved with former shipping VSAT
The Hellespont Progress (right) has installed the C-Bird antenna,
designed to be used without a radome (centre of picture, left)
provider Broadband Maritime, with five
members of the previous company
involved in the new venture.
Broadband Maritime had been one of
the early pioneers in the sector, having
been founded in 1999, and was active in
the market for a number of years, counting
companies such as Danaos Shipping and
General Maritime Corporation among its
shipping VSAT clients.
The group of five that have formed the
new company includes former Broadband
Maritime president and CEO Mary Ellen
Kramer, taking on the role of president of
the new Maritime Broadband venture.
She told Digital Ship about how the new
company plans to differentiate itself going
forward, and in particular how it is aiming
to provide a more focused service, based
on the provision of its antenna technology
rather than the full VSAT service.
“Maritime Broadband is focused on
sales of antennas, with onboard services
being provided in conjunction with MTN
or other well established service providers
and installation/maintenance services
being outsourced as well,” she told us.
“We will provide the antenna to service
The antenna is delivered in a number
of different parts, to be assembled by
the crew onboard
providers in the market and onboard services will be provided in conjunction with
those service providers. Service specifics
will be determined by customer requirements and service provider capabilities.”
“Broadband Maritime [was different in
that it] provided its own network services,
installation and maintenance, as well as
the antenna.”
Maritime Broadband has agreed a
three-year umbrella service agreement
with MTN in this regard, and has established a relationship with iDirect through
the Hellespont project.
Redesign
The C-Bird antenna being offered under
the new service does have some aesthetic
similarities to Broadband Maritime’s previous offering, most noticeably the
absence of a radome covering the moveable dish.
However, the current incarnation of the
antenna is the result of a complete overhaul in the design, and it can now be
delivered to the ship in kit form for installation and commissioning by the crew
itself, thus removing any requirement for
cranes to get the equipment in place.
It comes in approximately 25 parts to be
assembled onboard, with the heaviest single component weigh just over 80 kilograms. The total assembled weight is
approximately 600 kilograms.
The absence of a radome is a unique
aspect of this design, which the company
says it has achieved by making the antenna
non-critically balanced, with stabilised
tracking and no outdoor control electronics.
The system has been created to withstand
head winds of up to 110 knots, with the
antenna continuing to be fully operational in
head winds of up to 85 knots, and has automatic self locking for storm protection.
With this easily recognisable antenna
the company will be hoping to become
much more visible in the sector and take
advantage of an expanding market for
VSAT services in maritime, which Ms
Kramer believes has been growing and
developing in line with her expectations
since she first got involved with shipboard
communications.
“Always-on communications will be a
must for competitive operation internally
and with crew, charterers, etc,” she said. DS
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SATCOMS
First call on Inmarsat handheld phone
Inmarsat’s new IsatPhone Pro satellite phone is on track for a full launch later this summer, bringing to an end
a project it started in 2006 to introduce a global handheld system, following a collaboration agreement with
Asian provider ACeS. Digital Ship spoke to Inmarsat about how this unit might be applied in the maritime market
nmarsat reports that the first call has
been made using its new global handheld service, IsatPhone Pro, which is
scheduled for launch in June 2010.
In preparation for this launch, Inmarsat
says it has passed a number of key milestones in the development of the service
and finalised some essential contracts and
distribution arrangements.
A contract to upgrade the Inmarsat
ground network was completed on schedule by Lockheed Martin, and further testing on the integration between the handset
and the ground network is underway.
Inmarsat's partner for the handset
development is Sasken Communications
Technologies, while Elcoteq, the world's
third largest manufacturer of mobile
phones, has been appointed to produce
the IsatPhone Pro at its facility in Tallinn,
Estonia.
Eleven distribution partners around the
world have been selected to sell the phone
at launch, including AST, NSSL, Satcom
Global, Singtel, Stratos and Vizada.
"The first call is a significant milestone,
and we're very pleased with the voice
quality in initial tests," said Helen Stalker,
Inmarsat's commercial director of global
satellite phone services.
"IsatPhone Pro is the ultimate combination. It's a robust handset that is easy to
use, has long battery life, and offers a reliable global network connection."
For the maritime market, Ms Stalker
notes that the launch will include the
offer of a docking unit specifically
designed for installation onboard ship,
which the company hopes will broaden
I
the appeal of the phone to the sector.
"The phone will inevitably be used at
sea – either with or without a docking unit
– but this gives users additional flexibility," she said.
The handheld will offer satellite telephony, with Bluetooth for hands-free use,
voicemail, text and e-mail messaging.
Location data will also be available to the
user to look up or send in a text message.
IsatPhone Pro is the first Inmarsat
handheld to be purpose-built for its satellite network.
Maritime use
While this new handheld is not a maritime-specific product, given that it is
intended for use anywhere within the
global coverage area of Inmarsat’s latest
generation of I-4 satellites, land or sea, the
company does envisage a variety of potential uses for the product in different shipping sectors.
“Within the deep sea world this will
give functionality for a viable standby
satellite communications variant that you
can use in either a fixed or a mobile environment,” said Piers Cunningham, head
of maritime at Inmarsat.
“For example, in the event of a distress
situation you could potentially utilise the
handset and take it with you wherever
you would need it, which you obviously
can’t do with a fixed phone connected to
an antenna bolted to the bulkhead. It provides a level of mobility that may not have
been available before.”
“The cost and functionality will be such
that you could have, in the deep sea
world, an additional satellite communications functionality with a higher degree of
portability than you’ve had before.”
Outside of Inmarsat’s core deep-sea
customer base the company expects that
the IsatPhone Pro could be adopted as a
primary onboard satellite communications system on smaller ships.
“For the wider marine market, in
fisheries, leisure and coastal for example,
the satellite reach should appeal to a
much larger user base, even beyond those
who might adopt something like a
FleetBroadband 150,” Mr Cunningham
told us.
“In that sector there will be a high proportion of users who still don’t want to go
up to what is deemed in the deep sea
world to be the entry-level FB150, but
would still like to have some form of voice
and data capable solution.”
“It certainly broadens the appeal across
the entire maritime user base of satellite
communications, and the price point at
which that can be achieved.”
Theoretically the existence of a handheld onboard a vessel could conceivably
open up another option for crews wishing
to call home in private, taking the handset
with them on deck, though Mr
Cunningham notes that is unlikely to be a
major area of usage.
“It could be used for that, but in reality,
in the deep sea world with most of the
bridges enclosed, it’s unlikely that people
will go out on deck to make calls,” he said.
“For the cost differential of actually
procuring a FleetBroadband terminal for
that, set up in a fixed environment where
crews can make calls in comfort, that
might be a more likely scenario.”
“I think [the handheld is] going to come
more into its own, in the deep sea world,
probably as an ancillary form of communication, which is portable for use if you
need to decamp from the vessel or are outside in a port with limited terrestrial links,
for example, but still need some form of
communications capability for operational
use. In that case it would be something
very useful to have available.”
ACeS
The new handheld is designed for use over the latest I-4 generation of satellites
Inmarsat’s foray into the satellite handheld phone market began via a collaboration with Asian handheld voice satellite
services operator ACeS International
Limited, in September 2006.
Under that arrangement Inmarsat provided satellite and network services and
ACeS covered distribution in Asian land
and maritime markets, a move which
Inmarsat CEO Andrew Sukawaty at the
time described as the company’s “first
steps in launching its global handheld
satellite phone service.”
While Inmarsat now looks set to com-
The IsatPhone Pro will have global
coverage, and will be available with
a marine docking unit for shipboard use
plete the final steps towards the introduction of this worldwide service, the company notes that the IsatPhone Pro is not just
an evolved version of the ACeS R190 satellite phone but is a purposely designed unit
specially made to run on its latest satellite
technology.
“It’s related in form factor in as much as
that was the first incarnation of us moving
into a handheld capability, but this is
designed from the ground up,” said Mr
Cunningham.
“[The ACeS move] was a strategic
acquisition by Inmarsat to move into the
handheld arena, but that’s where the technology starts and ends.”
“Although it’s a handheld, the actual
technical parameters [of the Isat Phone]
have been completely built from zero up
to work with the Inmarsat-4 generation of
satellites. Everything is completely new.”
At the time of the ACeS deal Inmarsat
had estimated that the global handheld
market is worth approximately $350 million, and that it was looking to capture
a market share of at least 10 per cent
of this soon after the release of its new
system.
DS
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Page 15
Reliable Satellite Communication
even during harsh
conditions and heavy seas
Unpredicted dynamic weather conditions calls for a specific kind of VSAT that is robust and above all reliable for
those requiring constant always on communication, without loss of signal.
C2SAT develops, manufactures and supplies innovative stabilised maritime VSAT antenna systems that provide
vessels in motion with on-line two-way satellite broadband communication. By adding the forth axis the C2SAT
VSAT system solves high elevation problems and enables accuracy and high speed even during dynamic conditions.
C2SAT is distributing its products via established solution providers and system integrators. Please do not
hesitate to contact one of the distributors presented on www.C2SAT.com/Distributors for a quotation.
Visit us at Digital Ship Scandinavia, March 17-18, Stand 21. C2SAT communications AB / Orange Maritime Services.
4-AXES ENABLES HIGH SPEED AND ACCURACY
C2SAT, DALVÄGEN 16, SE-169 56 SOLNA, SWEDEN, +46 (0)8 748 01 40, [email protected] www.C2SAT.com
Reliable Satellite Communication
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Page 1
SOFTWARE NEWS
Intelliscan marine division acquired
by Pisys Group
www.pisys.co.uk
Scottish software provider Intelliscan has
spun off its marine division into a new
company called Pisys Marine Ltd, which
has been acquired by the Aberdeen-based
Pisys Group.
The two directors of Intelliscan agreed
on a ‘share swap’ deal which has seen the
company separated into two focused
organisations, to be independently run by
each director.
Jonathan Shapiro has become the
majority shareholder of Pisys Marine in
partnership with the Pisys Group. Pisys
Marine will retain all the existing business
of the former Intelliscan marine division
and the original marine team will remain
intact, remaining in the existing headquarters in Oldmeldrum, Aberdeenshire.
Pisys Marine will continue to develop
and sell licences of its software, which
enables electronic versions of Admiralty
Charts and other maritime data to be used
inside standard desktop geographic information systems.
Its main supplier, the United Kingdom
Hydrographic Office (UKHO), has
transferred the contracts of supply and
development from Intelliscan to Pisys
Marine.
“This announcement is great news for
Intelliscan’s marine customer base as it
will enable us, as Pisys Marine, to invest in
development and support allowing us to
expand our product portfolio and level of
customer service," said Mr Shapiro.
"It also allows for an even more focused
and strategic approach to addressing the
needs of the marine industry, which we
are committed to doing."
Pisys Group director, Peter Henderson,
added: “Intelliscan has become an established player in the marine industry and
has worldwide proven experience in
developing cutting-edge software products and services to the industry.
Combining its capabilities in this area
with those of Pisys creates a powerful
new entity."
“We will be supporting Pisys Marine
by investing in the development of new
products and services to further enhance
its offering to the marine industry.”
New version of Ship Simulator
www.vstep.nl
Maritime simulator developer VSTEP has
released a new version of its Ship
Simulator Professional system, operable
using just a PC or with full integration to
various types of navigation equipment.
This new release includes functional
updates and introduces a new component
of the Instructor Station called the
‘Exercise Manager’.
This is an extended version of the
Mission Editor, combined with a multiplayer server, creating the option to assign
VSTEP’s simulation program can be run on a normal PC,
or connected to navigational equipment
Electronic bills of lading system to replace paper
www.essdocs.com
Electronic Shipping Solutions has launched
CargoDocs, a system aimed at allowing
shipping companies to replace paper bills
of lading with electronic documents.
The first CargoDocs electronic bill of
lading was issued by the Brostrom Tankers
trainees to the vessels in the exercise and
manage the exercise while one or more
trainees are active.
With the Exercise Manager the instructor can see all trainees move around,
record all vessel movements, change time
and weather conditions, add new vessels,
and add or remove mooring lines, all
while the exercise is running.
VSTEP notes that it is offering free evaluation copies of the system to maritime
professionals. Applications for these
copies can be made on the company’s
website at www.shipsimpro.com.
vessel Bro Deliverer for a shipment from
Ineos’s Finnart Terminal in Scotland to BP’s
terminal in Belfast, after being electronically signed by the vessel’s Master.
The first CargoDocs electronic bill of lading was issued by the vessel Bro Deliverer. Photo: Brostrom
The electronic document was transacted from Scotland to London to Milton
Keynes (UK) and produced back to the
vessel in less than two hours.
"CargoDocs fit perfectly within
Brostrom’s fleetwide adoption of broadband services and short sea services,” says
Andreas Jorgensen, operations manager
for Brostrom Tankers.
“It eases the administrative burden for
the Captain and fosters real time savings.”
Brostrom Tankers (part of the A.P.
Moller - Maersk Group) is joined by BP Oil
UK, INEOS, and Denholm Barwil as some of
ESS’s first customers to create and transact
electronic bills of lading using CargoDocs.
BP has been involved with ESS for over
five years, contributing to the development
and evolution of the CargoDocs system.
Rob Ramos, UK supply operations
manager at BP Oil UK confirmed the use
of BP’s first electronic bill of lading, saying: "BP concluded testing last year and
are now comfortable with eDocs and welcomed the opportunity to participate in
this first electronic trade."
Integrated sea conditions system for 680 NYK vessels
www.wni.com
Weathernews and NYK have implemented a new integrated operation management system called 'NYK e-missions’
which has now been activated on around
680 NYK vessels, approximately 90 per
cent of NYK Group’s 779-strong operating
fleet.
NYK e-missions, (from Environmental
Management Infrastructure with Safety
and Security Information in Seamless) is
used to manage information on vessel
position and surrounding weather and sea
conditions.
The system is being used by moored
NYK vessels as well as those in transit.
Before the activation of this new technology, NYK operators used multiple systems to track position and acquire data on
weather and sea state. The new set-up will
now allow them to obtain all of this
required information from a single, integrated source.
Through full-time monitoring of the
position of all group operating vessels,
NYK e-missions can display potential
risks they may encounter, based on forecasts of weather and sea conditions at harbours and along courses being sailed.
Relevant parties at sea and on land can
monitor and share additional risk infor-
mation, such as notice of the presence of
heavy weather conditions. The company
says that this will help its operators to take
prompt action as required, according to
the situation.
The system features full-time constant
monitoring of all NYK operating vessels
equipped with the system, and central
management of all necessary information
on weather and sea conditions over the
next 10 days (such as waves, tidal currents,
wind direction, atmospheric pressure,
typhoons, etc).
The software can also be customised to
notify vessels when they get close to or are
entering specific sea areas.
The new system displays data from
various sources
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Page 2
Digital Ship
Online purchasing system for marine services launched
PartfinderMarine has launched a new online service connecting buyers of commercial marine parts and services with industry vendors.
The company aims to
make the trading of information and goods a simple
and secure process, integrating a ‘smart’ search engine
with
relevance
ranked
results and a transaction history that keeps tabs of sales
and purchases.
PartfinderMarine
provides pay-as-you-go membership, with five membership plans available (requiring a registration fee). These
plans come in different
membership grades which
can be upgraded as required.
Usage is based on making purchases
with ‘credits’. The company says that registration will be free for the first 100 suppliers, with a special offer of 70 free ‘credits’
upon successful application.
“From the outset of this project, I have
listened to the concerns and feedback of
real-world users on competitive trading
platforms,” said James Phillips, creator of
the system.
“Over many years I have learned which
features clients need in an on-line trading
platform and I have ensured these are
built into the DNA of PartfinderMarine.”
“I now have every confidence that it
can quickly become the leading player in
the maritime marketplace for online parts
and services trading.”
IP VPN over the oceans:
there’s no better way
to pilot your fleet
Gerald Nielsen has been
appointed managing director of Amos USA Inc, the
SpecTec Group’s subsidiary for the US market.
Gerry joins SpecTec from
ABS Nautical Systems,
where he was vice president
of global consulting services.
Gerry Nielsen,
new to SpecTec
He was previously an engineer for Global Marine
Drilling and Exxon
Shipping Company,
where he obtained a USCG
Chief Engineers licence
before transitioning to shoreside work.
Coracle has launched
a
new
website,
CoracleVoice.com, to provide social media monitoring
for the maritime sector. The
site aims to filter maritime
content from sources like
blogs and Twitter to
reduce the presentation of
irrelevant content and spam.
Orange Business Services’ Maritime Satellite offer provides real-time, broadband services
to shipping fleets that sail the seven seas
Orange integrates satellite with Business VPN to improve crew welfare and productivity. By providing Internet browsing,
email, video and telephone services, Orange’s Maritime Satellite helps shipping companies to attract and retain critical
staff and crew members. Clients benefit directly from flat rate, non-usage sensitive pricing.
More information : [email protected]
www.orange-business.com/satellite-access
www.spectec.net
www.abs-ns.com
www.coraclevoice.com
France Télécom S.A. – RCS Paris 380 129 866 – Tous droits de reproduction interdits.
www.partfindermarine.com
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SOFTWARE NEWS
PTC and Sener integrate ship design software systems
www.sener.es
www.ptc.com
PTC and Sener have announced plans to
strengthen their alliance and integrate
Sener’s FORAN system for ship design
with PTC’s Windchill PLM software.
The integration will enable Sener’s
shipbuilding customers to make use of
Windchill’s enterprise PLM capabilities
while managing their FORAN CAD data
within the same PLM platform.
“We look forward to continuing our
work with PTC, convinced that the
FORAN-Windchill integration is an
important asset for the shipbuilding market,” said Luis García, executive vice president, marine, Sener.
Will Kohler, senior vice president product management, PTC, added: “The integration between Windchill and Sener’s
FORAN supports PTC’s commitment to
delivering optimal PLM solutions to shipbuilding customers.”
“In addition to the continued development of our own
CADDS 5 solution, we are
providing more options for
shipbuilders through this
integration
to
Sener’s
FORAN.”
Softmar
acquired by
Triple Point
www.tpt.com
www.softmar.com
Triple Point Technology, a
provider of multi-market
commodity and enterprise
risk management software,
has acquired maritime software company Softmar, a
developer of systems for
commercial chartering and
vessel operations.
Softmar systems are used
to manage commercial chartering and vessel operations,
including the post-fixture
activities
and
financial
aspects of those operations.
The software set covers
activities for shipments of
dry, tanker, gas, and chemical cargos.
The company serves 60
clients and over 2,000 users
throughout North America,
South America, Asia, and
Europe, including Oldendorff
Carriers, BW Group, Eitzen
Group, NYK Global Bulk, and
North China Shipping.
Softmar has headquarters
in Switzerland and a development centre in South
Africa.
All 45 Softmar employees
from its chartering and vessel operations business have
joined Triple Point, and
Softmar co-founder, Michael
Lolk Larsen, has been named
Triple Point’s managing
director of chartering and
vessel operations.
“Integrating with a larger,
successful organisation like
Triple Point gives Softmar
the immediate resources and
reach to accomplish its goals
of continued growth and
support of existing and new
clients,” said Mr Larsen.
“This is an exciting time in
the commodity and freight
markets, and becoming part of
Triple Point is the perfect next
step in Softmar’s maturation.”
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Digital Ship
Mariner’s Annual to bolster Shipserv ordering options
www.shipserv.com
Maritime e-commerce company ShipServ
has acquired Charles Kerr Enterprises,
the publisher of Mariner's Annual, a shipping and offshore drilling industries'
ordering guide.
Around 8,000 copies of
Mariner's Annual are distributed each year in book and
CD form, with approximately 60,000 copies in active use
on ships, drilling rigs, offshore vessels and in procurement offices, as well as by
ship chandlers and shipyards, around the world.
Mariner's Annual will
continue to be published in a
discrete business unit by its current management team, which will continue to run
the business.
"With a quality publication like
Mariner's Annual, ShipServ will be even
better positioned to capitalise on the
growth opportunity that maritime e-commerce represents," said Paul Ostergaard,
CEO and founder of ShipServ.
"The addition of Mariner's Annual to the
ShipServ family means we can add further
value to the ship supplies ordering process
‘This will allow ShipServ
to add further value’
– Paul Ostergaard, ShipServ
New maritime
ERP introduced
www.orionmarineconcepts.com
Orion Marine Concepts has
introduced its new Integrated
Vessel Management System
(IVMS), a technology based
management solution for the
marine industry.
The enterprise resource
planning (ERP) system has
been developed through a
joint venture between Orion
Marine Concepts and One
World Technology, and combines shore and vessel related modules in a single integrated platform.
Specialised maritime features added to the system
include enhanced bandwidth optimisation, a dashboard for critical data, voice
or video chat facilities, automatic storage of data and
generation of analytical
reports,
an
electronic
library, and bar coding of
spares and stores.
A biometric crew database, 'permit to work' system, and training modules
are also built-in to assist in
the management of crews.
A mirrored back-up of the
system is included as a failsafe to create a robust system
set-up.
by helping onboard crew identify and communicate their requirements to shore."
ShipServ's TradeNet e-commerce platform for the maritime industry already
processes just under $1.2bn in ship supplies
orders per year, while its ShipServ Pages
system is used by 60,000 marine buyers
each month to locate suppliers from an
online directory of nearly 30,000 companies.
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SOFTWARE
ClassNK introduces online services
www.classnk.or.jp
Nippon Kaiji Kyokai (ClassNK) has begun
a new online survey and audit application
service, called ‘e-Application’, as of
February 1, 2010.
Users can access the service via the
Web Service Portal page of the ClassNK
website, or through NK-SHIPS, the
Society’s on-line ship survey and
ISM/ISPS information search service.
The system will apply to class and
statutory surveys of existing ships,
ISM/ISPS ship audits, and ISM company
audits.
It allows registered ship owners
and managers to apply for surveys
and audits directly online, making
RADIO HOLLAND CONNECT: AIRTIME ANYWHERE
WE C
NNECT YOUR BUSINESS
FOR ALL YOUR
C NNECTIVITY SOLUTIONS
www.radiohollandgroup.com
the application process more convenient, while the link between eApplication and the NK-SHIPS service
will help to ensure that no survey due
dates are missed.
Registered users of NK-SHIPS are able
to access the e-Application
service to directly submit
survey and audit applications, as of February 1st.
ABS software
sales record
for 2009
www.abs-ns.com
ABS Nautical Systems has
reported record growth for
the second half of 2009,
signing 30 new contracts in
the 26 weeks to the end of
the year, beginning with
the launch of the company's Newbuild Program.
The ABS-NS Newbuild
Program offers free hull
inspection,
web-based
drawings management and
maintenance management
software modules to all
ABS-classed vessels built
after January 1, 2009.
These modules are preloaded with the technical
data specific to the newly
built vessel.
The company says that
one-third of the new contracts signed have come
from existing customers
keen to take advantage of
this new initiative, with the
three software modules in
the program also available
through NS5, ABS Nautical
Systems’ current maritime
fleet management software
system.
Francisco Lopez, of
Humbolt Shipmanagement
Ltda, is one such customer,
who noted: ”We are currently using the NS5 suite
on our chemical tankers
and it has been the backbone for the maintenance of
critical equipment on our
vessels.”
“As a customer, we
appreciate the opportunity
to receive world-class
software licences on our
newbuilds for a full year
at no additional cost, especially in these trying economic times.”
Other customers who
transfer their vessels’ classification to ABS may also
be eligible to enrol in the
Newbuild Program, the
company says.
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Digital Ship
An IKEA approach to software
The simplest ideas can often have the greatest impact, and sometimes small changes in design can have big results
for the user. Can maritime IT learn from other industries as to how to be more accessible to those onboard?
Digital Ship spoke to Tasos Makris, Gourdomichalis Maritime, about applying the ‘IKEA concept’ to software usability
T
he notion of usability in technology systems is one that directly and
significantly affects every stakeholder in the maritime IT industry.
Users of applications and processes
want their systems to produce the results
they expect in a straightforward manner,
in a way that is more convenient than
what was previously possible using manual systems.
The vendors of these systems want to
satisfy these requirements of their customers, to keep them happy and make
sure they continue to pay their invoices.
Perhaps even more importantly in a
small sector like maritime IT, gaining a
reputation of having a system that works
and can be relied upon to perform as you
want it to can be critical in becoming a successful supplier of maritime applications.
In the wider technology world, the
power of creating improved usability can
be seen in the successes of computer and
electronics giant Apple. From iPods to
iPads, and with the incredibly popular
iPhone in between, the company has
built its brand on creating products that
‘just work’.
The company’s dedication to creating
intuitive user interfaces has spawned a
hardcore base of loyal and dedicated customers, that will await each new release
with an almost religious fervour in the
belief that Apple will, once again, create
something that will enhance the way they
work and play.
It may be hard to find many seafarers
or fleet IT managers that would share the
same excitement when it comes to the latest release of a maritime software package.
Simple ideas
While it might seem to be unfair to draw a
comparison between the systems devel-
‘Software influences all aspects of
life onboard’ – Tasos Makris,
Gourdomichalis Maritime
oped through the R&D muscle available to
a company like Apple, which is targeting a
market that stretches into billions, and a
shipping IT company with more modest
resources aiming to grab a share of the
approximately 50,000-strong SOLAS fleet,
improving usability does not necessarily
have to be an expensive business.
Tasos Makris, through his dual roles
as information systems director at
Gourdomichalis Maritime and treasurer
of non-profit organisation AMMITEC
(the Association of Maritime Managers
of
Information
Technology
and
Communications), has worked hard at promoting the concept of usability to his colleagues in the maritime industry, and
stresses that some of the greatest improvements can come from very simple changes.
As an example, he points to a very lowtech example of enhanced usability – a
bottle of ketchup.
“I think some of us might have noticed
a change recently – the bottles in our
fridge stand upside down,” he explains.
“The bottle is a classical shape, that lasted for centuries, but it has lately been
changing. What is actually happening? It’s
because of the notion of usability.”
“In software, as well as in many other
things, usability stands out – but we probably don’t always realise it. It’s usability
that forces a lot of people today to come
up with new ideas that make life easier,
and these ideas sell well.”
Mr Makris believes that the subtle variations in design evident in all sorts of varied industries should act as an inspiration
as to how small details and clever thinking
can combine to create great benefits.
“If you look around for applications of
usability, you will find them in the DIY
industry, which has been very successful
in the last decade, packaging, dispensers,
Web 2.0 applications, and so on,” he said.
“Some of these ideas, which might not
be so new, have been applied for the sake
of the user. The user is King nowadays,
and many companies have decided that it
pays to be pleasant to the King – for example, by making his life easier.”
The DIY industry in particular is one that
Mr Makris believes has really paid attention
to improving usability, and that this has
been a fundamental factor in its success.
“Take, for example, IKEA – every piece
of furniture you buy is accompanied by a
graphical manual,” he told us.
“There are no words involved, only pictures, so it can be understood by anybody,
anywhere in the world. The only writing is
maybe in the top right hand corner, where
there are the details for support.”
“I’ve used it myself, and it only took 10
minutes to complete a whole cabinet,
without having to talk to anybody. It was
efficient, and I enjoyed it.”
A simple change in design can make a big difference to usability
There are further similar examples
within the DIY and furniture sphere, such
as with some hardware stores having all of
the new products they introduce accompanied by a small digital monitor that
explains how to use the new tool, and in
some cases how to maintain the tool.
“Another good example is a baby bed
that I have seen, and on the bottom of the
bed there are printed instructions,” said
Mr Makris. “The instruction manual is
right there, should you need it.”
“So, in most cases you might see that a
good instruction manual can be found with
the tool, or furniture, or whatever it is – it’s
not something separate and is embedded.”
“I would like to see that in software
systems for the maritime industry too.”
Software lag
While these kinds of simple usability innovations may have encouraged consumers
to try their hand at the construction of a
sideboard, or helped them to squeeze the
last drop of shampoo from the bottle in the
shower, Mr Makris feels that a similar
path has not been followed when it comes
to maritime IT systems.
“If we compare some of these advances
with those made in the software industry
in the past decade we can see that, from
the user’s point of view, there hasn’t been
that much of a change,” he said. “We have
many more functions than before, but no
changes in the user interface.”
“The software provided on the ships
influences all aspects of life onboard – the
crew’s life, their work, their communication with the world, their safety, their
entertainment, all of these things.
Therefore it is fundamentally important to
their wellbeing.”
“It also, of course, has a big effect on the
productivity of the seafarers, which is
directly affected by the use of the software. So improvements in this area can
quite simply make ship life easier, more
comfortable, and more productive.”
One particular area Mr Makris points to
that could be improved upon without too
much effort is in the language used by the
computer systems, which he thinks is
sometimes unnecessarily complicated and
hard to penetrate for a standard seafarer
with no IT training.
He also believes that more work should
be done to remove potential program
problems before they get to the stage
where they are confusing the crew
onboard ship.
“The system should use language that
the seafarer can understand, and not computer jargon,” said Mr Makris. “It should
install easily, and have no bugs, of course,
in its basic functions.”
“We know that this is almost impossible, but at least the main functions of the
software should be tested very well. And
even if there are some bugs, the user
should be able to know how to recover.
We can’t just say ‘something went wrong’,
we need to tell them what to do next.”
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SOFTWARE
Mr Makris suggests that help and support should be built into the system, and
that it could also include error recording
and reporting, and consistent back-up to
make sure that problems don’t result in
lost work or the destruction of necessary
information and data.
User manuals should be on hand and
available, and explain in simple and straight-
forward steps how to rectify the issue – like
an IKEA walk-through for software.
“Manuals that don’t really describe
the necessary steps to complete a task
will not really help the new or untrained
user,” he said.
“There may be no point in describing
what the command ‘Save File’, or ‘Edit’, or
some of them do, as everybody knows
them by now if they have ever used a computer. What they don’t know might be
how to do a specific job that requires a few
steps, even if they are simple.”
“A lot of these things are technically
very easy but could make our job, as IT
managers, very much easier, while also
making the job of the software provider
and the support teams much easier. We
know that very few people have the ability
to describe a computer problem in detail.”
Falling behind
One of Mr Makris’ concerns is that this
usability problem will, in fact, grow to be
even worse, with the pace of technology outstripping the ability of the users to apply it.
“We are well past the first introduction
of DOS, there have been lots
of improvements and new
tools for the developers to
start thinking seriously
about the user and start
building things specifically
LEADER IN MOBILE BROADBAND
for the user,” he said.
“This is going to be very
important in the coming
decade, where crew members will be difficult to find
and difficult to train.”
Even the concept of this
training itself would benefit
hugely from an improved
focus on usability, Mr
NEW
Makris suggests, with techfor 2010!
nology like computer based
Worldwide TV
training (CBT), videos and
Satellite Library
online systems likely to
for Unmatched
become even more imporConvenience!
tant in preparing the diminishing numbers of available
seafarers for their duties
onboard.
“These are very important because a lot of the time
we won’t see new members
of the crew in our offices,”
he said.
“I have been very glad to
discover good examples of
onboard computer based
training during the last year.
Some developers have come
up with CBT modules covering some of the most important onboard applications.”
However, this represents
one small example of
improved usability that Mr
Makris believes is not particularly prevalent across the
shipping industry, a situation
he hopes can be positively
affected through improved
awareness of the issues.
“There doesn’t seem to be
with a front row seat to this year’s
a
lot
of enthusiasm about
DFWLRQSDFNHG IRRWEDOO ðQDOV PDGH
usability in shipping, not yet
possible through the TracVision M9
anyway, but I am convinced
that has been installed on sixty of
that it is a subject that will
our vessels operating globally.
increase in importance in the
next decade,” he said.
– Sergey Minakov, Electrical Engineer Superintendent,
“In AMMITEC we are
Unicom Management Services
willing to move forward with
the idea. If people in the
industry have some ideas or
any examples, good or bad,
we hope they will get in
touch.”
DS
Don’t miss a shot
of the 2010 Finals!
“
“
We want to reward our crew
For the captain who insists on quality and reliability, there’s
only one way to bring home theatre-quality TV onboard –
TracVision. See the full line of systems for any size vessel at:
www.tracvision.com
+6(%UROPE!3s+OKKEDAL)NDUSTRIPARK"s+OKKEDALs$ENMARKs4ELs&AXs%MAILINFO KVHDK
© 2009+6()NDUSTRIES)NCs+6(AND4RAC6ISIONAREREGISTEREDTRADEMARKSOF+6()NDUSTRIES)NCs3PECIFICATIONSSUBJECTTOCHANGEWITHOUTNOTICE
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For more details on
AMMITEC (the Association of Maritime Managers
of Information Technology
and
Communications),
and information on how
to get in contact, visit
www.ammitec.org.
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Page 8
Digital Ship
Managing information – software
systems at Capital Shipmanagement
Information is the lifeblood of any effective business, and software systems are the circulatory system
keeping them running. As shipping companies continue to face a wider range of requirements,
necessitating careful control of company information, Stylianos Siafakas, Capital Shipmanagement,
told Digital Ship about his company’s journey towards a comprehensive information management system
S
oftware systems are generally
considered an essential component
in the efficient running of any
business, and with ship operators this is
no different.
Timely and accurate information,
whether it be about the successes or failures in your own business or the make-up
of the external environment in which you
operate, is essential in allowing managers
to make decisions as to how to allocate
their available resources to maximum
advantage.
A well deployed software system can
act as the circulatory system for this vital
information, allowing for it to be disseminated to the places you want, and the people you want, at the time you want.
Creating such a seamless flow of an
increasing load of business information
was the ultimate goal of a software
deployment project initiated by Capital
Shipmanagement in 2004, when it teamed
up with Fortune Technologies to begin
developing an all-encompassing system
capable of integrating a number of different processes.
This included things like a document
management system and flow control,
planned maintenance, human resources,
purchasing, finance and accounting, operations, voyage planning, and business
analytics – all areas which require constant attention, says Stylianos Siafakas,
safety and quality management representative for Capital Shipmanagement.
“The problem that everybody has to
face is that, every day, we receive a
tremendous volume of information –
regarding new legislation, regulations,
everything,” he told us.
“We have to filter this information,
make the right decisions, and develop
new procedures in order to access and
implement this new information. How can
we do this if we don’t buy or develop the
right software?”
Requirements
This range of newly introduced requirements for information at Capital
Shipmanagement had reached the stage of
almost becoming unmanageable, as the
list of different regulations and audits
grew and grew.
“At our company, the management systems we have already so far implemented
include the IMO ISM code, of course, the
ISPS code, the new ILO code, the ISO9001
quality management system, the ISO 14001
environmental management system, and
the OHSAS 18001 occupational health and
safety code,” said Mr Siafakas.
“Then we have other various requirements and codes for things like garbage
management, ballast water management,
and other things that most shipping companies will know all about.”
“And after that we have inspections
management, for things like vetting
inspections, navigational audits, internal
audits, external audits, and port state control requirements.”
Despite all of these things, you can
never make sure that everything will go
exactly as planned – and so another raft of
information must be dealt with to monitor
risks and accidents.
“We have to do risk management,
which is one of the most important parts
Get the Big Picture
Capital’s oil tankers are subject to the requirements of TMSA – requirements that
necessitate the generation and management of large amounts of data. Photo: Capital
of the system in the tanker industry and is
an oil major requirement under the Tanker
Management Self Assessment (TMSA)
scheme,” Mr Siafakas explained.
“We have events management, for
things like near misses, non-conformities,
accidents, injuries, and whatever else.
Then we have incidence analysis, because
we have to analyse exactly what really
happened or what went wrong, in order to
avoid repeating the same mistake.”
“This also then ties in with training
administration, this is something new
regarding the training requirements for
senior officers and ratings. It must be
included in procedures, detailing how you
control training courses and who the right
people are to perform the courses.”
Even after compiling all of this data
regarding what is happening at the company the job is not done, as the external
consequences of your operations must
also be monitored.
“The QMS (quality management system) is a whole process, regarding planning, acting and doing certain things, and
then checking,” said Mr Siafakas.
“The whole procedure is one of the
most important things in our company,
because we are listed. We always have to
check customer satisfaction – this is one of
the most important parts.”
“On top of this there are also environmental regulations. We all know that new
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SOFTWARE
regulations will be coming on the environmental side, and it’s going to be more
strict than it was before, so this is one of
the big things we need to consider.”
Document management
Creating software and processes to deal
with this wide range of varying requirements has already created years of work
for Capital Shipmanagement and the team
involved on the project, with integration
of different modules an essential part of
their efforts.
However, there are a couple of key
areas that Mr Siafakas can point to to illustrate how the company handles its information flow. One of these, and one of the
most vital components of the overall system, is the document management system,
the first area pinpointed by the team for
development during the project.
“The most important thing is that,
when we create a document, it must be
distributed to all vessels at the same time,”
he explained.
“Imagine all of the times when you have
to send hard copies of manuals to all of the
vessels around the world, it doesn’t really
work. The best solution is via satellite communication and using the software.”
“We can immediately distribute the
manuals to the vessels. They are fully electronic, you can search them, compare documents, compare revisions, and you can
make comments.”
Mr Siafakas notes that the electronic
nature of the documentation circulated to
the fleet creates instant benefits for crews
trying to find particular types of information as it is required.
“For example, let’s say ballast opera-
tions, if you type ‘ballast operations’ into
the system then the software will bring
you the results, you can navigate through
them directly to the required section or
subject,” he said.
“If you limit the search you can change
the results that you will get. You can also
search through various places, you can
make a simultaneous search in safety
management and quality management, or
environmental, or others.”
This drive to electronic documentation
has been extended to the creation of electronic forms, which can be filled in and
distributed almost instantly.
“You can complete these through a laptop or a PC that you have on the bridge, or
maybe in the cargo control room or the
engine control room,” said Mr Siafakas.
“We are now developing a new system
where you can have a laptop with you, for
example, when you go to make a round
check, and you can fill in the forms you
need electronically. Then it can be sent to
the office.”
“All documentation is fully audited,
and all changes and everything that happens is audited by the software. At any
time you can see who made changes or
who created a new form, or whatever it is
that you need to see.”
Incident management
and analysis
The document management system is
linked with the company’s incident management system, another key component
in making sure that the fleet is running
efficiently and safely.
Incident management covers a wide
range of business areas, everything from
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Catch information
as it happens.
business loss, to property, incidents, accident, groundings, and injuries – anything
that might have an effect on company
strategy, as Mr Siafakas explains.
“For the injuries we are using a similar
system to what’s described in the OCIMF
guidelines for injuries administration,
because we have to report to the oil majors
as well with a lot of different statistical
results,” he told us.
“For causation analysis we are using a
similar system to the Marine Systematic
Cause Analysis Technique, which was
developed by DNV, but have also implemented behavioural analysis, which I
think will be a new industry standard in
the next couple of years.”
“On another screen we have the underlying causes, the immediate causes, which
you can ‘multiple select’ and add into
your library. The incident investigation
and root cause analysis can then be delivered, at the same time, to all of the ships in
the form of the incident report. We think
this is very important.”
The reporting capabilities of the system
are a vital function in this case, with the
results of the company’s incident analysis
having to be shared with various external
stakeholders as evidence of its efforts to
reach the highest standards in tanker
operations.
“You don’t only have the vessels in
your distribution list, you can have the oil
majors, the manning agents, other offices,”
said Mr Siafakas.
“You can share all of the information
you want with others – you just select
where you want it to go and it automatically distributes. It’s fully audited, as I
said, so only authorised persons have the
right to close a case and distribute it.”
“Also, if you want a hard copy of your
reports you can have full automatic
reporting in hard copies.”
The company has additionally moved
into the creation of electronic systems to
handle the vessel inspection questionnaire
for vetting inspections developed by
OCIMF for use by tanker operators, so that
Capital Shipmanagement can keep all of
the details and results in a digital format
for analysis.
“All of these kinds of questionnaires
are imported into the software, and all
deficiencies or observations or nonconformities are also categorised,” said
Mr Siafakas.
“At the end we have statistical results
about deficiencies and observations, as
well as trend analysis so we can set out
our strategies and see where we might be
going wrong.”
“The system will show you the observation, the initial comments, and then you
can set the corrective action and preventive action required. After this you can
pass to the root cause analysis, to the lessons learned, and if you want to go a step
further you can go to the risk management
section and add this observation to your
risk management.”
This vast amount of generated data
across these various systems is all used to
evaluate and analyse the performance of the
company in the pursuance of its objectives.
“This is the result of when you gather
all of this information, and is how you perform benchmarking and establish key performance indicators (KPIs) – to see where
exactly you are going and to allow you to
plan your strategy,” said Mr Siafakas.
“After we gather the results through
the software we have the current status,
according to our set KPIs, and we have the
industry standards, which we gather from
various sources.”
“Once we can see the current status of
the company and know exactly where we
want to go, we set the targets, perform a
gap analysis, and then plan our strategy.”
Business continuity
management
With all of these sophisticated systems in
place to analyse operations, one interesting final variation on this strategy creation
practised at Capital Shipmanagement is
the use of Business Continuity
Management (BCM), a process which aims
to examine how to establish the business
to avoid disaster.
Mr Siafakas says that he believes that
Capital Shipmanagement is the only shipping company in the world that has fully
implemented a complete BCM process,
and that contingency plans for IT systems
are a major component of this.
“You need to develop plans for various
scenarios in order to recover from a possible disaster,” he said. “This is something
that you may already see used in IT
departments, as IT people probably know
more than most about it, using back-ups,
mirror sites, and all of these things.”
“For a shipping business you have to
establish exactly what it is you are doing –
for example, among our operations we
carry oil cargo from the United States to
Europe. Then, for this specific trading
operation, we have to assess the risks and
formulate a plan according to the hazards
that exist.”
“Think of what happened to the Exxon
Valdez, after a disaster like this the company must be prepared to continue its
business and plan it differently. This is
basically what business continuity management needs to do.”
As an example, Mr Siafakas points to
back-up plans that a company might put
in place to cope with an unpredictable natural disaster, such as an earthquake.
“We are based in Athens, we have
earthquakes – let’s say that an earthquake
hits Athens and the office cannot communicate or cannot work for a specific number of days, or months, or years – what are
you going to do?” he said.
“Do you stop the business? No. You
have to be prepared for this scenario. The
whole idea is that you develop these scenarios according to your business, and
form alternate plans, have alternate sites.”
“Most shipping companies might
have an office in London or somewhere
else, so the shipping company may consider how it would transfer its operations
to that specific office, for a specific period. You need to be prepared for that, and
one part of this is disaster recovery for
the IT systems.”
While the journey may have been a
long one, already spanning more than five
years, Capital Shipmanagement can now
be confident that it is doing its utmost to
maximise efficiency in its control of information, and will be able to react decisively to whatever the market can throw at it –
DS
earthquakes and all.
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Digital Ship
New ECDIS adds internet connection
www.primar.org
Primar has reported that its electronic navigational charts (ENCs) can now be downloaded directly to electronic chart display
and information system (ECDIS) units, after
type-approval of the first such system able
to communicate directly via the internet.
Certified by Det Norske Veritas (DNV),
the new ECDIS-4000 from Sweden’s
Adveto Advanced Technology includes
an ECDIS security internet gate (ESIG),
which makes it possible to connect to the
internet for both on-line ordering and
downloading of Primar ENCs.
The unit also features a control unit for
remote selection of navigational functions,
and a night-presentation capability.
This solution has been developed by
Adveto in close collaboration with Primar,
which currently offers more than 8,000 ENCs
through its international distributor network.
“Our secure Primar ECDIS Online service
allows the ECDIS-4000 to receive real-time
ENC updates directly from our database,”
explained Primar director, Kjell Olsen.
“Following a year of development and
testing work with Adveto, this advance
means that users get the very latest navigational information at all times."
“Adveto is the first of our distributors
to implement this service fully and to have
the ESIG type-approved as part of its
ECDIS-4000 certificate.”
Adveto chief executive Kent Sylvén
believes that the new system will be of
great benefit to vessel operators, in reducing both the time and costs involved with
chart folio maintenance.
“Once a route is planned, our ESIG
hardware allows users to connect to the
web and order the required Primar charts
directly via the ECDIS,” said Mr Sylvén.
“This means they only buy and pay for
the charts they need, and will always
have the latest versions. It also cuts
administration on-board and at the shipping company office.”
Intrinsically Safe digital camera released
www.gentay.co.uk
Gentay Ltd has released what it claims is
the world’s first Intrinsically Safe digital
camera with flash, certified for use in
Hazardous Areas in the maritime and oil
and gas industries.
The iCam501 has been launched with
ATEX certification and can record digital images from areas of low lighting
where a conventional digital camera can
not be used.
The camera uses four LED lights for
illumination, has 3.1 megapixel resolution and includes 1 gigabyte of internal
memory to hold approximately 5,000
jpeg images.
The unit also incorporates a Voice
Annotation feature which allows the user
to record a voice message whilst taking a
digital image. Both the digital image and
voice annotation are date and time
stamped to create a chronological history.
A USB socket is built into the device for
downloading the images and voice annotations directly to a computer.
“The market has required a competitively priced intrinsically safe digital
camera for use in areas of low lighting
for a long time now, and after intensive
market analysis the iCam501 is designed
to meet and exceed the expectations of
our many customers world wide,” said
Daniel Merrens, Gentay director of
sales and marketing.
The new system can download Primar ENC updates directly into the ECDIS in real-time
Letter to the editor
To the Editor,
Andy Norris writes (Digital Ship Jan-Feb
2010) that the US has made a decision to
abandon eLoran. From that he argues
that "eLoran is well and truly dead".
While that scenario could happen, it certainly hasn't happened yet. The current
US Government studies, meetings, and
discussions about eLoran continue and
there is a furore in the technical press on
the question.
What’s in a name? In the US, Loran-C
is a 460m accuracy, hyperbolic positioning system. eLoran takes full advantage
of 21st century technology to provide
positioning, navigation and timing information in a way very similar to GPS. The
General Lighthouse Authorities’ trials
have demonstrated 10 - 20 m accuracy.
True, Loran-C in the US has come to
the end of its life. But that's something
both opponents and supporters of
eLoran wished to see. Indeed, the US
signalled the replacement of Loran-C
when it announced its February 2008
decision to adopt eLoran as its national
fall-back to GNSS.
Andy Norris focuses on the need for a
backup positioning system at sea. But
the case for eLoran is about much more
than that. It is part of a search for
"Resilient PNT (positioning, navigation
and timing)" for all sectors of transportation, industry and commerce. Advanced
societies depend on robust sources of
accurate location data and, especially,
precise timing. These are key parts of
their national critical infrastructures. Of
course radar continues to play a major
role at sea - but it cannot provide the
timing fallback to GNSS used in ships'
electronic systems or, of course, for
telecommunications on land. The attraction of eLoran, for the 15 nations that
currently deploy Loran-C, is that it provides highly cost-effective location and
timing for land, sea and air. Loran-C
could never have done that; but US government studies showed that eLoran
could. We will see whether it will.
Dr Sally Basker,
Director of Research and Radionavigation,
General Lighthouse Authorities of the
United Kingdom and Ireland
“The Voice Annotation feature will
prove to be a welcome feature, enabling
the users to attach a short message for
detailed reporting.”
The new camera has been certified
for maritime usage
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ELECTRONICS & NAVIGATION NEWS
Kongsberg kits out Oasis of the Seas
www.kongsberg.com
Kongsberg Maritime has completed the
installation of control systems and software for navigation, manoeuvring and
automation functions aboard Royal
Caribbean International's (RCI) mega
cruise vessel, the Oasis of the Seas.
The design and installation project was
undertaken in close collaboration with
RCI at the STX yard in Turku, Finland.
The technology supplied includes a
propulsion control system and dynamic
positioning (DP2), in addition to power
management, machinery automation and
HVAC automation systems.
These will be used partly to manage the
close to 100MW of power supplied by six
Wartsila diesel electric engines to the
ship's four large 5MW bow thrusters and
three 20MW azipods.
"Oasis has about 15,000 square metres
of sail area, so manoeuvring the vessel in
and out of small or busy ports in challenging wind and sea conditions requires a
powerful and dynamic propulsion control
system," noted Captain Bill Wright, senior
vice president of RCI, and Captain of Oasis
of the Seas.
"We worked closely with Kongsberg
Maritime to ensure we got the right bridge
control system and functionalities in the
software solution to match our needs."
Sperry radar for
Sydney ferries
www.sperrymarine.northropgrumman.com
Sperry Marine is to supply its
VisionMaster FT chart radars to all
28 vessels in the Sydney Harbour
Ferries fleet.
Electrotech
Australia,
Sperry
Marine’s sales and service representative in Australia, will install and commission the radars and will provide
technical support through its Sydney
office.
Sydney Harbour Ferries transports
more than 14 million passengers
over 1.3 million kilometres each year,
connecting to 39 destinations from its
hub at Circular Quay on Sydney’s
waterfront.
“The VisionMaster FT chart radars
enhance situational awareness for watch
officers by providing an overlay of
radar images on a detailed electronic
chart display,” said J. Nolasco
DaCunha, Sperry Marine.
“These
new-generation
radars
employ advanced digital technology
for automatic clutter suppression,
providing a clearer picture of radar
targets under difficult weather and sea
conditions.”
Oasis of the Seas will feature a range of navigation and control systems from Kongsberg
Telematics and fleet tracking company
Cybit Holdings has confirmed the
completion of its acquisition by Francisco
Partners, a technology-focused private
equity firm. The acquisition completes a
process under which Cybit has been de-listed from the London stock market and
moves into private ownership.
Kongsberg Maritime has opened
a new seven storey, 20,000 m2 extension
to its global headquarters, located in
the Kongsberg Technology Park. The
new building has space for about 550
employees and will feature extensive lab
and test areas.
The United States Coast Guard
has ordered a Kongsberg Maritime
EM 122 deep water multibeam echo
sounder for use aboard the icebreaker
Healy, the largest vessel in its fleet. The
new EM 122 will substantially enhance
Healy's ocean mapping capabilities in its
hydrographic work related to determining
the limits of the Extended Continental
Shelf (ECS) of the United States.
SES (Ships Electronic Services)
has been appointed by Raytheon
Anschuetz as an independent distributor and Service Depot Partner for the UK.
The company will handle the supply and
installation of Raytheon Anschuetz gyro
equipment, steering controls, autopilots,
ECDIS systems, communication systems
and radars and servicing of gyro equip-
ment, steering controls, and autopilots.
Hatteland Display has launched
two new stand-alone computers, the HT
B17 and HT B18, built to marine performance standards. The HT B17 is the
slim version, although with the same
technical performance, while the doublesized HT B18 is equipped with PCI/PCIe
support, and offers the opportunity to
add capacity.
www.cybitholdings.com
www.kongsberg.com
www.ses-marine.com
www.raytheon-anschuetz.com
www.hatteland-display.com
CHART AGENCY LTD.
NAUTICAL INFORMATION SPECIALISTS
Sydney Harbour ferries will install
28 chart radar systems, from
Sperry Marine’s VisionMaster range
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Page 3
JRC’s FleetBroadband power duo.
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Coverage restrictions for the extreme polar regions apply.
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Page 4
HITT to be awarded Dutch VTS contracts
www.hitt.nl
Navigation and traffic management company HITT is to be awarded two new
Dutch traffic control system contracts by
the Netherlands Ministry of Transport,
Public Works and Water Management
(RWS).
Under the first deal HITT is set to be
contracted to design and build the traffic
control systems in the Den Helder VTS
Region, while the other contract covers the
design, delivery, testing and commissioning of a vessel traffic guidance and control
system on the Noordzeekanaal (North Sea
Canal) and surrounding waterways.
Both contracts include maintenance on
the respective systems for a peroid of
ten years.
RWS has guaranteed that the provisional award of both contracts will be
finalised before the end of February, with
the systems to be in place in about 10
months (Den Helder) and 18 months
(Noordzeekanaal).
The new Den Helder order, worth
approximately €2.3 million, will include
the modernisation of the existing system
and the delivery of new work stations
with facilities allowing for partly automated operational processes.
The VHF and radar systems will be
extended and optimised, with the vessel
traffic control system also being connected
to the coastguard system in order to
exchange vessel traffic information.
The €17 million Noordzeekanaal order
includes the construction and installation
of 26 radar posts, a closed circuit television
(CCTV) system and other detection, presentation and communication systems for
navigation guidance, as well as the design
and installation of two modern traffic control centres.
AIS SART unit released by McMurdo
www.mcmurdo.co.uk
McMurdo has introduced its first AIS
SART (Automatic Identification System
Search And Rescue Transmitter) unit to its
range of safety products.
Aimed at the commercial maritime
market, the Smartfind S5 AIS SART search
and rescue locating device is designed to
assist in survivor craft location during
search and rescue operations.
The system transmits a series of updating structured alert messages including its
geographic position and serialised identity number.
Once activated, the SART transmits
emergency alerts for a minimum of 96
hours. An in-built high precision GPS provides exact position information to assist
in quick recovery of survivors.
From January 1st 2010, AIS-SART technology has been adopted into IMO GMDSS
carriage requirements as an alternative survivor Search and Rescue Locating Device to
existing 9GHz Radar SARTs.
A major benefit of the AIS SART is that
target survivor information becomes
viewable using standard ships’ AIS equipment, with both the range and course to
locate the survivors clearly presented on
the ships’ AIS user display.
Norwegian company projectiondesign has
supplied five F22 sx+ DLP projectors to
the Port of London Authority in the UK,
for use in its Ship Bridge Simulator.
Located at the Gravesend Port Control
Centre, south-east of London, the simulator is used for routine and refresher training of pilots, to reduce the need for them
to travel elsewhere to gain ‘hands-on’
experience of the varying tide, wind and
visibility conditions of the River Thames,
which flows through central London to
the North Sea.
The simulator was inaugurated in 2003,
upgraded in 2006, and has now been further updated by the addition of the F22
sx+ projectors.
Both installation and upgrade were
www.gacacademy.com
The GAC Corporate Academy (GCA),
an in-house corporate development initiative set up to offer development opportunities to GAC employees since February
2007, has launched its new ‘E-Learning
2.0’ platform.
The new platform aims to further refine
the teaching materials offered through the
GCA online learning management system,
GAClearn, and streamline third party
developers’ content to make its courses
more relevant to students' needs, making
them more interactive, and responsive to
changing demands.
The GCA programmes operate through
a Learning Management System environment where participants join virtual classrooms. Participants form learning communities to engage in industry-based case
studies and learning processes.
Damien O’Donoghue, the Academy’s
general manager, notes that since some of
the initial GCA course material was provided by outside developers, using generic content, those models had limited
potential for social interaction and relevance to the GAC World.
This created an element of inflexibility,
as content could not be changed, and
added the expense of purchasing the
material from third-party providers.
“Now, after nearly three years since the
launch of the GCA, we are ready to move
on to the next stage - a new model that
lays the foundations for us to build inhouse communities to spread learning
across the GAC world, with the flexibility
to adapt in response to feedback from participants,” said Mr O’Donoghue.
“It’s GCA for GAC – and it puts us in
charge of own destiny, promoting GAC’s
unique way of doing business.”
DNV begins vessel carbon capture project
www.dnv.com
Det Norske Veritas (DNV) and Process
Systems Enterprise Ltd (PSE), providers of
process modelling systems, are to begin a
collaborative R&D project aimed at developing blueprint designs for on-ship carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology, to reduce maritime CO2 emissions.
International Maritime Organisation
(IMO) studies estimate maritime CO2
emissions at over 1,000m tonnes per year,
expected to increase threefold by 2050.
The Maritime CCS project aims to develop a blueprint design for an on-board
process covering chemical capture and temporary storage of CO2 for ships in transit,
until discharge into transmission and storage infrastructures at the next suitable port.
The project, jointly financed by the two
partners, the UK’s Technology Strategy
Board and the Norwegian Research
Council under the Eurostars initiative, will
take into account the unique challenges
posed by the maritime environment,
including constant ship movement, limited space and access to utilities, stringent
safety requirements and the need for energy efficiency.
Dr Nikolaos Kakalis, head of DNV
research and innovation, Greece, commented: “The concept of maritime carbon
capture is completely new in the field of
maritime transportation, with no current
end-to-end solution available."
"With the competence that DNV has in
maritime R&D, we intend to provide the
European shipbuilding and relevant manufacturing industries with a sound basis for
the development of CCS systems for ships."
Thomas Gunn updates data delivery service
The AIS SART transmits exact location
information to assist search
and rescue efforts
Port of London updates simulators
www.projectiondesign.com
GAC Corporate Academy goes to E-Learning 2.0
installed by Dutch-based Pro Systems,
working with the project’s main contractor Marin, which supplied the setup’s
image software and operator console.
"[The new system] gave us maximum
flexibility for the Port of London
Authority’s simulation environment," said
Martin van Driest, director of Pro Systems.
"We used an angled flat-screen with an
image size of 5 metres, and specified the
projectors with wide-angle, short-throw
lenses because of the limited space available on the ‘Bridge’."
"With the use of our colour and gamma
measurement equipment, for colour uniformity, we can easily set colour coordinates in the projectiondesign projectors
thanks to its Realcolor calibration software
system. This is a very useful timesaver for
a simulation setup.”
www.thomasgunn.com
Thomas Gunn Navigation Services has
released Version 2 of its Voyager system,
incorporating a new file compression
module which allows file size reduction
by a further 60 per cent.
This makes the service, which delivers
weekly Notice to Mariners and tracings correction data direct to vessels, "the most technically advanced e-mail service available in
the market today," according to Thomas
Gunn, managing director of the company.
"I have no doubt that this major break-
through in file compression techniques
will lead to many more subscribers to the
service," he said.
"This has been further confirmed by the
decision of a very large shipmanagement
company to adapt Voyager throughout its
fleet. This is a major endorsement of our
commitment to investing in the latest technologies to ensure our customers get the
best possible service."
The Voyager service was launched in
June 2008 and has over 800 vessels now
subscribing, with data delivery by e-mail
or web access.
Digital Ship network
Join the online community for the maritime
IT sector - get in contact with colleagues,
renew friendships, meet possible business
partners, and discuss on-the-job challenges
Have you joined yet? Register FREE at
http://network.thedigitalship.com
p25-36:p26-32.qxd
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Page 5
Forthcoming Digital Ship 2010 events
Digital Ship Scandinavia
Digital Ship Hamburg
March 17-18
April 13-14
Jan Mayan Rooms, Lillestrøm
MagnusHall, Hamburg
Digital Ship
USA
Digital Ship
Singapore
Digital Ship
Athens
September 22-23
October 27-28
December 1-2
The Italian Center, Stamford, CT
Suntec CEC
Athens Golf Club
For the latest programme and registration details on all Digital Ship events, visit www.thedigitalship.com
To discuss advertising and exhibition opportunities, contact Ria Kontogeorgou,
advertising sales & exhibition manager, Tel +44 207 510 4931, Mob: +44 7815 481036,
e-mail [email protected]
Digital Ship Limited, 213 Marsh Wall, London E14 9FJ, UK
Tel: +44 (0)20 7510 0015
Fax: +44 (0)20 7510 2344
p25-36:p26-32.qxd
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Page 6
Korean yard orders ten vessel control systems
www.sam-electronics.de
L-3 Marine Systems Korea, a subsidiary of
SAM Electronics, is to supply ten vessel
control systems for a series of 45,000 dwt
chemical carriers under construction by
SLS Shipbuilding of South Korea for
United Arab Chemical Carriers (UACC)
of Dubai.
The vessels are scheduled for delivery
to UACC throughout 2011 and 2012.
The NACOS Platinum Navigation
Automation Control system to be supplied
is an integrated vessel control system combining the functionality of dual Radarpilots
and ECDISpilots, a Conningpilot, a monitoring and control system (MCS), and a
propulsion control system (PCS).
Ancillary equipment also being supplied under the deal includes a range of
navigational sensor and external communications systems.
The deal represents the first order
for this new NACOS range, which
received its first public demonstration at
last November’s Europort exhibition
in Rotterdam.
New monitoring
and tracking
device from
Iridium
www.iridium.com
Iridium has unveiled its
next-generation Iridium 9602
satellite data transceiver, at
its annual partners conference in the United States.
The Iridium 9602 is a fullduplex short-burst data
(SBD) transceiver designed
for embedded applications
in the asset tracking and
monitoring solutions market.
The product is the culmination of a two-year R&D
programme, and has now
completed prototype testing.
Iridium says that it expects
to begin commercial deliveries of the device in June.
The duplex data links provided by the Iridium 9602
will permit two-way communications to and from
remote devices, allowing
users to reprogram the unit,
adjust its reporting intervals
and send on-demand queries
for specific data updates.
The unit has built-in GPS
input/output ports which
will permit system integrators to interface with an
external GPS receiver, using
a single dual-mode L-band
antenna for GPS and
Iridium SBD.
It will also enable first
responders and search-andrescue authorities to respond
to emergency distress signals
from personal location and
tracking devices.
“The
matchbox-sized
Iridium 9602 is 69 per cent
smaller, 74 per cent lighter
and considerably less expensive than the first-generation
Iridium 9601 SBD modem,
which we designed the
Iridium 9602 to replace,”
said Don Thoma, executive
vice president for marketing
at Iridium.
“The very small form factor and low power consumption will offer greater flexibility to value-added manufacturers
and
resellers
embedding the Iridium 9602
into their products.”
p25-36:p26-32.qxd
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Page 7
Digital Ship
WSC proposes vessel emissions scheme
www.worldshipping.org
The World Shipping Council and its members have proposed the development of a
new global Vessel Efficiency System to the
IMO and its member governments, with
the aim of improving the carbon and fuel
efficiency of the world’s fleet and reducing
greenhouse gas emissions.
The proposal is for the IMO to apply
vessel efficiency design standards for both
new and existing vessels, with newly built
vessels to be subject to mandatory efficiency standards requiring them to be built
with features and technologies that
improve energy efficiency to reach
defined levels.
These standards are envisioned as
being similar in nature to the fuel efficiency standards required of cars and trucks in
many countries, and would also be tiered
with higher standards required over time
as technology developments allow further
improvements.
Under the Vessel Efficiency System
(VES) proposal, existing vessels would
also be subject to improved efficiency
standards, though these would be less
aggressive in recognition of the fact that
existing vessels have a more limited ability to improve efficiency. These standards
would also be tiered over time.
Under the VES proposal, existing vessels that meet the established efficiency
standards would operate free of any fees.
Existing vessels that fail to meet the standards would be subject to a fee assessed
for each ton of fuel consumed, deposited
into a fund managed by the IMO.
The specific fee assessed would vary
depending on how close the vessel was to
meeting the standard, with the fees being
higher for those vessels with the lowest
efficiency. As such, the proposed system
would reward improved efficiency across
the fleet and discourage operation of the
least efficient vessels.
“The IMO achieved significant success
recently in reaching a legally-binding
global agreement that will dramatically
reduce NOx, SOx, and particulate matter
(PM) emissions from ships around the
world,” said Chris Koch, president and
CEO of the World Shipping Council.
"It is appropriate for the IMO to build
on that success and establish an international regulatory system that can reduce
carbon emissions as well. The World
Shipping Council and its members hope
that the Vessel Efficiency System proposal
will help the IMO develop a specific regulatory regime that would ensure improved
efficiency across the world’s maritime
fleet and reduce CO2 emissions."
"Such action will demonstrate the continued leadership of IMO and the maritime industry in forging progressive solutions that will protect the environment
and provide an effective global response
to this global issue."
Recent discussions by the world’s governments on dealing with climate change in
Copenhagen were unable to produce a
legally-binding global agreement, and,
given the notable differences on key issues,
it appears that such an agreement could be
very difficult to reach in the near-term.
WSC notes that the Copenhagen debate
did, however, reveal a broad consensus on
the need to pursue greater energy efficiency across the world and across multiple
industrial sectors.
A separate paper about emissions policy submitted to the IMO by the World
Shipping Council focuses on improved
efficiency in the transportation sector generally (referenced below).
Although the Copenhagen meetings
provided no specific guidance, in March
the IMO is expected to continue its efforts
to explore what global agreements may be
feasible to contribute to reducing greenhouse gas emissions from shipping across
the globe.
The proposal by the WSC to establish a
global Vessel Efficiency System shares the
same strategic focus of rewarding
improved vessel efficiency as proposals
recently made at the IMO by Japan and
the United States.
The VES would also provide for a greenhouse gas fund that could be used for car-
Under the proposals both new and
existing vessels would be subject to
tighter emissions controls.
Photo: Michael Stüning - Fotolia dot com
bon efficiency research and development
and other carbon reduction initiatives.
A copy of the World Shipping
Council’s proposal to IMO to establish a
Vessel Efficiency System can be obtained
at: http://tinyurl.com/wsc-vesproposal.
A copy of the WSC’s paper to the IMO
on emissions policy can be obtained at:
http://tinyurl.com/wsc-vesproposal-2.
M in
Know where you’re going
The MarineSTAR Manoeuvring System provides high accuracy position, course and speed
- both in the forward direction and athwartships.
Fugro Seastar AS, Oslo, Norway
Tel: +47 21 50 14 00
Fax: +47 21 50 14 01
E-mail: [email protected]
Web: www.fugroseastar.no
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Page 8
ELECTRONICS & NAVIGATION
Galileo edges closer to reality
Missed deadlines, funding problems, delays and disagreements – the story behind the Galileo positioning system
has not been a straightforward one. However, the EU has now announced details of contract awards
for the concluding phases and seems finally set to deploy the system in 2014
he European Commission has
announced the award of three
of the six contracts for the procurement of Galileo’s initial operational
capability.
The contract for system support
services
has
been
awarded
to
ThalesAleniaSpace of Italy; OHB System
AG of Germany has won the contract for a
first order of 14 satellites; and the launch
services contract has gone to Arianespace
of France.
The terms of these contracts envisage
the initial deployment and service provision of Europe’s satellite navigation system as of early 2014.
Antonio Tajani, European Commission
vice-president in charge of transport, commented: “With this and the upcoming
awards for the remaining procurement
packages, we are concluding a critical
phase of the Galileo programme.”
“We can now focus on the actual rollout and demonstrate to European citizens
that Europe’s own satellite navigation sys-
T
tem is firmly underway.”
The €85 million contract awarded to
ThalesAleniaSpace for system support
services covers the industrial services
needed to support the European Space
Agency for the integration and the validation of the Galileo system.
The signing of a framework contract in
December with both OHB System AG and
EADS-Astrium GmBH, both of Germany,
paves the way for the eventual provision
of a maximum of 32 satellites.
The contract with OHB for the first
order of 14 satellites has a value of €566
million.
The remaining satellites will be procured in subsequent work orders, from
either OHB or EADS-Astrium GmBH
depending on which company provides
the most attractive offer.
The Commission says that it intends to
follow a strategy of double sourcing to
lower risks, particularly in terms of delivery timings, and increase flexibility.
The €397 million contract with
The end may finally be in sight in the wait for Europe’s Galileo positioning system.
Photo: ESA
Arianespace covers the launch of five
Soyuz launchers, each carrying two satellites. The first launch is scheduled for
October 2012.
The Commission says that, with these
agreements, it is now able to better schedule the timings for the provision of the different Galileo services.
The Open Service, the Public Regulated
Service and the Search And Rescue Service
will be provided as of early 2014.
The Safety-of-Life Service and the
Commercial Service will be tested as of
2014 and will be provided as Galileo
reaches full operational capability with a
constellation of 30 satellites.
The remaining three procurement contracts, for the ground mission infrastructure, the ground control infrastructure and
the operations, should be awarded by
mid-2010.
Procurement process
The procurement for Galileo’s full operational capability is divided into six work
packages: system support services; satellites; launch services to put the satellites in
orbit; ground mission infrastructure to
ensure the provision of the services;
ground control infrastructure to manage
the satellites; and operations.
The process of contracting for these
various elements of the project began back
in July 2008, a responsibility taken on by
the European Space Agency, under delegation from the European Commission.
Short-listed companies were invited to
submit best and final offers following a
comprehensive dialogue phase, with all
contracts to be awarded on the basis of
'best value for money'.
For some work packages, both framework contracts and specific contracts
may be signed. Framework contracts set
the conditions under which specific
contracts will be concluded for concrete
work orders, but without any commitment regarding the award of such specific
contracts.
For the system support services work
package, through a framework contract
lasting from 2010 until 2016, a specific contract for a first work order was awarded to
ThalesAleniaSpace.
The specific contract for the first order
includes engineering services on each of
these areas: system performance; signalin-space; security; ground segment; system assembly; integration and verification; and product assurance.
For the satellites work package, a
framework contract signed with both
OHB System AG and EADS-Astrium
GmBH, lasting from 2010 till 2015,
covers the provision of a maximum of 32
satellites.
A specific contract for a first order of 14
satellites was awarded to OHB, with the
provision of the first satellite in July 2012.
One satellite is expected every 1.5 months
from that date, with the last one scheduled
to be delivered in March 2014.
The launch services work package
included a contract awarded to
Arianespace for the launch of five Soyuz
launchers from Kourou, French Guiana,
p25-36:p26-32.qxd
17/02/2010
08:23
Page 9
Digital Ship
each taking two satellites on board.
The first launch is scheduled to take
place in October 2012 and will be followed
by four to five launches per year. The contract also contains options for either
two additional Soyuz launches (carrying
two satellites) or one Ariane 5 (carrying
four satellites).
Schedule history
Despite numerous hiccups and delays
along the road up to this point, ESA has
structured the final remaining parts of the
Galileo programme into two phases, leading to final availability.
The first of these is the in-orbit validation (IOV) phase, consisting of tests and
the operation of four satellites and their
related ground infrastructure.
This phase is ongoing. The launch of
the first two IOV satellites is scheduled for
end November 2010, followed by the other
two in April 2011.
The second, full operational capability
(FOC) phase consists of the deployment
of the remaining ground and space
infrastructure.
This includes an initial operational capability phase of 18 operational
satellites.
The full system will consist of 30 satel-
lites, control centres located in Europe and
a network of sensor stations and uplink
stations installed around the globe.
Should this schedule actually be
adhered to it will mark the end of a long
and drawn-out process that has been
plagued by problems since the project was
first defined by the European Commission
towards the end of 2000.
At that time the proposed Galileo system was intended to be developed and
have deployment underway by the end of
2007, using a mixture of private and public sector funding to provide the estimated
€3 billion required.
Public funds of more than €1 billion
were initially earmarked for the project,
provided jointly by the European Union
and the ESA, each committing €550 million. It was hoped that a strong enough
business case could then be made to convince private investors to contribute the
remaining two-thirds of the funds needed.
Under this public-private partnership
model a consortium of aerospace and telecom companies set to run the system was
put together following a tender process,
including Inmarsat, EADS, Thales,
Alcatel-Lucent, Finmeccanica, AENA,
Hispasat, and TeleOp.
However, delays and reports of in-
fighting between some of the parties
involved have since meant massive revisions in the plans for the system, with the
current 2014 timeframe for launch having
doubled the initial seven years expected to
be required to bring the project to fruition.
The consortium struggled to agree
upon a company structure and appoint a
CEO for the venture, missing a key May
2007 project deadline set down by the
Commission and prompting German
Transport Minister Wolfgang Tiefensee,
speaking for the EU, to declare that:
"Galileo is going through a deep and
grave crisis."
Following the failure of these negotiations on the commercial operation of
Galileo, the Commission accepted that
changes to its initial funding plans were
needed, and proposed that responsibility
for the deployment phase of the system be
fully assumed by the European
Community itself, requiring budgetary
resources of €3.4 billion from January 2007
to 31 December 2013.
Access to the necessary funds was confirmed after the 2008 EU budget shifted
unspent funds that had been earmarked
for farming subsidies to the troubled project, and Galileo finally began to get back
on track towards an eventual deployment.
The Galileo project did manage some
successes during these troubled beginnings, notably in managing to foster
agreement between the European Union
and the United States in 2004, to ensure
that both Galileo and the existing GPS
system would be both “compatible and
interoperable.”
This represented a particularly important step in the viability of the system, as it
allows for manufacturers of positioning
systems to offer technologies that are both
GPS and Galileo compliant, providing
more accurate fixes, better reliability, and
reduced costs to end users who will not be
required to buy separate units to receive
the signals.
Galileo also managed to attract interest
from a number of non-EU countries, with
China, South Korea, Israel, Morocco and
Norway among those pledging various
levels of support during the course of the
project’s development since 2000.
So, with all of the trials and tribulations
now seemingly in the past, Galileo may
finally be drawing closer to the end of its
journey. All of the various interested parties will now be hoping that this final
schedule will prove definitive, and that
Galileo-powered positioning will become
a reality in 2014.
DS
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Digital Ship - the information source for the maritime IT community
Subscribe to the Digital Ship print edition, GBP £150 per year for 10 issues
Subscribe online at www.thedigitalship.com or contact Stephan Venter on
[email protected], tel +44 (0)20 7510 4937
Digital Ship Limited, 213 Marsh Wall, London E14 9FJ, UK
Tel: +44 (0)20 7510 0015
Fax: +44 (0)20 7510 2344
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Page 10
ELECTRONICS & NAVIGATION
Towards higher integrity
The merits of various technologies and different concepts for integrated onboard systems are being considered
as part of the IMO’s eNavigation strategy to enhance safety. So what is the most effective way to
enhance navigational integrity? Dr Andy Norris investigates the options
he evolution of international
requirements for the carriage of
navigation related equipment on
ships has seen steady process ever since the
IMO Convention entered into force in 1958.
From time-to-time new equipment has
been mandated and occasionally old technological solutions have been phased out,
for example Radio Detection Finding.
Existing equipment requirements have
been relatively regularly updated to meet
evolving user needs and to make use of
newer technology and concepts.
It has resulted in a set of navigational
equipment that, in general, meets the perceived needs of users and, in particular,
has given relative stability in the training
requirements for bridge staff.
However, the concentration of development into the requirements of individual
navigation-related equipment has generally resulted in a lack of proper integration
of the various functions at a user level.
Realisation of this has been a major
prompt for IMO to commence its
eNavigation programme, which is still in
its relatively early stages.
Also relevant has been IMO’s consideration of integrated navigation systems,
which will inevitably become a component of eNavigation.
T
Fundamental redesign
In some of the working groups contributing to the very early stages of eNavigation,
the idea of trying to re-define the requirements for marine navigation from scratch
was discussed.
This approach was not to consider
existing technological solutions at all but
to attempt firstly to come up with fundamental requirements and then see what
technology could be used or developed to
meet them.
As an example, at the fundamental
level, there is an obvious requirement to
have knowledge of all floating targets that
are of navigational significance.
Starting from defining what is meant
by ‘navigational significance’, it is necessary to define what actual knowledge is
required – by humans and machines – and
to what accuracy, availability, latency,
integrity, and so on that knowledge is
required.
All of these aspects would need to be
predicated by a fundamental definition of
what failure rates would be acceptable
(for example collisions, groundings, loss
of life and environmental damage) when
things ‘went wrong’, at both human or
machine level.
Once the requirements are known, then
technology solutions can be considered.
These would probably result in a rather different set of navigation and communications equipment on ships than exist today.
This concept, in its purest form, proved
to be very difficult to get going as part of
eNavigation, not least because it needed
some quite fundamental thinking, more
suited to an academic environment rather
than working groups comprised of very
practically minded participants.
Importantly, such a fundamental
approach would be unlikely to lead to a
practical solution within reasonable
timescales.
A change in the use of radar could
open up frequencies to be used
for other applications
eNavigation is purposefully led by realuser requirements, simply because many
of the issues on ships today are user related. Obviously, requirements of users are
based on their own experience of the actual abilities and deficiencies of existing
solutions.
The potential drawback of this
approach, despite its practicality, is that it
tends to assume that you need all that is
familiar, and that concentration is mainly
given to user interfaces, interoperability
and solving specific problems of existing
equipment.
Radar example
Arising from entirely different considerations, a recent non-IMO meeting looked at
whether there is a continuing need for
both X- and S-Band radars to be fitted to
larger ships.
The general consensus was that both
systems were currently necessary because
of the increased performance and integrity
that arises from having systems at the two
bands.
Today, radar has to operate as a primary means of detecting navigationally
significant targets and is also an important
positioning aid, to assess the validity of
GNSS and to help provide position if
GNSS fails locally on the ship or at an
area-wide level.
However, applying a fundamentalist
approach to this navigational requirement, when considering what other technologies can also provide, it would perhaps be likely that one would come to the
conclusion that the use of only a single
radar band was necessary – and perhaps
even desirable.
For instance, dual pulse compression X-
Band radars, operating in conjunction
with an enhanced integrity identification
system – not present-day AIS – may be
able to offer an extremely accurate and
reliable target detection system.
In particular, such a solution would
remove the need to find suitable mounting
positions for the large S-Band radar antennas currently required and therefore
should permit the smaller X-Band antennas to be mounted more optimally.
This would reduce the problem that
radars have with on-ship reflections,
which is a significant issue on a surprising
number of vessels.
Also of importance, while providing
enhanced safety, is that it would not
require the use of the present day S-Band
radar spectrum. It could possibly ‘trade’
use of this spectrum with the increased
spectrum needed for an enhanced integrity AIS.
Such an AIS, as well as possibly operating at the current VHF frequencies that
achieve non-line-of-sight operation, may
also be able to make use of the non-radar
S-Band frequencies reserved for digital
communications.
Therefore the total RF spectrum needed
for safe ship operation would be significantly reduced compared to that used
today.
Other technologies
As already postulated, the fundamentalist approach to eNavigation would result
in serious consideration being given to
the use of all technologies, and not just
those in marine use today. For instance,
more thought would perhaps be given to
optical aids.
For many years ships’ above-water electronic navigational equipment has tended
to use the RF spectrum for navigational
purposes; the optical spectrum has almost
been for the exclusive use of humans, albeit
with the help of individual instruments,
such as bearing devices and sextants.
It is easy to conjecture increased electronic use of this spectrum. At a very simple level, visual bearings could usefully
be transferred automatically from a
pelorus to the electronic chart by a simple
button push.
In principle, optical systems working in
conjunction with ECDIS could also automatically ascertain own ship’s position
from lights and other aids-to-navigation.
In addition, optically based systems could
possibly be used for tracking.
Optical frequencies have particularly
good potential in close distance navigation, such as when docking.
Affordable inertial systems are currently not accurate enough to be used as a full
backup to GNSS outages, but could perhaps provide useful integrity monitoring
and positioning information for outages
lasting no more than a few minutes.
A fundamentalist approach would certainly challenge what we presently do and
come up with an improved mix, probably
including radar, communications, inertial
and optical technologies, all directed at
improving the capabilities of the human
navigator.
However, there is no reason why the
more practical approach adopted for
eNavigation should not look at a
planned move to a new mix of technological solutions.
Perhaps, for the reasons already outlined in this article, significant effort
should be applied to relooking at AIS,
with a view to providing a high integrity
system, generally superior to radar for
those targets that are fitted. This is certainly not the case for present-day AIS.
It would require an appropriate integrated navigation system to lie at the focus
of all automated navigational operations
on the ship, including feeding the identification system with high integrity data.
The integrated navigation system
would automatically monitor and compare the navigational inputs from all relevant subsystems. Importantly, it would
prevent the transmission of erroneous
data from the identification system, as
well as providing appropriate alerts to
bridge staff and other vessels when there
were irresolvable problems.
The accuracy and integrity of position
is fundamental in all this, as discussed in
last month’s article (Digital Ship January
/ February 2010, pg 30). However, the
general improvements that can be made
to the integrity of a ship’s complete navigational system remains an area to be
properly tackled.
IMO’s
eNavigation
programme
remains well placed to ensure this. It is
particularly looking at the user interface
issues, which is a very important component in enhancing overall integrity.
When contemplating improvements to
equipment, IMO may need to look more
closely at mandating operational continuity requirements, so that the failure of
onboard navigation equipment would
rarely contribute to an accident with loss
DS
of life, or environmental pollution.
Dr Andy orris has been well-known in the maritime navigation industry for a
number of years. He has spent much of his time managing high-tech navigation
companies but now he is working on broader issues within the navigational
world, providing both technical and business consultancy to the industry, governmental bodies and maritime organizations. Email: [email protected]
p25-36:p26-32.qxd
17/02/2010
08:23
Page 11
Posidonia 2010
7-11 June 2010
Hellenikon Exhibition Centre, Athens, Greece
Your opportunity
The biggest gathering in the shipping calendar
with the owners of the world's largest fleet.
Welcome to the home of shipping
The International Shipping Exhibition
Organisers: Posidonia Exhibitions SA, e-mail: [email protected]
Tel. + 30 210 428 3608, Fax + 30 210 428 3610
www.posidonia-events.com
p25-36:p26-32.qxd
17/02/2010
08:23
Page 12
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