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April 2013

Seaspan to roll out GL IN THIS ISSUE HullManager across fleet satcoms

Canadian shipping company Seaspan Ship Management has agreed a deal SPECIAL FEATURE to roll out a new software system across its fleet, with the aim of improving Broadband Revolution management of the integrity of the hulls of its vessels and increasing efficiency Infrastructure upgrade projects at:  Odfjell Management – 6 easpan Ship Management of  Westfal-Larsen – 10 Vancouver is to implement  S Germanischer Lloyd's GL Eletson Corporation – 14 HullManagerS system to be used as  part of its in-house hull integrity Torvald Klaveness – 18 management system. The condition based monitoring software will be implemented across software Seaspan's entire fleet of 76 vessels over the next several years. "We developed our own tempo- Grant offered by PortVision for rary Hull Structure monitoring sys- maritime software development – 22 tem at Seaspan in order to help us understand our needs and to quickly OSM to equip 14 ships with BASS – 24 help us manage hull defects until we could assess and decided on our pre- Tools for tanker vetting ferred system," explained Peter Jackson, director of the Projects and management – 26 Technology Department at Seaspan Ship Management Ltd. "Three different systems were electronics and reviewed and as a result, GL The software will be implemented on 76 vessels HullManager was selected as the soft- navigation ware most closely meeting our needs." GL HullManager is a part of GL's for visualisation and assessment of that the system is one that they can fleet management software portfolio, the hull's structural condition, where easily integrate into their existing Arcadia upgrades providing hull inspection and thick- the crew can mark any coating or maintenance processes, with the ECDIS to go ness measurement support. structural failures on the 3D model, added benefit of on- and offshore paperless – 27 Inspection, reporting and condition such as marking an individual find- teams having access to the same assessments of tanks, cargo holds ing or adding a photo and descrip- data." e-navigation for North Sea safety – 30 and coatings are supported, tions, which can then be assessed by "With the training we can provide throughout the vessel's lifecycle, by superintendents onshore. from local offices, we are confident The unmanned vessel – means of crew inspections and thick- Ryan Bishop, GL's vice president that this partnership with Seaspan ness measurements. business development for the will see them roll out GL Dr Andy Norris – 34 A vessel-specific 3D model allows Americas, noted: "Clients are finding HullManager without a hitch." continued on page 2 “A Brand New World” www.reformstudio.no www.reformstudio.no Tormod Johannesen, IT Manager Wilson Ship Management, Bergen

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

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

www.dualog.com (+47) 77 62 19 00 or [email protected] p1-20:p1-14.qxd 08/03/2013 18:27 Page 2

SATCOMS

continued from page 1 GL HullManager can make informa- the same fleet can be compared. A dash- in compartments. tion on the condition of hull structures board overview of the ship makes it easy Upcoming additional features in available to any employee across the com- to pinpoint any critical findings by crew development include an automatic pro- pany once the inspection results have or third-party inspectors. posal for the amount of steel to be Vol 13 No 7 been approved and synchronised. Introduced in 2011, GL HullManager replaced for a dry dock tender specifica- Stored in a lifecycle database, hull con- is used on 350 vessels of all kinds world- tion, integration of hatch cover tightness Digital Ship Limited dition data for each individual vessel can wide, and has recently been upgraded measurement results and hot spot mark- 2nd Floor, be traced over time and sister vessels from with a mobile client version for use ing functionality. DS 8 Baltic Street East London EC1Y 0UP, U.K. www.thedigitalship.com PUBLISHER KVH hits German company launches Stuart Fryer 3,000 near-shore comms system EDITOR Rob O'Dwyer: Tel: +44 (0)20 7017 3410 email: [email protected] www.kvh.com www.shipz.net monthly price worldwide, without roam- ing charges. There are no installation costs. SENIOR NEWS REPORTER KVH reports that it has recently shipped German company bobz GmbH has The above-deck component is a stain- Cecile Brisson: Tel: +44 (0)20 7017 3405 its 3,000th TracPhone terminal for the launched a mobile broadband system less steel unit, which is water resistant and email: [email protected] mini-VSAT Broadband network. called shipznet, to provide near-shore uses two antennas. Launched in 2007, KVH’s mini-VSAT communications to shipping vessels. The below-deck unit consists of a router, CONFERENCE PRODUCER Broadband network uses spread spec- The system has been specifically devel- which allows each of the eight available Cathy Hodge: Tel +44 (0) 20 7253 2700 trum technology and a combination of 14 oped for the marine environment and ports to be used independently for ship email: [email protected] Ku-band transponders to provide cover- operates up to 20 miles from the coast of a communication, such as for e-mail, remote ADVERTISING age throughout the northern hemisphere number of countries across the world. management or crew communication. Ria Kontogeorgou: Tel: +44 (0)20 7017 3401 and to major continents in the southern Using 3G networks, shipznet will pro- It is connected to the above deck unit email: [email protected] hemisphere. vide internet access onboard without a using a single coax cable. In 2012, KVH completed its rollout of a satellite connection. Different access rules and forwarding EXHIBITION SALES major upgrade to the network, adding Data rates up to 20 Mbps are available, of network traffic can also be configured Young Suk Park: Tel: +44 (0)20 3287 9317 three global C-band transponders to deliv- offering 5 GB monthly packages for a fixed for each port. email: [email protected] er a global overlay to the Ku-band service. PRODUCTION The company's dual-mode TracPhone Vivian Chee: Tel: +44 (0)20 8995 5540 V11 antenna tracks both C- and Ku-band NSSLGlobal launches C-band VSAT email: [email protected] satellites, allowing users to switch to C- band when Ku-band is not available. www.nsslglobal.com work, modem and hubs as NSSLGlobal’s EVENTS MANAGER The company says that its maritime Ku-band service, providing the same web Diana Leahy Engelbrecht customer base is diverse, including the US NSSLGlobal has announced the addition and e-mail control services, and is avail- Tel: +44 (0)118 931 3109 Coast Guard, US Navy, ship management of global C-band services to its Cruise IP able immediately. email: [email protected] companies like Vroon and V.Ships, com- portfolio. “Our customers, both at sea and on mercial fishing companies, offshore serv- This network will initially offer users shore, increasingly depend upon their CONSULTANT WRITER ice vessels and yacht owners. access to three global satellites – NSS9, internet connection for a variety of Dr Andy Norris (navigation) “We built the mini-VSAT Broadband Intelsat 902 and SES 4 – and will see the mission-critical operational functions, [email protected] network because we saw a huge opportu- service offered alongside NSSLGlobal’s as well as improving crew welfare DIGITAL SHIP SUBSCRIPTIONS nity from a potential market of 250,000 existing Ku-band Cruise IP service. by enabling them to keep in touch €180 per year for 10 issues commercial, government, and leisure ves- The company’s Service Assurance with home,” says Sally-Anne Ray, COO contact [email protected], sels that needed affordable offshore data package will be included with the service, of NSSLGlobal. or phone Diana Leahy Engelbrecht on: connections that would allow crew mem- which will feature seamless failover “Our ability to provide L-, Ku- and +44 (0)118 931 3109 bers to use the internet onboard and bene- between C- and Ku-band services along- C-band solutions offers our customers a fit from the efficiencies of the digital side an additional L-band backup. level of choice few other providers are UPCOMING CONFERENCES world,” said Martin Kits van Heyningen, The C-band offering uses the same net- capable of.” DIGITAL SHIP CYPRUS KVH CEO. Grand Resort, Limassol “Our global network is now complete, 23-25 April 2013 and our TracPhone product line offers a DIGITAL SHIP @ NOR-SHIPPING complete end-to-end solution to quickly Astrium extends C-band deal Thon Hotel Arena, Lillestrom and easily bring the benefits of fast, afford- 5 June 2013 able VSAT service to vessels.” with Intelsat DIGITAL SHIP JAPAN The Capitol Hotel Tokyu, Tokyo www.astriumservices.com C-band connectivity in the specialist sec- 3-4 September 2013 tors that Astrium Services is committed to Astrium Services and Intelsat have signed satisfying,” said Tore Morten Olsen, head Printed by a multi-year renewal agreement for C- of maritime services at Astrium Services. The Manson Group Ltd band capacity to be used by Astrium “Cruise ships and ferries require signif- Reynolds House, 8 Porters' Wood Services’ maritime customers in the icant bandwidth to support passenger Valley Road Industrial Estate St Albans, Hertz AL3 6PZ Mediterranean, Atlantic Ocean, North Sea welfare and business applications, whilst U.K. and Gulf of Mexico. offshore vessels and platforms need high The agreement will enable the new levels of connectivity for critical opera- No part of this publication may be repro- Business Communications unit of Astrium tions and production optimisation.” duced or stored in any form by any mechanical, electronic, photocopying, Services, incorporating the former Vizada, to “Securing improved C-band capacity recording or other means without the offer C-band customised VSAT via the capac- on Intelsat 907 supports our customised prior written consent of the publisher. ity provided on Intelsat 907 at 332.5° East. VSAT users in enhancing operations and Whilst the information and articles in “With Ku-band VSAT showing consid- offering improved connectivity services Digital Ship are published in good faith erable growth over the last few years, it’s for business, crew and passengers, even in and every effort is made to check accura- important to recognise the strong need for the most challenging of environments.” cy, readers should verify facts and state- ments direct with official sources before acting on them as the publisher can accept no responsibility in this respect. The TracPhone V11, combining Ku-band Maritime Broadband has appointed Any opinions expressed in this maga- and C-band, is the latest addition Revmar Dynamics as the exclusive distrib- www.maritimebroadband.com zine should not be construed as those to the range utor of its C-Bird VSAT system in Greece of the publisher. and Cyprus.

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SATCOMS C-Bird survives Sandy test

www.maritimebroadband.com uninterrupted throughout the entire dura- tion of the storm. Maritime Broadband has reported that its The C-Bird is a military-style antenna C-Bird VSAT antenna has survived an which, unusually for a commercial VSAT exacting trial of its ability to deal with system, is designed to operate without the extreme weather conditions after the com- traditional radome found on most ship- pany’s New York headquarters experi- board satcom installations. enced the full force of Hurricane Sandy. The company notes that the antenna Hurricane Sandy wreaked havoc across has already been installed aboard com- the Caribbean and the Mid-Atlantic and mercial tankers, containerships and bulk A C-Bird antenna like this one (centre of picture, without radome) survived the 90mph North-eastern United States towards the carriers travelling worldwide. winds of Hurricane Sandy at Maritime Broadband’s New York office end of 2012, causing widespread damage. “I debated whether or not to secure the Maritime Broadband’s office in Sunset antenna for the storm,” said Zevi Kramer, windows rattled, signs and parts of build- reaching 90 mph, the company says that this Park, Brooklyn, was among the affected Maritime Broadband’s chief innovation ings flew off and trees were toppled.” represented a perfect opportunity to test the areas, suffering 85 mph winds that officer and C-Bird design engineer. “C-Bird held the signal perfectly with antenna’s performance in winds near the destroyed local monuments. “Ultimately, we decided to take advan- no indication of any stress whatsoever on maximum specified operating range. The company has a C-Bird antenna tage of the extreme storm conditions fore- the system.” Maritime Broadband notes that the located on top of the two-storey office casted for Hurricane Sandy to test C-Bird The C-bird antenna is designed and antenna is non-critically balanced and the building in which it is located, and the in a Beaufort Scale 12 environment. We manufactured to track in up to 85 gears and motors have been specifically company notes that the unit managed to observed the tracking performance knots/98 mph head winds. chosen to handle 1,500 lbs/6,700 Newtons maintain tracking of its connected satellite throughout the height of the storm, as the With Hurricane Sandy wind speeds of force on the dish. Besiktas Shipping rolls out VSAT $1M Chinese order for Beam to tanker fleet www.beamcommunications.com in China. Yumin Zhao, director at MCN, notes www.ozsaysatellite.com es to oil and chemical tanker company Beam Communications Pty Ltd, a sub- that “there are many thousands of fishing Besiktas Shipping. sidiary of World Reach Limited, has won a vessels in China that have a need for high- Ozsay Satellite Communications, part of Ozsay Satellite Communications, an $1 million deal to supply Chinese compa- quality and reliable satellite communica- the Ozsay Group of Companies in Turkey, Inmarsat and Astrium partner, will pro- ny MCN (Marine Communications & tions along with land-based applications has agreed a deal to provide VSAT servic- vide Ku-band communications to the Navigation Company) with Inmarsat in smaller villages.” company's fleet of 16 tankers under the marine satellite terminals. “MCN will be targeting these key land contract. Last year, MCN tested Beam’s Oceana and maritime customers with an aggres- The long term agreement includes the terminals on fishing vessels in China. sive campaign to promote, exclusively, the supply of SAILOR 900 Ku-Band VSAT These terminals are designed and manu- Beam products and we are anticipating antennas, with FleetBroadband and factured by Beam to support the voice, this to be very successful, therefore would Iridium Pilot backup systems, as well as data and tracking communications that anticipate placing additional orders with iDirect x5 modems, the Astrium Xchange take place over the Inmarsat satellite net- Beam in the coming months.” box and Astrium Pharostar global connec- work via its FleetPhone maritime tivity services. service. Ten tankers have been installed to date, MCN is the only company with the remaining installations expected authorised to supply these The package includes SAILOR 900 to be completed by the end of the first Inmarsat services in China. antennas and the Vizada XChange box quarter of 2013. Delivery of the initial order, valued at $1 million, will com- mence this quarter and be com- Thuraya granted Taiwan licence pleted by 31st May 2013, accord- ing to Beam. At that time MCN will be required to make further www.cht.com.tw approval from the NCC to use mobile satel- commitments to Beam in order to www.thuraya.com lite services in Taiwan. Previously, only maintain its exclusive rights for $1m worth of Oceana 400 and 800 terminals enterprise users were eligible to do so. distribution of the Beam products will be delivered Chunghwa Telecom’s subscribers in “We are grateful to the NCC for granti- Taiwan can now use Thuraya’s voice, data ng licensing approval of Thuraya’s satel- and maritime services, the Dubai-based lite services, which will enable Taiwan’s satcoms provider has announced. citizens to stay connected across our glob- VSAT switchbox added to HubbaX The NCC, Taiwan’s national telecoms al network on land and sea, beyond the regulator, has granted approval, licensing confines of terrestrial networks,” says www.buzzconnect.co.uk manual intervention is required. Thuraya to provide its mobile satellite Thuraya’s CEO Samer Halawi. “There is an increasing demand from services in the region. Thuraya, whose products include the UK-based Buzz Marine, the suppliers of boat owners to be able to stay connected The licensing agreement means that SF2500 and the Seagull 5000, says that it HubbaX mobile broadband for maritime, while cruising and they expect to do this individual consumers and corporate users sees strong demand for voice and data serv- has developed a system for its mini-dome with a download speed similar to that will no longer need to apply for individual ices from the Taiwanese fisheries sector. to allow automatic switching from a ves- experienced at home or via their VSAT,” sel’s VSAT. says Steve Smith, managing director of HubbaX operates using the land-based Buzz Marine. Second Selex VSAT deployment for Serco GSM mobile system in the UK. The “For the first time this is now achiev- ‘switchbox’ manages the changeover from able without the need for more expensive www.selex-es.com including a five-year airtime contract. the VSAT when a 3G signal is in range. satellite communication costs until you Engineers from Selex ES’ UK office net- When no 3G signal is available, the VSAT are up to 20 miles offshore.” The UK Marine business of Selex ES, a work carried out the installation and com- connection continues as normal. The HubbaX is a stand-alone inshore Finmeccanica company, reports that it has missioning. Buzz says that the HubbaX is able to communications unit with typical down- completed a contract to supply a Ku-band This is the second time Selex ES has make 3G connections up to 20 miles off- load speeds of 7 Mbps and uploads of 1 VSAT system to Serco. deployed VSAT for Serco, having origi- shore. The new software it has developed Mbps, for a recommended retail price of The system was installed on the Serco nally installed a system on the SD will enable the HubbaX to recognise when £595 plus VAT. The new VSAT switch sys- vessel SD Victoria, as part of a package Northern River. it is in range and automatically switch. No tem costs an additional £125 plus VAT.

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

Having spent two years evaluating a variety of satcom systems, in late 2011 Odfjell Management signed a deal to roll out Ku-band VSAT across its fleet. By the second quarter of 2013, 44 vessels will have implemented the new systems – and the benefits have been significant, as Vidar Børve, Odfjell, explains

orwegian tanker company Odfjell priorities for its new services formed the decided to sign a contract with Marlink in tering and proxy management on board Management, managing a fully backbone of its subsequent evaluation September 2011,” Mr Børve recalls. done by Odfjell ICT. We have a firewall on NNowned or bareboat chartered programme, to support the decision on “A global system was important for us. board and we have VPN access for third global fleet of 50 chemical tankers, has, in which technology would be best suited to Even though Ku-band is not global, it’s party companies to the technical LAN, the last twelve months, been engaged in a the company’s specific needs. almost there and there are not many black through Marlink.” satellite communications roll-out project “During the decision process we spots left. To have a global and secure sys- The company also has onboard wire- which has seen the introduction of Ku- analysed different networks, Ku-band ver- tem we also installed a FleetBroadband less Gigaset phones, again managed by band VSAT services to its ships. sus C-band, and we had a FleetBroadband bundle with the VSAT. We had one price, Odfjell ICT, and a CommBox (designed by The company provides a whole range as well,” said Mr Børve. which included the VSAT and Norwegian company Virtek before it was of core services such as fleet management, bought by KVH). The CommBox is con- crewing, technology management, risk nected to the VSAT and FleetBroadband, and QHSE management, and corporate which is connected to the Marlink teleport procurement for its ships, and has seen at Eik, and manages the connection so connectivity requirements expand inex- that, if the VSAT is down, the orably in recent years. FleetBroadband will be used. These requirements helped to drive the Roll-out of the system has progressed at company’s decision to review its satellite pace since the contract was signed approx- communications infrastructure and investi- imately 18 months ago, with the first vessel gate how it might improve its ability to installed late in 2011 and another two ves- transfer data between ship and shore, and sels done by the end of that year. led to the initiation of an evaluation and test- “The VPN was established in the third ing project whereby Odfjell examined the quarter of 2011, one for VSAT and one for merits of a number of competing systems. the FleetBroadband. The first vessel, Bow The criteria used to compare the differ- Cecil, was installed in October 2011,” said ent technologies were drawn up based on Mr Børve. the particular priorities important to the “Then we installed 28 or 29 vessels dur- company and most relevant to its own ing 2012, and we plan to install another 14 operations, according to Vidar Børve, elec- by the end of the second quarter of 2013. trical and automation manager at Odfjell. That will give us an installed total of 44 “When we started this we had some vessels – and I think that is pretty impres- requirements. We wanted high quality sive work, by us and by Marlink.” broadband, which should be reliable as it is “Now we are working with the VPN critical to support a variety of applications for the third party access to the technical for the company, including improved oper- LAN. It has been tested by us in Bergen ational efficiency, crew welfare and busi- and we are able to ping our computer ness administration,” he explains. when it’s out there, so we’ll finish testing “The first thing we started with was crew in the first quarter of 2013. We will be test- welfare. That was really important because ing it on some engine control systems on we know that when the internet was coming board, for example.” onboard the crew was really happy. Crew Planning of the installation process was retention is important to us, we don’t want done by Odfjell in conjunction with people to finish their career with Odfjell Marlink’s project engineering teams at because they don’t have the internet.” Eik, supplemented by weekly status meet- Beyond crew usage, there were a number ings conducted over the phone. of specific operational goals that the compa- One aspect of the process decided upon ny was also looking to be able to achieve. Odfjell will have 44 vessels installed by the end of the second quarter of 2013 at an early stage was that Marlink would “We wanted to improve our operational send all of the necessary hardware for efficiency to have remote access for third “We did some live trials with different FleetBroadband bundled together.” installation to the shipping company via parties, for navigational equipment, engine VSAT vendors for two years, and did a This satcom system is integrated with a Odfjell’s logistics partner, rather than monitoring systems, cargo monitoring sys- cost/benefit analysis. We wanted the specially designed network infrastructure sending it directly onboard. tems and so on. There are a lot of systems return on investment to be approximately both on the vessel and on shore, with “We learned that this was more effi- out there that can be more easily serviced by two years.” access separated by function. cient for us, as we are good at supplying remote support,” said Mr Børve. “Our ICT department in Odfjell was also “On board we have three VLANs, an our vessels ourselves. If they send it to our “Then we have our own business adminis- involved regarding the design of the infra- administrative LAN, a public LAN for the own logistics partners then that works tration tools, which we would like to structure on shore. This has to be integrat- crew, and a technical LAN for our techni- best,” notes Mr Børve. adapt to use with this kind of system.” ed with the Odfjell office in a secure way.” cal system,” explains Mr Børve. “There are three packages, from “We also set down some other criteria “For the security, we have a VPN Marlink, from our own office where we do when we started working on this. Choice between Marlink and Odfjell. This is for the the firewall and ICT extension package, Communication costs should be low, we Having completed its evaluation project, ICT department to make sure everything’s and we have another package coming should not overspend above what we Odfjell decided to opt for a Ku-band VSAT working and that it’s very secure. All the from another supplier with our wireless were already using on the Fleet77 and the system from Marlink, a WaveCall product routing, from our three LANs on board, is phones, repeaters, and access points for Inmarsat-B. It should provide global and with bandwidth speeds of 512 kbps on the now routed directly to the Odfjell office.” the installation material.” secure internet, e-mail and phone services downlink and 256 kbps on the uplink. “We have four VSAT IP phone lines, “On board, we always have an on-site – being global was important, so we need- “Marlink was offering us a good solu- and one FleetBroadband backup phone project manager from Odfjell. He coordi- ed a backup system.” tion, so we went to them for a workshop at line. We have web filtering on shore, done nates with the crew and the Marlink tech- The criteria that Odfjell identified as Eik (Marlink’s own teleport), and then we by Marlink at Eik, and we also had web fil- nician who comes on board to do the com-

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Sailing at sea and always online_

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

Please contact NSSLGlobal Ltd www.nsslglobal.com [email protected] +44 1737 648 800 p1-20:p1-14.qxd 08/03/2013 18:29 Page 8

SATCOMS

ly. Internet Protocol Security (IPsec) is used to securely manage IP communica- tions by introducing authentication and encryption for each IP packet of a commu- nication session. “We’re also going to test packet shap- ing technologies, like BlueCoat, though we are not convinced by this yet, as it will mean another ‘box’ on board – and we don’t like too many boxes on board,” notes Mr Børve. “We like to remove boxes from the ves- The company is providing Wi-Fi for its crews and running remote connections to onboard systems sel, it’s easier to have the boxes on shore, and have one box instead of 50 boxes on missioning of the antenna and connecting experiences on board. access onboard IT networks from shore, the vessels.” it up to Marlink’s system.” “The crew are really satisfied. We though the company is also now experi- “We are also testing new online web Implementation of the systems also installed public free Wi-Fi in the cabins, so menting with new applications that it applications, for shore and on board. includes on-site training of the crew in all the crew has free Wi-Fi internet,” said might like to add to those it typically uses. We’re going to test using Citrix, and some very basic elements of its operation, Mr Børve. “It’s now easier to connect to the vessel things like this will help to make the ves- a procedure which Mr Børve sees as a very “This has been very important, we have for remote support, and it’s much easier to sel the same as any external office that we important part of the process. a lot of Filipino crew and they are using manage the ICT equipment on board,” have around the world. We also hope that “That’s crucial, because if you have a Facebook a lot, I think they use it more said Mr Børve. we’ll get increased satellite link capacity fault, we need to know where to turn it on than the Norwegians.” “We have been pleased with Marlink’s from Marlink.” or turn it off – to turn it off and turn it on “It’s also cheaper to make calls, the understanding and flexibility when we While these technologies may represent again is always the first step, and it usual- VSAT crew phone is cheaper than the have been looking at new solutions and the future for Odfjell, for the moment the ly helps! So this training is very impor- Inmarsat crew phone, and that has been a testing things. For example, if we want to company has been satisfied by its progress tant,” he notes. big benefit for them.” test a new medical video conferencing sys- to date in its satcoms upgrade project. “However, when it comes to reliability, The company has its own firewall and tem, it is possible to do things like that. It These experiences have convinced Mr we have not had many faults. We had three content filters to manage security on the is also possible to use things like MS Lync Børve that his VSAT technology is now no antennas that we had some small faults Wi-Fi connection, and Marlink has its own and Communicator, not with video but we longer a ‘nice to have’ but a ‘must have’ in with, but these have been solved quickly by content filters which are also applied, are able to use it for speech.” maintaining a competitive advantage. Marlink sending a technician on board.” restricting access to undesirable traffic. “The remote access to the technical “We’ve had a high delivery rate, 27 ves- “The performance is as we were told – Discussions were also held between LAN is something we’re also working a sels in one year, which is a lot,” he said. on average, very good performance in all Marlink and the company to look at block- lot with. It’s an area where we can save a “Our crew is really satisfied, getting spots. As for the speed, we are getting the ing applications like Skype, which can eat lot of money, on the support and service more bandwidth than they expected. 512 kbps we were promised.” up a lot of bandwidth just while running we need for our systems. In many cases it Operationally, our vessel is now almost normally. Theoretically Skype is available can be very good if the company can go on like an ordinary external office. Our head- Results via the connection, but as it could harm to the remote support to do diagnostics on quarters has direct connections to all our Having completed implementation of its the availability of the system to other users the system before they go on board, and VSAT vessels, and overall we have lower new VSAT service on dozens of vessels on the vessel various levels of traffic maybe they can even solve the problem communication costs.” since this project began, Odfjell has seen a blocking had to be introduced. before they go there.” “Our vessels are directly connected to number of noticeable improvements, both Outside of crew access, the biggest busi- Odfjell is currently testing IPSec tech- the Odfjell LAN, and this has been very to its operations and in the feedback it ness benefits have come through the provi- nology for use in this regard, to ensure important for us. It’s the most crucial receives from its seafarers about their sion of remote support and the ability to external access could be provided secure- thing that has been delivered for us.” DS Intellian introduces FleetBroadband range Imtech Marine extends Ku-band VSAT network

www.intelliantech.com nal, with its 432 kbps capability, weighs www.imtech.eu which the company says will allow mar- 15.5kg (34.1 lbs) and is 71.8cm (28.3 inch- itime terminals to switch beams faster and Maritime satellite antenna manufacturer es) in height. Imtech Marine has extended its global Ku- more easily than before. Intellian has introduced three new termi- Intellian says that all three new prod- band VSAT network to add coverage in The new software is also claimed to be nals for use with the Inmarsat ucts will complement the company’s the South Atlantic Ocean, between South able to improve IP throughput and to offer FleetBroadband network. Global Xpress hardware systems, and are America and Africa. more efficient multicasting, making video The company will produce all three XpressLink capable. The network utilises the iDirect applications more efficient. FleetBroadband product variants, FB150, Available since early March, with a Evolution platform, supporting capabili- Eric van den Adel, Imtech Marine manag- FB250 and FB500. three-year warranty, they will be priced at: ties such as automatic beam switching. ing director, thinks that “by upgrading our All terminals will be equipped to offer FB150 - $7,300; FB250 - $11,000; and FB500 Imtech Marine, together with its global VSAT network, we can offer our cus- simultaneous voice and data services, IP - $17,000. Florida-based partner ITC, has recently tomers a higher throughput, better coverage connections for e- upgraded to the latest version of the and provide the most economical and effec- mail, internet, fax iDirect Evolution software, version 3.1, tive business and crew communications.” and SMS, LAN inter- facing and single- user and multi-user MTN and BATS exclusive partnership router features, IP handset interfacing, www.mtnsat.com hardware platform that locates, locks and firewall capabilities www.extendingbroadband.com tracks wireless broadband access points. and vessel fleet track- The system also delivers an automated ing. MTN Satellite Communications (MTN) is connection to communications antennas. The first 150 and going to partner with Broadband Antenna MTN says this is “ideal” for vessels that 250 FleetBroadband Tracking and Stabilization (BATS) to are entering and leaving ports with terminals will weigh deliver the BATS wireless system to obstructed terrain and buildings. 4.4kg (9 lbs) and cruise, ferry and large yacht markets. “It is imperative that we provide the measure 44cm (17.3 Florida-based MTN has announced that industry’s best terrestrial connectivity in inches) in height. The both companies have entered into an exclu- and near ports,” commented Bob Wise, FB150 can reach data sive partnership to offer those vessels in-port chief innovation officer, MTN. rates up to 150 kbps, and near-port maritime wireless broadband. “The BATS solution is one that proved while the FB250 can BATS is a hybrid network service, to not only meet, but exceed, our customer go to 284 kbps. leveraging both satellite and terrestrial requirements, as well as address the unique The FB500 termi- The new Intellian FB500 will retail at $17,000 broadband. It provides a software and make-up of each port around the world.”

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SATCOMS Using VSAT – stage two Having embarked on its first VSAT installation project as far back as 2006, Norwegian shipping company Westfal-Larsen is now involved in what it describes as ‘stage two’ of its use of the technology, as it upgrades to new systems on its vessels. Stig Hilland and Are Andersen, Westfal-Larsen, describe the project

n shipping since 1905, the Westfal- formed a significant part of this communi- Crew safety is a key issue for Westfal- we have direct access to relevant websites Larsen Group has seen many ups and cations strategy for a number of years, Larsen, but so too are other aspects of and online databases. All of this is just IIdowns in the maritime sector, and with the company having already begun crew welfare – and the choice of commu- pure benefit.” has had to adapt to various demands on using VSAT systems in 2006. nications systems on the ships plays a The mere fact of eliminating delays in the way it does business over the course However, Westfal-Larsen has contin- large part in the company achieving its messages being exchanged between ship of its history. ued to look at ways to expand and aims in that area as well. and shore has also created a range of ben- Currently, the company has 35 vessels improve its capabilities, and is currently “Communications have to be available efits, as Mr Hilland notes. currently owned or under management. involved in what Mr Hilland describes as for the crew. As a small company we are “There’s very close cooperation now Management of these vessels is split “stage two” of its use of VSAT. competing in a very tough market, so we between the vessel and chartering depart- between the company’s offices in Bergen, “Whatever we talk about in terms of have to be attractive, and we have to have ment, they are online, they are available, in Norway, and those of its wholly owned megabytes, we know that tomorrow we motivated crew that can communicate there is no delay in the communication. subsidiary Masterbulk in Singapore will need more. So we have looked to with their family,” said Mr Hilland. We exactly know where the vessels are, 17 of the ships are managed from Bergen, upgrade the system further,” he said. “We recruit mainly young seafarers what cargo they can take, if they’re ready comprising five open hatch dry cargo ves- today, and, of course, there’s no way they or not ready,” he said. sels, 10 chemical tankers, and two prod- Communications drivers will leave their laptop or cellphone “It also allows us to do more with doc- uct/chemical tankers. Trade for these Mr Hilland believes that Westfal-Larsen’s behind. They need to have them, even if umentation and larger attachments on e- Norwegian managed ships includes routes ability to remain successful in the ship- they’re onboard for a couple of months.” mails are allowed.” from the Arabian Gulf to the Far East as well ping business has been built on its ability “We are not working in offshore, we “We have good communications with as from South America to Europe and Asia. to manage and leverage its data to max- are deep sea, so this means that they are agents and have direct access to all sorts of For Westfal-Larsen, efficiency is the imise the efficiency of its operations, and onboard for two to four months, even the websites, so it gives the crew more avail- name of the game when it comes to stay- to introduce applications that assist in top officers.” ability in terms of communication and they are also more motivated because they VSAT – the story so far have the opportunity onboard to search Having first installed VSAT systems in for all kinds of information they need.” 2006, Westfal-Larsen has been able to make some notable advances in these VSAT – stage two areas in the intervening years, starting The successes achieved by Westfal-Larsen with crew welfare. in its first experiences with VSAT have Using its satellite systems the company emboldened the company to push its use has been able to provide free internet of technology even further, and it is cur- access to its seafarers, with private e-mail rently in the middle of an ongoing and chat facilities, and most of the support upgrade project – the ‘stage two’ that Mr that they would need. Hilland described. “For us, because we are working very This will see the company roll out the closely with the owners it gives us the XpressLink service from Inmarsat, combin- opportunity to have a direct line to a deci- ing Ku-band VSAT with FleetBroadband sion, and we were able to test it out on the for a fixed monthly fee, as Are Andersen, first vessel as early as 2006. I think we were Westfal-Larsen IT manager, describes. among the first to do some of these things “We have been using VSAT services Westfal-Larsen will upgrade the VSAT systems on 10 vessels during 2013 for deep sea vessels,” explains Mr Hilland. from the former Ship Equip, now Inmarsat “When we started this in 2006, crew Maritime, for six or seven years already, ing competitive in the maritime market achieving these aims. welfare was probably at the top of the list. and now we are moving forward to phase and maintaining an edge over larger com- “As a small company we do everything That was during the ‘hot’ shipping mar- two,” he said. petitors. Communications plays a particu- in-house. We have a fleet of very modern ket, and in order to be attractive as a small “The suppliers call it XpressLink, and larly important role in this, as Stig Hilland, vessels which means that in order to sur- company we had to be a little bit ahead of we are expecting to deploy the basic serv- senior vice president fleet management vive we need to stay on top of things – and the big ones. (The communications servic- ice during the first half of 2013, though we department, Westfal-Larsen, explains. that means communication,” he said. es) kept us attractive and we have been might have to wait until the second half of “We have over 1,000 seafarers in total. “We need good feedback from the oper- able to keep our crew. The officers espe- The largest group of employees are 950 sea- ations and chartering departments, there’s cially have been very happy with it.” farers from the Philippines, and the second no room for any hiccups when it comes to “The retention rate of our top officers largest group are 100 seafarers from Latvia communication between chartering and and crew is very, very important to us. I’m and eastern Europe,” he explains. the vessels. They have to be available.” 100 per cent sure that the VSAT systems “About 120 persons are employed Operationally, there are a number of we have today are one of the most impor- in the shipping offices in Bergen, focus areas for the company where the tant things we have onboard to keep to Singapore, Manila, Livorno, Rio de application of technology is deemed par- our key performance indicator (KPI) when Janeiro, Dubai and Shanghai. We have a ticularly important. it comes to crew retention.” business reaching around the world, so “Technically, we want to do things like From an operational standpoint there we require good communication.” transfer of data, troubleshooting, and have also been a number of advances, “Our mission is to provide first class upgrading,” said Mr Hilland. mainly in areas where an improved flow marine transportation services to our cus- “We think there are a lot of additional of information can help the vessels to run tomers. But how can a small business like things we’ll be able to add to this in the at their optimal level. ours aim to do this and compete with the coming years too with good communica- “We have been able to use the VSAT big companies? I think that we need an tion equipment onboard.” and the communication we have today to attractive fleet of vessels, that’s number “Another thing we are focused on is do much more troubleshooting in a short- one, and we need good organisation, both safety. We are trading in some high risk er time frame,” notes Mr Hilland. ashore and aboard. But one of the main areas, like the Gulf of Aden, which means “Off hire is, of course, a big, big cost things for me is communication. We need that communication is very important. For and this gives us the opportunity to do good communication to be able to survive medical issues it is also important to have more online troubleshooting.” ‘Whatever we talk about in terms of in a very tough market.” good communication, in case something “We have a ship management business megabytes, we know that tomorrow we will Cutting edge satellite systems have happens with the crew.” system with continuous replication, and need more’ – Stig Hilland, Westfal-Larsen

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SATCOMS

VSAT services that we are using.” particularly important in maintaining secu- and shoreside – continuously.” Another major advantage identified by rity now that Westfal-Larsen has used the “We are looking forward to testing Mr Andersen is the provision of a global XpressLink systems it has installed so far to video conferencing maybe. We are also roaming IP address for the ship with the provide Wi-Fi internet access to its crews. looking to provide our suppliers with real XpressLink service. “We have given the crew some freedom time updates, or maybe even real time “This means that our vessel, or the sys- (to access the communications), we have connections, to their own equipment tem onboard the vessel, will have the same Wi-Fi hotspots where they can come to onboard to do troubleshooting and proac- public IP address wherever it is in the connect, though they have to come to the tive servicing. This is also a significant world,” he said. Day Room to use their own personal lap- step forward.” “That’s a huge benefit for us, we don’t top,” notes Mr Andersen. Mr Andersen is hopeful that the mar- have to maintain a complex infrastructure “They can’t sit in their own cabins and itime IT providers across the industry will – it is significantly simplified.” use internet freely. When it comes to con- add a number of new innovations to this “We are also, according to the supplier trol of the rest hours, we also trust the cap- list of potential technologies in the near at least, very well prepared for the next tain in full – he is the one in charge and he future, providing the tools that will help ‘All of the bandwidth given to the vessels generation, which is the step up to GX should be the one to make sure that all of highly-connected companies to optimise is utilised – that’s a fact’ – Are Andersen, (Global Xpress) Ka-band. 2014 is not far his crew are well rested and well prepared their operations. Westfal-Larsen away, so we are, of course, looking for- to do a good job.” “I hope the supplier industry will do ward to having another step up when it more to explain what they can do to utilise the year on some of the vessels.” comes to the bandwidth. We know for Further opportunities this kind of onboard infrastructure if “We will do 10 upgrades, and we have sure that all of the bandwidth given to the As Westfal-Larsen continues on its we have a reliable, always-on, connection,” done three out of 10 so far. All of them vessels is utilised – that’s a fact.” upgrade programme, and draws nearer to he said. have been quite successful.” One additional benefit that Mr completing the installation of its ‘second “What kind of possibilities will it pro- There are a number of specific benefits Andersen is hoping for soon, though it has stage’ VSAT systems on its ships, the com- vide to the suppliers of the hardware to the system that the company has identi- yet to be delivered, is an integrated over- pany is looking ahead to what kind of onboard the ships? I’m thinking of naviga- fied – one of which is the fact that the costs arching firewall that can assist in making applications it can introduce to take tional equipment, all kinds of propulsion of any back up L-band usage are already management of the various ships in the advantage of these capabilities, and stay equipment, and so on. There’s a lot of included in its monthly fee. fleet a simpler process. ahead of the game when it comes to the technology onboard these vessels today.” “The combination gives us 100 per cent “We are still waiting for a fleet firewall competition. Mr Hilland also agrees that, following internet availability, and since this is a service that we have been promised,” he “I think we have prepared well for the the completion of its ‘stage two’ VSAT proj- fixed costs product with those two carriers noted. ever increasing bandwidth demand we ect, the challenge will be to push the tech- combined, we can also wave bye-bye, “I’m sure it is only the quality checking see in our fleet,” said Mr Andersen. nological boundaries as far as possible. hopefully, to most or all of the additional that has been delaying it, from 2012 and “We are preparing to go online with “Developing this further is a priority communications costs that we have had,” now into 2013. It’s surely just around the ECDIS and ENCs, all the structured sys- for us, but the problem is finding enough said Mr Andersen. corner – I hope.” tems that we have onboard will be contin- time,” he said. “As we all know, the prices (on “That would also help for us, today we uously replicated instead of replicating “We can do video, we can do live FleetBroadband) have increased, so there have individual firewall set-ups on each once per week or once per day – now they upgrading – we have all these possibili- would still be significant additional costs and every ship.” will be on a continuous link. So all busi- ties. The challenge we have in the future is whenever we are offline from the regional Having access to such a firewall will be ness systems are updated both shipside how best to utilise the system.” DS

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SATCOMS Sharing the broadband benefit

Greek shipping company Eletson is currently rolling out multi-gigabyte data packages to its ships, having committed to a deal that will see each vessel have access to 3GB of satcom traffic. Both the crew and the business have been able to take advantage of new applications and cheaper rates as a result, explain Manos Kothris and Michalis Kantartzoglou, Eletson

reek shipping company Eletson Now we have started replacing the mini- as of May 2012 – a situation Eletson is Corporation is currently entering M with FleetBroadband 250, and there are pleased to be able to exploit. GGthe final stages of a communica- also plans for the future to also replace the tions upgrade project that has seen the Fleet77. But for now we are very close to Progress company exponentially expand its data completing our plans to replace all of the Progress on the roll-out of these new sys- usage across its fleet of vessels, moving mini-M units onboard with tems over the last two and a half years has away from legacy satcom services and into FleetBroadband 250.” been steady, and Eletson believes that it is the broadband era. The airtime package chosen by Eletson on track to have the updated technology for its vessels was a 3GB SCAP which on all of its ships by this summer. would see each of the company’s ships “I believe that in the first half of this installed with the system allocated a 3GB year we will finish the replacements. We allowance per month, though Eletson has haven’t had any trouble doing the installa- also opted to agree to have a 5GB package tions, for most of them the crew have for one of its vessels, for further testing undertaken to install the FleetBroadband ‘The cost of communications for the purposes. and we even have two or three examples company can be reduced if you have a “Most of the vessels have a 3GB plan, where the crew installed the Infinity sys- good IT plan and you carry out a project but we have one vessel on a plan up to 5GB. tem too,” notes Mr Kantartzoglou. like this well’ – Michalis Kantartzoglou, It is able to move from a 3GB to 5GB plan “Now, we have 23 vessels installed. Eletson with no problem, in order to exploit the One of these vessels has two benefits of the combination of the data and FleetBroadbands, a 250 and a 500, and system, we not only have better rates for voice,” notes Michalis Kantartzoglou, sys- another one has a FleetBroadband 500 and the crew and for business usage, but also tem and network administrator at Eletson. the Fleet 77. All the other vessels have that we have additional services. The wel- “We didn’t know exactly how the sys- Fleet77 and FleetBroadband 250.” fare of the seafarers onboard is very tem would operate in the beginning, so we “The fleet is 28 vessels. We have one important, and now they have an oppor- preferred to have the two plans so we could vessel with a VSAT system, so we will tunity to feel more like they’re at home, run to 5GB if it is needed. For flexibility.” install the FleetBroadband and Infinity because they have the opportunity to have “I think that for many vessels we system on 27 vessels.” an internet connection to get news, to get would be able to see usage from 3GB to While the complete list of installations photos from their families, to use their ‘After two and a half years we have seen 10GB at this time.” is not yet finished, with the new systems own e-mail address that they use at home. that probably we will need more than Mr Kothris agrees that maintaining up and running on 23 vessels Eletson is That’s very important.” 3GB’ – Manos Kothris, Eletson flexibility in these data packages was an now beginning to appreciate some of the “On the other hand, we all know that in important aspect of the project for Eletson, benefits that the improved bandwidth and the general market we have increased the The project stretches back more than given that it incorporated a new way of additional gigabytes of data are bringing data exchanges between shore and vessel two and a half years to the middle of 2010, working with which it was unfamiliar. to its operations. for business purposes. So, if we look at all when the company was approached by “As you know, this service is a new “The speed of data is good, it’s faster this together, we see that this step is very Inmarsat and asked to become one of the service so there is not a lot of experience in than the Fleet77, the Fleet77 seems to be a important.” early trial customers for a new range of the market and when we started this we very old system now,” said Mr While, as Mr Kothris has noted, opera- pricing schemes it intended to introduce didn’t know how this service would work Kantartzoglou. tional data exchanges between ship and to the market, branded as Large onboard, particularly the combination of “I think now that data is far cheaper shore have indeed increased, the traffic Allowance (LA) packages. data and voice,” he told us. than it was before using Fleet77, so the cost involved in carrying business communica- The project was managed by Inmarsat “So we decided to have two different of the communications for the company tions pales in comparison to the huge vol- partner Navarino, which also included its plans, one 3GB and one 5GB, to see how it can be reduced if you have a good IT plan umes being generated by the seafarers Infinity communications management works with our needs. After two and a and you carry out a project like this well.” themselves. system as part of the installation. These half years we have seen that probably we “Usually the crew uses more than 2GB systems would then be compared with will need more than 3GB.” Crew welfare of the package, and we’ve even seen them another satcom product, for testing pur- “Now we are checking through previ- Mr Kothris agrees that the difference in go up to 8GB using the internet. But about poses, before the company would think ous months and examining the volume of cost for data within the new arrangement 20 of the vessels have been installed in about whether a fleet-wide communica- data and voice to see how we will proceed does have a major impact on how the com- recent months, so it is still quite early to tions upgrade was something it really in the future.” pany approaches communications – and say what the average will be,” said Mr required. Eletson’s LA (Large Allowance) was nowhere more so than in the usage of the Kantartzoglou. The early results of using the new sys- also part of a wider Shared Corporate services by the company’s seafarers. “Every month I can see that the crew is tems made a big impression on Eletson, as Allowance Package, which meant that Crews are able to purchase Infinity PIN using the internet more than before, Manos Kothris, the company’s CIO, notes. unused portions of the 3GB allowance on numbers to gain access to the system, for every month it is increasing. But when a “Around the summer of 2010 we had a some ships could be reused by other ships voice and data use. These PINs include 87.5 vessel sails to the US coast they prefer to proposal from Inmarsat to test their new in the fleet that were exceeding their own minutes of voice usage or 115 MB of data. use their mobile phone cards, because the LAs before this service was available to 3GB limit. Wi-Fi points have been installed on mobile providers in the US offer cheaper the market. Eletson was selected along Inmarsat has generally increased its accommodation decks on the Eletson ves- bandwidth.” with five other companies to trial the sys- basic LA packages for FleetBroadband, sels, allowing crew members to get online “However, the crew are the main users, tem,” he told us. with the company doubling the 3GB pack- using their own devices. the business data is a small amount of the “The first system installed was a age to 6GB, at the same price, in late 2012. “If we calculate the total cost for the whole package, about 300 to 400 MB. The FleetBroadband 500 from JRC, and we As Eletson’s contract was agreed prior business and the crew, the cost that the crew is the reason that we use this system, tested it for six months. After that, because to this change the company will continue seafarers spent to buy scratch cards for and I think that the lower cost is a big we had very good results, we decided to with its 3GB allowance, however it will mini-M and Fleet77, per minute, was issue.” proceed and replace the old mini-M sys- also be able to benefit from continuing to much higher than the rate per minute with The enthusiasm of the crew to get tems onboard with FleetBroadband 250.” use voice minutes as part of this the FleetBroadband system,” Mr Kothris online is a major part of the rationale that “All of the vessels had at least two sys- allowance, an option that has been explained. makes an investment like the one Eletson tems, mostly using Fleet77 and mini-M. removed by Inmarsat from new packages “So, it is very important that, with this has made on its LAs workable.

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From a business point of view, crew “I can say that the crew is happy – but retention is a significant driver when it of course they always ask for better rates!” comes to considering a new satcom sys- tem, but the company’s ability to pay for Operational benefits that system can be enhanced if crew mem- One of the most important advances the bers are willing to invest a significant por- company has made on the operational tion of their own earnings into buying side, as opposed to crew welfare, is an access for personal use. increase in the remote support that it is The result will be a shipping company able to offer in managing and maintaining that can commit to larger data packages the IT infrastructure aboard its ships. and is consequently able to enjoy lower The company has been able to gain per megabyte rates, without having to sig- remote access to computers on board via the Eletson provides Wi-Fi services on the vessels, managed via the Infinity box on board nificantly increase its monthly operational new setup, using VNC (Virtual Network expenditure. Computing) and remote desktop services. There is a chicken and egg element “With this system we have the possibil- to maintain a higher level of control over and data replication for the maintenance involved – a company needs to be sure of ity to log in from the office to the vessel its connectivity systems than was previ- and purchasing application, for example, the level of crew usage before signing a and to offer remote support, which is ously possible, both from a usage stand- and there is another new service of naviga- contract, but gauging usage will be very much better than having the captain on point as well as monitoring security. tional warnings that needs the vessels to be difficult before signing the contract. the phone and our office trying to explain “I think that Infinity operates very well. online in order to be updated, and we have However, in the modern world it seems several things to him,” notes Mr Kothris. It’s a robust system and offers many sta- things like the ISM or operation system that in the vast majority of cases it is the Mr Kantartzoglou takes this point fur- tistics to check and see how the data is procedures files, which are exchanged crew that will consume most of the band- ther by explaining that the direct effect of being used,” said Mr Kantartzoglou. between the vessel and the shore.” width available onboard, meaning that this increased level of access is a huge “It also provides very good compres- In general, Mr Kantartzoglou says that shipping companies can have a degree of reduction in the travel that is required by sion, and the level of compression is visi- these capabilities just “make operations confidence that their seafarers will sup- engineers and IT personnel to fix prob- ble. We can view the real amount of data better.” port their satcom investments. lems that arise on the ships. that is exchanged with the vessels and the “I haven’t measured how much money “The investment is based on many “It’s really very important that we can compression that has been done. It is usu- we have saved with these new ways of issues. The most important is that support the vessel, we have reduced the ally about 50 to 60 per cent, so that means working, but we are saving money by hav- we would like to offer the best environ- travel about 70 per cent because we are that the crew pays less for their usage and ing all of our applications running better ment onboard that we can offer. This able to protect the IT environment from gets more value.” than before,” he explains. is influenced by crew availability,” notes viruses by updating the server on the ves- “We manage what the Infinity system is “Now, whenever a system on the vessel Mr Kothris. sel regularly and can maintain the IT envi- able to communicate with, the ports of the has a problem, it is very easy for us to act “We would like to be able to offer inter- ronment,” he said. system. There is a firewall built into Infinity and to solve it.” net free of charge, but unfortunately the “So it is not often necessary to travel to the that gives you the ability to open or close cost of the connection from Inmarsat ships now, usually just for installation pur- specific ports or specific URLs. It needs Future remains high. On the other hand, because poses or if there is any hardware problem.” management from us, but it is a strictly For now, Eletson is happy with the we want to offer the best rates that we can This process is partly facilitated by the controlled network on the vessel. The crew changes it has made to its onboard IT to the crew, we offer the crew megabytes Infinity unit supplied by Navarino, which LAN is also separate to the business LAN.” infrastructure. at a rate that is cheaper than our cost.” allows Eletson’s ICT department on shore All of the rules governing usage of The FleetBroadband systems it has the system are configured at an Infinity introduced have increased the speed at hub, which is hosted on Navarino servers which it can connect ships to shore, while on shore. its SCAP agreements have brought data “Whenever I want to change anything costs down to a level that has so far all I have to do is open a URL at been acceptable to both the business and Navarino’s hosting address, and I will the crew. have access to all of the vessels through The Infinity equipment installed on the the portal,” notes Mr Kantartzoglou. ships and the new levels of remote access “I can manage each vessel individually, it has introduced have made management or I can configure rules to the root system, of vessel IT simpler, and have introduced that will be inherited by all the vessels additional operational savings not possi- below. Before Infinity, the only place we ble using the older technology. could see some of this data about the net- Eletson will look forward to completing work was via the Inmarsat portal, but we the roll-out of this set up to the remainder could only see a few things.” of its fleet in the next few months – but “(Being able to see exact details of data after that the company says it intends traffic) provides value to the ICT depart- to continue to look to the future and possi- ment. We have an overview of the vessels ble additional improvements for its next so they’re easier to manage.” IT project. Outside of remote support, greater “Maybe the best approach is to have the access to online services and cheaper data vessel as part of our domain on shore,” has meant that Eletson can increase its notes Mr Kantartzoglou. usage of a number of other maritime “To design this we need reliable band- applications, and improve the benefits it width and a reliable network, but I think derives from them – including updates for we need a faster and cheaper connection.” anti-virus, weather and charts automated In that regard, Mr Kothris says he is and sent through GTMail. looking forward with great anticipation to “Most of the maritime applications the launch of Inmarsat’s Ka-band Global can be updated very easily, and we also Xpress network, to see what the next gen- have vessels navigating ‘paperless’,” said eration of satellites may be able to offer. Mr Kantartzoglou. “We think, and we hope, that it will be “For instance, we had a problem with very interesting for shipping companies the navigation chart application on one when the new service from Inmarsat, vessel. It was very simple for our provider Global Xpress, will be available in 2014,” to connect to us and then for us to connect he said. to the vessel, and the problem was “In that case, the combination of the resolved in a few minutes. We couldn’t do two systems, FleetBroadband and Global this previously.” Xpress, will offer the possibility for a real “We have other services that we use online connection. And that will give us Most of Eletson’s ships have been installed with a FleetBroadband 250 antenna, though where the vessels need to be online in order a whole range of new opportunities a few FleetBroadband 500 systems have also been used to operate. We have Voyager replication, to explore.” DS

Digital Ship April 2013 page 16 p1-20:p1-14.qxd 08/03/2013 18:30 Page 17

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SATCOMS Enabling the one-man IT department

As pressure on costs continues to grow, the ability to do more with less is a major objective for many companies. Technology provides important tools to help people push their resources as far as possible – and helps Tore Meum of 99X keep 15 Klaveness vessels running single-handed, as he explained to Digital Ship

orwegian-headquartered Tor- bridge with workstations, and then an to get drivers and supplies around the NNvald Klaveness, in describing the engine control room,” he said. world, so we don’t have to ship things out history of the shipping company, “The previous infrastructure was made from the head office.” declares with pride that ‘innovation’ has for operation with one carrier only, often “We have Cisco unmanaged switches formed a core component of its successes Inmarsat-B. There was no internet.” on board, so if something dies you can in the last 65 years, which has seen the “So, together with Klaveness we out- take another one and put it in and you’re company grow since its founding in 1946 lined some requirements. Of course, they back up.” by Mr Torvald Klaveness to today operate have an application package that changes Redundancy, to make sure that an more than 100 vessels carrying some 40 over time, and they have the same needs equipment failure doesn’t knock out million tonnes of cargo per year. as most companies. We highlighted some the entire network, is ensured through Responsible for managing the technolo- key factors that would be part of us build- the use of redundant backup hardware on gy requirements of a portion of this fleet is ing a new solution for them.” the server. Tore Meum, senior consultant at 99X, an One of the key priorities for the project “This is the best practice for the virtual- IT outsourcing company partnering with was to create an infrastructure that would isation solutions we are using elsewhere, Klaveness in running its vessels. In this be easy to install and could be identical on there’s a multi-disk system on the server,” position Mr Meum acts as head of IT-ship all of the ships. said Mr Meum. solutions for Klaveness. “What we wanted to do was use the “It’s split up into several servers with ‘When we deploy a new vessel we just add Oslo-based 99X has 200 employees, 100 ‘best practice’ out there in the IT market. several services, so we have a main server it and add the configuration – and we’re in Oslo and 100 in Sri Lanka, and performs We wanted it to be as robust and virus- running all the core services, like DNS, up and running’ – Tore Meum, 99X outsourcing and consulting services, serv- free as possible, and we wanted to stan- DHCP or file print, and we have a sepa- ice management in IT and application dardise on a good hardware package for rate terminal server, of course, for the thin services (development and management). them, so that when we need to deploy a clients, not affecting the main server, level, and we have the same for the appli- Currently it is responsible for running new vessel we can click one button and should there be an attack or any severe cations on the terminal servers as well. the IT ship systems for Klaveness, as well have a standard package coming in,” issue. We have another separate mainte- There’s no such thing as a totally failsafe as the rest of its IT systems, for operations explains Mr Meum. nance server on board, with proper system out there, but you can reduce the in both Oslo and Asia, helping the vessel “We wanted it to be replicable, some- defences running. So we have separated risks and the downtime by having good operator to choose the right partners and thing that we could have 40 to 50 per cent the servers into several different servers.” routines and thinking twice before you let integrate the right systems. ready once we had the hardware in-house “We have used the same solution in a go and have the internet open.” “We are concentrating on the core sys- and did the basics on the system.” non-virtualised environment for many Mr Meum notes that, while these tech- tems – the office onboard the vessels,” “Together with that, we wanted it to be years on Klaveness vessels, so we know nologies form part of a new standardised explains Mr Meum. easy, with our partners, to get a new vessel the stability of the server is very good. So package, standardisation on hardware “We are not alone. We want good part- up and running. In that regards there were far, having been with Klaveness for 10 and processors was already part of the ners with us, as Klaveness want us to be a some choices made, though nothing revo- years, I’ve seen just one serious server previous ship IT solution that Klaveness good IT partner. Even though there are lutionary – just some good standards and crash in that period.” was using – the difference now just quite a few suppliers for Klaveness for IT good routines, things that are repeatable.” On the communications side, the com- involves moving to a more efficient plat- systems, we are the single point of contact pany introduced KVH VSAT systems, form. for them. They call, and we put them in Vessel set-up delivered as a turnkey solution that is test- “What we have done now is just devel- touch with the right people.” The new infrastructure created during this ed and then shipped out. The satcom sys- op a good platform, taking away all the Mr Meum is currently coming to the project was based around the application of tem is linked to Dualog’s Connection Suite main time-consuming tasks like cleaning end of a two-year project that the compa- VMware server virtualisation technology middleware application, which is used to up viruses, or reimaging and reinstalling ny has been working on, based around and Wyse Thin Clients, with the aim of cre- manage the satellite connection. applications. It’s all on the server now, introduction of a new network and com- ating a simple, but robust IT environment. “(Dualog allows) fleetwide configura- and we can manage it from the office very munications infrastructure on board the “We are using virtualisation on a good tion, so that when we deploy a new vessel easily,” he explains. Klaveness fleet, as it looked to replace hardware box, where we can add or we just add it and add the configuration – “A project like this takes a lot of work existing obsolete equipment. remove services or servers in a very easy and we’re up and running,” said Mr Meum. and a lot of hours. We pretty much had the “Like many others, Klaveness has had to manner,” notes Mr Meum. “We are using all the bits and pieces (of structure ready and knew what we want- deal with the challenges of old systems, and “We have chosen to use Wyse termi- the Dualog system), firewall and web ed from the start, and very much used new communications solutions coming up nals, thin clients, for the daily operation compression, as well as the e-mail and file technologies used by the rest of our cus- and giving us new challenges,” he explains. onboard and for the crew to actually do transfer system.” tomer base. So we were on a familiar basic “When Klaveness came to the end of their work. We have one captain’s laptop “We are using a self-deploying level when we started this project for life for the hardware on the old solution, in order to get new data into the server antivirus system from Dualog, so we are Klaveness.” we took the opportunity to prepare a new structure, and also take things out. We always up to date. We run a good patch- “A base set-up for a standard package one, cleaning out our main challenges.” have chosen HP printers, to make it easy ing routine to maintain security, at the OS like we have done for them is still The top five problems with the older between 350 and 400 hours. Nevertheless, systems, as Mr Meum describes it, includ- when you’ve got 15 vessels to deploy, ed viruses, getting patches out on an old with deployment, development costs, standalone system with PCs and old and the reduced annual run cost, you servers, seeing the hardware getting old have a return on investment within a year and having breakdowns, and the need for actually. In addition, you have a stable, extensive administration in building modular solution ready to handle tomor- images for the PCs on board and keeping row’s challenges.” all of the assets straight. The company has also introduced a This state of affairs was unacceptable to defined life cycle length for the standard- the company – and so, Klaveness decided ised network, to assist in forward plan- to begin a project to upgrade its onboard ning and budgeting for vessel IT. IT to a level that would remove these “Any hardware put on any ship, or in issues and help to drive efficiency. any office, has a lifecycle. For the new “We have a pretty fixed structure. components we have added to the There’s a ship’s office with workstations, a A typical Klaveness bridge installation Klaveness system we have a life cycle of

Digital Ship April 2013 page 18 p1-20:p1-14.qxd 18/03/2013 09:18 Page 19

Digital Ship

and maintain images for PCs and worksta- The effect of this reduction in travel and tions, constantly sending out anti-virus staffing on IT costs has been significant, updates, patching things – it was horri- and Mr Meum notes that Lars Erik ble,” he notes. Luthman, VP, strategy and business “We had two or three people working development at Klaveness has stated that on it, on the old solution. Today there’s the company’s deployment cost of IT for just one person – that’s me.” new vessels has been reduced by 50 per Being the single point of contact for the cent, and that annual operating IT expens- vessels also allows Mr Meum to collect es have been reduced by 90 per cent. statistics on IT support to illustrate the This has created an accumulated annual extent of the changes. saving of US$500,000 for the Klaveness fleet. “When we rolled out the new solution “That relates to the current number of in 2010 we had approximately five to 20 vessels, 15, so they will know exactly what (support) cases per month. Mainly that to expect from the next six as well,” notes involved cleaning out viruses and re- Mr Meum. 15 vessels are currently being supported, soon to become 21 imaging PCs on board. In the worst case With these positive cost effects, we had to clean out a server as well. There reduced complexity and better communi- five years,” said Mr Meum. standardised things, was a 40+ hours were a lot of jobs, and it was very slow on cations to and from the ships, it seems that “Now that we have that in place we job,” he explains Inmarsat-B if we wanted to do it remote- the upgrade project has been a wide-rang- have a good base for the ship management “With the new system it takes 20 hours. ly,” he said. ing success – an encouraging result for Mr to budget ahead, knowing exactly the next From having the packages in-house it takes “Today we have, from the first deploy- Meum as the outsourced head of IT, and time they will need new hardware. The me 20 hours before I can ship it out, ready.” ment and with two years’ experience on beneficial for Klaveness as it looks for- beauty of it is that we can then move the “Onboard, even more importantly, it the new solution, we have between zero ward to the rest of the decade and contin- existing solution from the existing hard- used to take another 40+ hours to fit with the and four (support) cases per month. uing its investment in innovation. ware over to the new hardware, without infrastructure that was in place. You’d have Mainly these cases are on straight commu- “We’ve got a happy customer, and we having to start from scratch, because of the to run around, put in images to add com- nications issues, where they’ve suddenly still have a happy IT outsourcing depart- virtualisation.” puters to the domain, add user access and gone out of coverage or several worksta- ment,” he said. your ‘locking down’ policies. On the new tions have gotten too eager on Facebook. “We have a happy crew, they have Comparing old and new system we are doing that in 10 to 15 hours.” We have nowhere near the kind of prob- internet suddenly, though with a bit of To really understand the particular bene- On an on-going basis, one of the biggest lems we had on the old solution.” restriction on what sites and what services fits of upgrading its IT infrastructure, Mr differences is in the number of people “As of today we have 15 vessels, and they can use. Facebook is one of the things Meum draws some parallels between the required to keep the vessel IT systems run- have six new ones coming in. At the that they can use, and we’ve had a very two generations of systems used onboard ning – which has now been reduced to a moment we don’t need any additional good response on that.” the Klaveness vessels. single person, Mr Meum himself. resources to run the IT solution for the “The solution is working well, it’s sta- “The old system, built from scratch on “Even though we have had a very good company, and I think 25 to 30 vessels will ble and needs a minimum of maintenance a dedicated hardware server, had PCs remote connection system, even on the still be within the range where we can and manpower to run as expected. That and drivers and things like that, images Inmarsat-B it has been working quite well, realistically support the ship IT solution was, and is, the main goal for introducing and applications. Adding new kit, even we needed many more people to create with a single person.” this new solution.” DS

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Digital Ship April 2013 page 19 p1-20:p1-14.qxd 08/03/2013 18:30 Page 20 p21-26:p1-14.qxd 08/03/2013 18:57 Page 1

SOFTWARE Digital Ship New trim optimisation module from Interschalt ICS to publish eBooks www.marisec.org www.interschalt.de and strength. MACS3 loading computer system. Over Interschalt claims that by using TROP, the next 15 years however, interest in the The International Chamber of Shipping Interschalt Maritime Systems has devel- a medium-sized container ship transport- module declined because of the costs of (ICS) has announced that it will be making oped new software that aims to assist ves- ing some 7,500 TEU at 20 knots could save conducting the associated towing tests, its publications on best practices for ship- sel operators in keeping trim at the opti- 2 to 3 per cent on fuel, and thus save in the says the company. ping companies available as eBooks from mum level, and consequently save fuel. region of $1,500 to $2,200 a day. "These days, towing tests can be realis- April 2013. The TROP trim optimisation module, During the 1990s, ship-owners were tically and economically simulated with This will start with the ICS Bridge now integrated into Interschalt's MACS3 using models in towing tests designed to special software," said Mr Finke. Procedures Guide (4th edition), the ICS loading computer system, calculates how determine the trim that produced the "However, determining the optimum Guide to Helicopter/Ship Operations (4th the tanks need to be filled to achieve the lowest resistance as a ship moved trim is one thing; being able to practically edition) and the ICS/ISF Guidelines on the ideal trim. through water, notes the company based apply these findings in actual ship opera- Application of the ISM Code (4th Edition). "The user can now even automatically near Hamburg (Germany). These tests tion is another." Other publications will be made avail- determine the best ballast distribution nec- showed that, in many cases, a slightly After a ship has been loaded, the crew able as eBooks when new or revised edi- essary to save the greatest amount of fuel," lower forward draft yielded the ideal usually has only one method left to alter tions of print versions are published. says software developer Bernhard Finke. trim. its trim: using the ballast tanks. TROP cal- In its press release, ICS says it will be The module also takes into account all Based on these findings, Interschalt culates how to fill the tanks to achieve the using the eReader technology developed by safety regulations pertaining to stability added a ballast-optimisation tool to its ideal trim. Witherby Seamanship Group (WPG), which is already being used by other bodies pro- ducing maritime publications, including the International Maritime Organization (IMO). The ICS eBooks will be available as single user versions (with the same recommended retail price as the existing print editions) or as network versions whereby a customer will have access to five copies of the eBook for twice the cost of the single user version. ICS director external relations, Simon Bennett, explained: “As well as responding to the demand from shipping companies to produce ICS publications as eBooks, we believe that by using the proven WPG sys- tem it will be helpful to ship operators for our books to sit alongside IMO regula- tions, as well as useful advice produced by The new software includes options for ballast and trim optimisation other maritime bodies, in electronic form.”

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Digital Ship April 2013 page 21 p21-26:p1-14.qxd 08/03/2013 18:57 Page 2

SOFTWARE PortVision grant to support New computer-based maritime IT development safety training modules

www.portvision.com how to bridge the critical information gap www.seagull.no farer appraisal. The course introduces the between waterway stakeholders,” said appraisal process and explains the sup- PortVision has launched a new initiative Mr Tieman. Norwegian company Seagull announces it porting documentation involved. offering $500,000 to fund the develop- “Our goal is to help grantees facilitate has introduced two new computer based CBT # 0260 Behaviour-based Safety is ment and implementation of web-based better coordination and awareness of training modules (CBT) – a Seafarer aimed at shipboard deck and engine offi- solutions that help non-profit maritime waterway impacts and vessel schedul- Appraisal course and a Behaviour-based cers. Seagull says that this course uses an organisations enhance port and water- ing, so they can greatly enhance safety Safety course. ‘Observe, Assess, Provide Feedback and way efficiency, safety and security for and achieve the most efficient waterway The company says that these two mod- Evaluate’ methodology to prompt safety their stakeholders. utilisation.” ules aim to help ships’ officers and crew behaviour modification. Eligible grant participants for the “These efforts will also help improve managers to raise safety awareness among Vibeke Nordahl-Paulsen, Seagull’s PortVision CONNECT initiative will visibility so these organisations can make the seafarers under their supervision. director training content, says: “The include harbour safety committees, trade more informed decisions for their stake- CBT # 0259 Seafarer Appraisal is course takes a ‘hands-on/toolbox’ associations, marine exchanges and other holders, while delivering a number of devised for management level officers on approach because it is critical that the con- industry organisations that have a prima- other benefits including less congestion, board ships, and human resource and tent is immediately applicable to daily rily maritime mission. better traffic prioritisation, and a reduc- crewing managers ashore involved in sea- operations.” The grant initiative will include the tion in fuel consumption, excessive emis- commitment of dedicated PortVision sions and wait times.” staff members who will collaborate with Maritime organisations interested in Applied Weather Technology grant recipients on development and participating in the grant programme can (AWT) has appointed Haydn Jones as implementation. obtain more information and download the company’s director of international Pending projects include gate pass por- an application at www.portvision.com/ operations, responsible for sales, market- tals that streamline terminal access, infor- connect. ing and business development. Mr Jones, mation portals for real-time data access, As part of the grant application who has worked with a number of well- real-time resource scheduling, and water- process, organisations must demon- known marine organisations including way alert systems. strate that their project will enhance Nera, the UKHO, ChartCo and, most Heading up the PortVision CON- efficiency, safety or security for their recently, Fugro, will become a member NECT initiative is Jason Tieman, stakeholders, and that it can serve of the AWT parent company’s board of the company’s director of maritime as a model for expansion across the directors. operations. industry. “As a maritime industry partner and a PortVision says it will fund up to 100 www.awtworldwide.com leader in providing vessel traffic analytics per cent of software development and and intelligence for this domain, we know operating costs for approved projects. Haydn Jones, new man at AWT

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Digital Ship April 2013 page 22 p21-26:p1-14.qxd 08/03/2013 18:57 Page 3

Digital Ship PPG coatings software passes 1,000 installations

www.ppg.com well as the ability to create maintenance charts that can be printed out and used in PPG Protective and Marine Coatings (PPG) the vessel’s paint locker. has reached the milestone of installing its “Managing coatings onboard a vessel SIGMACARE PLUS system, used for man- can be quite complex,” said Sijmen Visser, agement of ship coatings, on 1,000 vessels. global marketing manager M&R, PPG PPG claims to be the first company to Protective and Marine Coatings. Best Man in Place. have offered an online shipboard mainte- “Keeping track of what coatings to use nance tool for its paints and coatings, and and where to apply them, of which colour has continued to refine the product since and mixing ratios, means giving the crew its launch in 2011. a system that is clear, easy to understand The latest release also features ‘offline’ and which will improve the overall quali- functionality to accommodate vessels with ty of onboard maintenance. SIGMACARE limited internet access at sea, as well as PLUS is all about taking away the com- having onboard maintenance charts avail- plexity in managing all coating-related able in 12 languages. activities for a fleet. We believe the sim- The next language set to be added is pler and clearer something is, the better it Mandarin, due for release later in 2013. will work.” SIGMACARE PLUS aims to allow own- “Orders can be controlled more effec- ers, vessel managers and crew members to tively and placed while at sea if required better organise coatings management, with a dynamic map showing which ports eliminating the complications associated and products are available in real time. with onboard maintenance. The paint inventory and the paint locker It includes inventory control and a become better organised and the crew also product ordering system, allowing vessels work more safely because they can watch to place stock inquiries whilst at sea, as training videos on coatings application.”

The software has been updated a number of times since its launch in 2011 Seafarers fitness website launched

www.trainingonboard.org becoming vulnerable to diabetes and heart conditions because of lack of exercise and A new website, called Training on Board, poor diet,” said Torbjørn Husby of the has been launched to help ship crews to Norwegian Maritime Authority. stay fit. The physical training programmes for The www.trainingonboard.org site has seafarers on the site have been designed been developed by the Norwegian by a professional physiotherapist, Mona Maritime Authority for the International Woll Haland. The exercises can be under- Committee on Seafarers' Welfare (ICSW), taken onboard. and funded by the International Transport The programmes contained on the web- Workers Federation Seafarers Trust. site have already been tested with the help of GL CrewManager. The aim of this initiative is to promote the Norwegian shipping company, Odfjell. understanding of the link between physi- Roger Harris, executive director of the Let GL CrewManager support you in optimally manning your vessels cal training, nutrition, and fatigue. ICSW, commented: “With the ILO and in making intelligent use of your crew pool, while assuring full Seafarers can measure their fitness Maritime Labour Convention (MLC) com- compliance with rules and regulations like MLC 2006. through an online calculator, start on a ing into force later this year it is important programme of physical training and for crews to be fit and healthy.” record their workout. They can also com- “The MLC emphasises the importance GL CrewManager – part of most innovative and comprehensive pete amongst themselves, and against of health and welfare. The Training on software portfolio in the maritime industry. other crews and companies. Board site encourages seafarers and ship- “In Norway we are finding that seafar- ping companies to actively participate in ers are losing their health certificates as the fitness programme and learn about they have BMIs of more than 35 and are healthy nutrition.” www.gl-maritime-software.com

Digital Ship April 2013 page 23 p21-26:p1-14.qxd 08/03/2013 18:58 Page 4

SOFTWARE

Videotel upgrades anti-piracy programme

www.videotel.com Area (HRA), interviews with senior ship- ping industry personnel and representa- Videotel reports that it has revised and tives from naval/military forces, as well as updated its Piracy and Armed Robbery other organisations. training programme. It also includes maps showing the con- Designed to assist shipping companies centration of piracy incidents and graph- and their crews to safely transit pirate ics illustrating how ships can make eva- zones anywhere in the world, the pro- sive manoeuvres. gramme places emphasis on BMP (Best Nigel Cleave, CEO of Videotel, under- Management Practices) as the core tool lines the industry’s need for support and helping ships avoid, deter and delay guidance: “In the last few years alone the pirate attacks. number of alternatives available in the arse- Available in multimedia formats nal of anti-piracy measures has increased, including Videotel on Demand (VOD), it but all have their benefits and drawbacks features ships making preparations prior and the legal implications of many of these to transiting the Indian Ocean High Risk options to the ship owner are considerable.” Proper training can be critical in dealing with pirate attacks Online viewer for Singapore and E-commerce upgraded Malacca Straits tidal models

www.evry.com/marinelink to access different websites or handle a www.tidetech.org for detailed tidal current information in number of spreadsheets to process e-com- the Malacca Straits region. Evry’s MarineLink has announced that it merce transactions. Tidetech has released tidal models for the “This is a region that experiences very has upgraded its SupplierOnline e-com- The new version offers new search fea- Singapore and Malacca Straits in an online high traffic density and is faced with com- merce software system for the maritime tures and direct access to documents viewer, called OceanView, which makes it plex tides that have a significant effect on industry. through e-mail link, explains MarineLink. possible to access the data on the internet, passage time and fuel consumption,” Ms SupplierOnline is an online, web- “We are striving to make our free serv- including on mobile devices. Haire says, adding that accurate tidal cur- based sales order management tool ice SupplierOnline as pain-free as possible OceanView provides an atlas of tidal rent data “hasn’t previously been available.” which helps suppliers to receive and for the supplier,” says departmental man- currents, with predictions at 1km resolution “While the online viewer is not as pow- process Requests For Quote (RFQs) and ager Ché Geldard. for every 30 minutes. Other features include erful as the fully integrated version, it Purchase Orders (POs) from their cus- “This is just the first version of our new latitude and longitude, place names, speed does provide detailed information where tomers electronically. generation of SupplierOnline, with more of current, and shipping lanes. there hasn’t been any before.” It provides a single common interface exciting developments coming later in Users can check the data online, down- Tidetech says that trials with both for all the transactions, so users don’t need the year.” load it as PDF and/or print it using this OceanView and fully integrated oceano- entry-level version of its tidal models. graphic data are being run with container Tidetech managing director Penny vessels, cruise ships and ferries in various Haire notes that there was a “black hole” regions around the world. OSM to equip 14 vessels with BASS modules

www.bassnet.no Procurement modules in 2011. www.osm.no “The BASSnet software modules have proven their worth in terms of cost sav- Software provider BASS announces it has ings, higher productivity and streamlining struck a deal with OSM Ship Management of operations in our demanding business to equip 14 of its vessels with the BASSnet environment,” says OSM’s general man- Maintenance and Procurement modules. ager, Captain Rajan Mathrani. OSM manages a fleet of more than 430 BASS’ vice president of Asia, Mark vessels. It is based in Norway, where Ravi, noted: “Following the switch to BASS is also located. BASS software solutions from other This new agreement is an extension of marine applications, the OSM manage- an existing relationship between the com- ment is clearly convinced about the SupplierOnline provides a single interface for electronic transactions panies, with OSM having signed up two advantages of our state of the art systems vessels for the Maintenance and against our competitors.”

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Digital Ship April 2013 page 24 p21-26:p1-14.qxd 08/03/2013 18:58 Page 5

CONNECTING OCEANS

Eutelsat Maritime Solutions

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

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

SOFTWARE New XFR system to detect sulphur in diesel fuels Tecnitas launches SEEMP software www.eurocontrol.ca detect sulphur in diesel fuels, collecting of silicon and aluminium) in fuel, and data on these levels for management and detect fraudulent mixing of bunker fuels. Canadian group Eurocontrol has analysis by the vessel operator. The system is equipped with GPRS/Wi-Fi www.bureauveritas.com announced that its subsidiary Xenemetrics In addition to measuring sulphur /satellite data transfer and GPS connection has introduced an onboard X-ray oxides in diesel fuel, Petro-Marine XRF capabilities, which makes it possible to imme- Tecnitas, the consultancy arm of Bureau Fluorescence (XRF) analysis system. can also monitor wear metals in engine diately upload location-based data to the ship- Veritas, has launched a new software tool, The XRF system will allow vessels to lubricating oil, spot Cat Fines (compounds ping company for reporting and monitoring. E2, aimed at optimising energy usage for both individual ships and across fleets. E2 aims to assist shipowners in max- imising the potential gains in energy effi- Tanker vetting management tool launched ciency and emission reduction which can be obtained through the proper applica- tion of IMO’s Ship Energy Efficiency www.oceanfile.com lists every instance of observations associ- bilities, as well as a Planner function Monitoring Plan (SEEMP). ated with each Inspection Report question, which sends reminders when action is The software includes a number of dif- Oceanfile has launched a software which helps keep track of past observa- required. ferent modes. Initially it is used by ships’ designed to help tanker operators manage tions and of the operator’s responses to Additional features are under develop- crews in the Acquisition mode to monitor, vetting and inspections. those observations. ment, such as an Inspection Costs measure and record actual consumption Called Oceanfile, after the company The Oceanfile Chart Wizard can create Manager and Audit tools to facilitate self- on board in a variety of different cargo that has developed it, the system provides user-defined charts, with filters to select inspections and navigation audits. and navigation conditions. web-based applications, integrating the date range, IMO vessel types, sister ves- Oceanfile is a subscription-based pro- The software can then calculate the cor- main functions associated with the major sels, or personnel. gram designed for oil, chemical and gas responding fuel Key Performance inspection programmes and managing all The software can also search and dis- tanker operators who deal with oil compa- Indicators (KPIs) and emissions KPIs. details of the inspections conducted on play performance results for individual ny vetting programmes. Two additional modes are available for each vessel. vessels, sister ships, vessel type, regional A free trial of the software is available running E2 software: the Simulation mode The Oceanfile Observation History tool managing offices and personnel responsi- at www.oceanfile.com. and the Benchmark mode. In Simulation mode, E2 will give access to reference val- ues for a given voyage and to the corre- sponding calculated reference fuel KPIs. Data collected in the on-going Acquisition mode can then be compared with the Simulation to deliver the infor- mation needed to implement improve- ment measures and calculate the Yearly Energy Efficiency Operating Index (EEOI). The purpose of E2’s Benchmark mode is to benchmark, follow up and monitor the energy efficiency performance of dif- ferent ships within the fleet, or of the same ship for different voyages. The Oceanfile Chart Wizard generates numerous user-defined charts, while the Oceanfile Observation History tool “The SEEMP seeks to improve a ship’s displays all observations relating to each VIQ question energy efficiency through four steps: plan- ning, implementation, monitoring and measurements, and self-evaluation and improvement,” said Claude Andreau, NEW FOR 2013! head of engineering, Tecnitas. “We hear a lot about energy saving devices which can be fitted and opera- tional savings which can be made, but in DIGITAL SHIP @ NOR-SHIPPING our experience shipowners do not know which measures provide the best savings Maritime CIO Forum simply because they don’t have the right information to base decisions on.” 5 June 2013, Thon Hotel Arena, Lillestrom “E2 solves that problem by collecting and evaluating all the information needed The Maritime CIO Forum is designed to be a meeting to make energy saving decisions. It then point for business leaders to share knowledge produces KPIs and benchmarks individ- and collaborate with peers on strategic IT & ual ships or whole fleets against them.” communications issues – and learn from other Digital Ship magazine June/July isue The currently available version of E2 software (v1.2) is based on manual acqui- senior professionals in the shipping industry. will be distributed at the sition of the input data, such as the fuel Nor-Shipping exhibition as well as consumption recorded onboard. the Digital Ship Maritime CIO Forum The company says that development Who should attend: work is also underway on an upgrade • Chief Information Officers (CIO) To discuss available positions and which will acquire the inputs automatical- • Chief Technology Officers (CTO) rates please contact ly through flow meters and GPS. These • Chief Operating Officers (COO) new capabilities will enhance the accuracy • Other senior business and technical executives technology, Ria Kontogeorgou of the data acquisition and will give access communications, information management, operations, Tel +44 (0)20 7017 3401 and finance functions to more advanced analyses and diagnosis. • Suppliers providing Ship Shore Communications, Software Mob: +44 (0)7815 481036 The company says that a demo version / Data Services and Shipboard Electronics / Safety / email: [email protected] of the current software, with limited time Navigation Systems access to its full capabilities (acquisition, simulation and benchmark modes), is available upon request. To enquire about participation opportunities, please contact: Youngsuk Park The use of E2 can be licensed either for : [email protected]  +44 20 7017 0680 www.thedigitalship.com Acquisition mode only, or for Acquisition, Simulation and Benchmark modes.

Digital Ship April 2013 page 26 p27-36:p15-25.qxd 08/03/2013 19:16 Page 1

ELECTRONICS & NAVIGATION Digital Ship CCTV requirement for Indian vessels Arcadia upgrades its dual ECDIS India’s Ministry of Shipping has intro- are vessels which don’t operate in the to go paperless duced a new amendment to the ship secu- High Risk Area (HRA) defined in the Best rity plans for Indian flagged ships which Management Practices (BMP) guidance. www.arcadiasm.gr of February, says Transas. The companies will require them to be equipped with In a circular published in October www.transas.com have scheduled to proceed to install the CCTV cameras as part as their anti-piracy 2012, owners and managers of Indian systems on one vessel per month. measures. flagged ships were asked to ensure that Transas says it is to upgrade the dual At the same time, Arcadia’s training “Fitment of CCTV on such vessels may their Ship Security Plans (SSP) include ECDIS on Arcadia Shipmanagement’s centre, which is accredited by Det Norske be undertaken by 30.6.2013 or the date of “effective use of monitoring and/or sur- fleet so it can shift to paperless navigation. Veritas (DNV), will be upgraded to com- the vessel’s next annual ISPS veillance equipment.” Arcadia, an Athens-based company, ply with the 2010 Manila amendments to (International Ship Security Certificate) This new addendum, published in operates 14 oil tankers, and will work the STCW (Standards of Training, audit, whichever is later,” writes the January, clarifies what kind of equipment is with Transas Hellas to deploy official Certification and Watchkeeping for Ministry of Shipping in an addendum to a expected and which ships have to install it. charts (from Transas Admiralty Data Seafarers) convention. security circular. The measures are a response to the acts Service), navigation tools and a chart han- Arcadia’s training centre is equipped Ships operating solely on the Indian of piracy that continue to take place in the dling system so as to exceed the latest car- with Transas bridge, engine room, coast are exempt from this obligation, as Gulf of Aden and Western Arabian Seas. riage requirement. GMDSS and liquid cargo handling simula- Arcadia’s first vessel, Aegean Dignity, tors, making it possible to conduct ECDIS AIS system implemented in Jordan moved to paperless navigation at the end type-specific training for bridge officers. www.transas.com ing and ports management. In addition, an AIS VTS Server, web Transas reports that it has successfully server and related hardware equipment installed and commissioned a stand alone were supplied to the Jordan Maritime AIS solution at the Port of Aqaba, Jordan, Authority, also financed by the EU as part of the EU-funded SafeMed II SafeMed II regional project. Project. This project has been implemented in Intended to cover Aqaba Port, its inner the Mediterranean region by the Regional port waters, navigational channels and Marine Pollution Emergency Response fairways, the primary purpose of the proj- Centre for the Mediterranean Sea (REM- ect is to provide a comprehensive PEC) on behalf of the International overview of maritime traffic to relevant Maritime Organization (IMO). parties, to help to forecast dangers and REMPEC is based in Malta and assists risks related to marine pollution. the Mediterranean coastal States in ratify- Transas’ stand alone AIS solution incor- ing, transposing, implementing and porates VTS technology and the Transas enforcing international maritime conven- AIS Base station T214 system designed for tions related to the prevention of, and coastal surveillance, vessel traffic monitor- response to, marine pollution from ships. Arcadia’s 14 oil tankers are set to sail paperless

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Digital Ship April 2013 page 27 p27-36:p15-25.qxd 18/03/2013 09:21 Page 2

ELECTRONICS & NAVIGATION

Guide to Numerical Weather Prediction MSG to provide Simrad ECDIS training published www.nautinst.org/pubs judgements on suitability and use, the www.marineserve.de running either on dedicated MSG-con- Institute notes. www.navico.com trolled local servers at each ETC partner’s The Nautical Institute has published a “Information should be reliable and in classroom facilities, under MSG’s remote practical guide for mariners which a format that supports decision-making,” Maritime training company MSG control and management system, or on explains the benefits and limitations of sums up David Patraiko, director of proj- MarineServe GmbH has reached an agree- the Safebridge server within its e-learn- Numerical Weather Prediction (NWP). ects at the Institute. ment to act as the official worldwide ing programme for delivery online via The book “cuts through the jargon and “This guide should help mariners to ECDIS training agent for Navico Simrad the web. complexity to provide mariners with the make the best use of the technology in a ECDIS systems. “We are very pleased to offer our cus- confidence and knowledge to exploit all of practical and professional way.” The ECDIS training will be provided by tomers online training for Simrad ECDIS the advantages of modern meteorology ‘Numerical Weather Prediction – a MSG and its ECDIS Training Consortium systems, this training enables operators and to avoid the pitfalls,” says author practical guide for mariners’ is available (ETC), or by sister company Safebridge across the globe to achieve the required Huw Davies, a former Commander in the from The Nautical Institute at the price using its online simulation and e-learning type-specific training in a very flexible and Royal Navy. of £30. courses. cost efficient manner,” said president and Entitled ‘Numerical Weather Prediction The courses will provide trainees with CEO of Navico, Leif Ottosson. – a practical guide for mariners’, it explains all required instruction, leading to full cer- “The Simrad CS68 ECDIS was designed the NWP production process and examines tification upon completion, and also with input from experienced operators, the accuracy and characteristics of the main allows third party authorities and cus- with ease of use as one of our highest pri- meteorological and wave models. tomers, such as Port State Control, to ref- orities. The service and experience that It demonstrates how seafarers can eval- erence trainee database services. MSG provides is completely in line with uate the many digital weather products on The course content will be delivered our mission to provide the very best prod- offer and also create their own forecasts over original Simrad ECDIS software ucts for safe navigation.” using freely available NWP sources. The Nautical Institute notes that, while NWP has made forecasts more accurate and helped develop services such as Night vision TugCam routeing advice, weather still accounts for a significant share of total losses of ship- www.tugcam.com designed specifically for use on the ping (45 per cent between 2006 and 2010, water. according to the International Union of GM Engineering Services has released a The camera can be tilted in any direc- Marine Insurance). new TugCam which can help tugboat cap- tion and the zoom and focus are easier to Mariners need to be able to recognise tains to see in complete darkness. adjust than in previous versions, accord- when they are being presented with The Virginia-based company is adding ing to GM Engineering Services. NWP, establish its source and the charac- to its range of wireless CCTV cameras Like the rest of the TugCam range, teristics and performance of the particu- for vessels with the TC115 / TC116 range, TC115 / TC116 contain a wireless trans- lar NWP model and make informed which features infrared illuminators mitter with rechargeable battery.

NEW FOR 2013! Conference to be conducted with simultaneous translation service in Japanese and English Digital Ship Japan コンファーランスは日本語・英語に同時通訳されます。 Conference & Exhibition 3 - 4 September 2013, Capitol Hotel Tokyu, Tokyo

Technology, communications and training continue to play a major role in the development of Japan's shipping sector, with stakeholders needing to remain up to date with new technologies and strategies to ensure their operations are as efficient as possible. In this regard we are happy to announce the launch of the inaugural Digital Ship Japan conference and exhibition. This event will provide you with an opportunity to discuss the latest developments in IT & communications with Japanese shipping companies and industry experts.

技術・通信は日本の船舶産業の発展において中心的な役割を担い続けています。船舶関係者らはこの産業を出来る限り効率よく 運営していくために最新の技術と戦略を維持し続ける必要があります。この様な理由から、今回デジタル・シップ・ジャパンコンファ ーランスを開催させて頂きたく存じ上げます。このイベントは日本の船舶会社やその他の専門家と最新のIT・通信開発に関し論じ る機会を提供致します。

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

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

Digital Ship April 2013 page 28 p27-36:p15-25.qxd 08/03/2013 19:16 Page 3

Digital Ship R Anschütz SAM systems for world’s largest container vessel

www.sam-electronics.de navaids, as well as SAM Electronics’ new Bridge Navigational Watch Alarm System SAM Electronics, an L-3 company, reports (BNWAS). ADVANCED that it has supplied a range of technology “This order confirms the continued systems for installation on the world’s high-level acceptance of SAM’s latest largest container vessel. series of advanced, ergonomically- Via its associate L-3 Marine Systems designed Platinum systems now in wide- NAVIGATION Korea subsidiary in Busan, the company spread use aboard all classes of commer- has provided a combined NACOS cial shipping, as well as luxury yachts and Platinum integrated navigation command many of the world’s leading cruise liners,” system and MCS Platinum automated said Holger Mahnke, senior vice-president TECHNOLOGY monitoring and control assembly for the of SAM Electronics. CMA CGM Marco Polo, which recently The NACOS assembly is complement- began service between Europe and Asia. ed by an integrated MCS Platinum moni- The 396-metre-long vessel was built by toring and control system governing Proven experience for more than Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine all main ship operating components, Engineering (DMSE) in South Korea for including 4,500 I/Os on a redundant 100 years CMA CGM of France. LAN network. The CMA CGM Marco Polo has been It incorporates a series of seven high- equipped with a navigation control sys- resolution multifunction display consoles tem comprising X- and S-band radars variously sited on the vessel bridge and in linked to three multifunction Multipilot central and engine control rooms. workstations and an ECDISpilot for cen- The Marco Polo is the first of a series of tralised control of all main radar, ECDIS three 16,000 teu vessels ordered from and conning operations, in addition to DMSE by Marseille-based CMA CGM, those for automatic steering, track control the world’s third-largest container ship- and voyage planning. ping group. Supplementary sensors for the integrat- Delivery of the next two vessels, which ed bridge configuration include AIS, VDR, are also being equipped with similar sys- GPS, doppler log and echosounder tems, is expected later this year. Two-in-one ECDIS training

www.ecdis.org hours over four or five days and is accredit- ed by the Maritime and Coastguard Agency ECDIS Ltd reports that it is now offering a (MCA) and Det Norske Veritas (DNV). course that combines generic and type- The Type Specific course, which was specific training on ECDIS. accredited by the Nautical Institute in April On completion of the Generic module, 2011, normally takes one day (eight hours). based on the IMO 1.27 model course, stu- It includes presentations and practical dents proceed to the short Type Specific exercises on the actual ECDIS equipment, course - and can thus receive two which can be chosen from OSI, Kelvin approved certificates. Hughes, JRC, Transas, PC Maritime, “The combined Generic and Type Simrad and Totem. Specific ECDIS course is a cost effective ECDIS Ltd also delivers on-board famil- and productive way to ensure mariners iarisation courses, brought to the mariners are trained to an excellent standard in the on their vessel. The one-day training, use of their ECDIS equipment,” says Joe which hasn’t received accreditation to date, Sloly, customer development manager at uses the vessel’s installed ECDIS. It is avail- ECDIS Ltd. able for all the previously mentioned The IMO 1.27 ECDIS course lasts 40 brands, as well as Furuno and Maris. Raytheon Anschütz navigation systems combine reliability with advanced technology and superior performance.

Our navigation solutions cover: s !NSCHàTZ3TANDARD'YRO#OMPASS s &UEL SAVING!NSCHàTZ!UTOPILOTS s 3TEERING'EAR#ONTROL3YSTEMS s 3CALABLE"RIDGE7ORKSTATIONSFOR2ADAR%#$)3#ONNING s )-/ COMPLIANT3YNAPSIS)NTEGRATED.AVIGATION3YSTEMS s (IGHLY1UALIlED3ERVICE!ROUNDTHE7ORLD

Raytheon Anschütz GmbH D-24100 Kiel, Germany Tel +49(0)4 31-30 19-0 Fax +49(0)4 31-30 19-291 www.raytheon-anschuetz.com ECDIS Ltd is offering courses combining generic and type-specific training

Digital Ship April 2013 page 29 p27-36:p15-25.qxd 08/03/2013 19:17 Page 4

ELECTRONICS & NAVIGATION

e-navigation for North Sea safety

www.accseas.eu ping traffic and vessel sizes are expected to rise, in a region that already hosts some ACCSEAS, a project funded in part by the of the busiest shipping lanes in the world. European Union, is developing e-naviga- Renewable energy deployments could tion tools to help mariners navigate safely “pose a significant threat to maritime safe- in the North Sea region, particularly in ty as shipping traffic continues to grow,” relation to the expected growth in wind warns Alwyn Williams, ACCSEAS project farms in the sea area in the coming years. manager. ACCSEAS (Accessibility for Shipping, “We believe that e-navigation technolo- Efficiency Advantages and Sustainability) gies have the potential to reduce these tested a prototype resilient PNT system risks through safer, more accurate naviga- (Positioning, Navigation and Timing) inte- tion in order for turbines, other offshore grated into the bridge of a vessel at the obstacles, and ships to co-exist safely in end of February, in Harwich, UK. the North Sea Region.” The demonstration aimed at highlight- “Greater navigational accuracy from e- ing GPS vulnerability to jamming and navigation technologies will help lead to showing the benefits of having a resilient safer seas,” adds David Balston, director PNT solution. of safety and environment at the UK ACCSEAS is studying shipping density and the affect of wind farms In research published on February 26th, Chamber of Shipping. on shipping lanes in the North Sea ACCSEAS calculated that navigable space The ACCSEAS partnership consists of in the North Sea region could decrease by eleven organisations in seven countries: Minesterie Infrastructuur en Milieu Leeuwarden, Maritiem Instituut Willem 5.5 per cent as the surface allocated to General Lighthouse Authorities (UK), (Netherlands), Swedish Maritime Barentsz (Netherlands), World Maritime wind farms could go from roughly Chalmers University of Technology Administration, Norwegian Coastal University (Sweden). 440km2 to about 23,500km2 “within just a (Sweden), Danish Maritime Authority, Administration, SSPA Sweden AB, The initiative held its first annual confer- few years”. Federal Waterways & Shipping Flensburg University of Applied Science ence at the Flensburg University of Applied This would occur at a time when ship- Administration (Germany), Rijkwaterstaat, (Germany), NHL Hogeschool, Sciences in Germany, March 5-7th. Guide to counterfeit nautical charts released PPU systems supplied to

http://bit.ly/admiralty-genuine Hydrographic Office has produced a guide to help users and inspectors to dis- Great Barrier Reef The UK Hydrographic Office (UKHO) has tinguish official Admiralty charts and “Our new PPUs are tablet devices that issued a short guide to help users distin- publications from counterfeit versions. www.sevencs.com connect our pilots to ship systems, busi- guish between its genuine Admiralty nau- The two-page document can be down- ness systems and each other in ways that tical charts and counterfeit products. loaded online. It explains that genuine SevenCs has partnered with Australian were impossible only a year ago.” UKHO notes that the use of counterfeit charts bear the Admiralty ‘Flying A’ software company VoyageBank to deliver “This investment in new technology charts can seriously endanger the safety watermark within the paper, which can be Portable Pilot Unit (PPU) technology to 50 will make a profound and immediate of vessels, crews and cargoes, as well as seen by holding the chart up to the light, marine pilots at the Great Barrier Reef. impact on shipping safety within the reef leading to potentially significant legal and that they all carry on the reverse a The three year deal, signed recently and further strengthen the quality of serv- consequences. ‘thumb label’ strip that contains the with Australian Reef Pilots (ARP), will ice ARP provides to its customers.” “Because counterfeit versions have not Admiralty logo, chart number, geographic add to the region’s centralised manage- The new PPUs are touchscreen devices been through the same rigorous checking area, barcode and date. ment of pilotage activities via its Pilotage that run SevenCs Orca Pilot G2 pilotage procedures as official Admiralty charts The UKHO says suspect publications Safety Management System (PSMS), used software, and have been customised by and publications, they cannot be trusted can be identified by comparing them to manage navigation and real-time moni- SevenCs for the requirements of pilotage for voyage planning or navigational pur- against official Admiralty versions, where toring. within the reef. poses,” warns John Dawson, head of mar- variations may be spotted in the height, “We are excited to have chosen “Bringing together the knowledge of keting at the UKHO. look, feel and weight of the product, the SevenCs and VoyageBank to help us raise Voyagebank and SevenCs allows our cus- “As well as failing to comply with colour tone and strength of the ink, or the pilotage safety to a new level within the tomers to utilise modern technology at a SOLAS (International Convention on the quality of the binding. reef,” said Simon Meyjes, CEO of whole new level,” said Bjoern Roehlich, Safety of Life at Sea) carriage regulations Anyone with suspicions over the authen- Australian Reef Pilots. sales director of SevenCs. and possibly also Flag State and Port State ticity of their Admiralty charts and publica- Control regulations, the use of counterfeit tions is asked to contact the UKHO by e- charts and publications poses a serious mailing [email protected]. risk to vessel safety.” Copies of the UKHO’s guide to identify- After noticing an increase in the ing genuine Admiralty products can be number of counterfeit versions of its downloaded from http://bit.ly/admiralty- Admiralty charts in circulation, the UK genuine.

50 marine pilots will be supplied with the technology

Furuno has established a subsidiary in http://furuno.com.cy The use of counterfeit publications, such as the one shown here (left), Cyprus. The new office, based in Limassol, could lead to significant consequences started operations in November 2012.

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ELECTRONICS & NAVIGATION

says Tone-Merete Hansen, sales manager Kongsberg to develop Norwegian VTS Norway, Kongsberg Maritime, simulation. By 2018, the regional VTS centres of www.km.kongsberg.com Headquartered in Kongsberg (Norway), the strict training requirements for VTS Horten, Kvitsøy, Brevik, Fedje, and Vardø the company explains that its system pro- operators and helping to ensure high com- will be completed and online with the new Kongsberg Norcontrol IT (KNC) has been vides satellite-based earth observation petence throughout the organisation," Norwegian VTS, says Kongsberg. chosen by the Norwegian Coastal data integrated with terrestrial RADAR, Administration (NCA) to develop a new AIS, and electro-optic sensors in addition national Vessel Traffic Service (VTS), to Radar Data Processing and automatic which will use its C-Scope maritime sur- de-clutter technology. veillance system. The Norwegian VTS will include a Norway has five VTS centres covering number of additional new features, such ship traffic along its coast; they are located as remote traffic display for mobile in Horten, Brevik, Kvitsøy, Fedje and devices, 3D traffic visualisation and an Vardø. Under the five-year contract, integrated chat client. which started this February, Kongsberg Under the contract, Kongsberg will also will replace the VTS systems currently in deliver a VTS simulation system, to be locat- use at all five centres. ed at the NCA office in Haugesund, which The company says it will implement its is the national centre for VTS competence. C-Scope system at the centres, which first The simulator will be able to display both a entered service for the Maritime and Port simulated and live VTS traffic image. Authority of Singapore (MPA) in 2011. In addition to the installation in "The C-Scope system for NCA will Haugesund, smaller VTS simulators will build upon the VTS system in Singapore, be set up at the other VTS centres to con- so it will be based on a proven installation duct local training. in one of the world’s busiest waterways," "With simulators based on and inte- says Fred Fredriksen, senior project man- grated with the real systems, Kongsberg Kongsberg will replace the VTS systems in use at five Norwegian coastal centres ager, KNC. can provide the ‘Full Picture’, supporting Type-specific ECDIS training in Manila Satellite AIS data deals

www.furuno.com The ‘NavSkills’ programme ensures www.orbcomm.com of ORBCOMM’s satellite AIS data rein- that the course in an accredited facility is www.terramarnetworks.com forces our commitment to providing flexi- Furuno has announced that it has accred- conducted in the same way, with the same ble, customisable solutions to the mar- ited the Veritas Maritime Training Centre content and duration and using the same Two new developments involving satellite itime and energy sectors.” in Manila to provide Furuno type-specific teaching methods, as employed by Furuno AIS data providers ORBCOMM and “We offer the most complete situational ECDIS training. in its own training centres in Denmark exactEarth have been announced, which picture of logistics activity in a given geo- Under the ‘NavSkills’ agreement, and Singapore. should see the companies’ data more graphical area – onshore, offshore and in Veritas MTC will accommodate six train- The Japan-based company says it is now widely available to the maritime market, deep oceans, on one convenient platform.” ing workstations (four FEA-2107 worksta- able to provide type-specific ECDIS training TerraMar Networks has reached an Meanwhile, satellite AIS data provider tions and two next-generation FMD-3200 in Germany, Turkey, Greece, Singapore, agreement with ORBCOMM to incorpo- exactEarth has announced the release of workstations) and have three of its India, The Philippines, China and Denmark. rate its satellite AIS data into a fleet man- its new Geospatial Web Services (GWS) instructors trained by Furuno. It also wants to expand its the training agement portal called tracpoint. product, allowing users to access satellite Veritas MTC, formerly known as network by establishing similar co-opera- ORBCOMM provides satellite-based AIS data on request. Epsilon Maritime Training Center, was tions with training centres in the USA, AIS services, providing a ship’s identifica- Data can now be integrated with other established in January 2012. Europe, Africa and Asia. tion, position and other critical data. This geospatial datasets dynamically, and can data will now be integrated into be immediately consumed and displayed TerraMar’s tracpoint portal for a range of in any Open Geospatial Consortium applications. (OGC) compliant geospatial system such Some of the applications will include as the Esri or Google Earth platforms. fleet monitoring (ability to filter on This new capability gives users access defined vessels only to create a fleet-spe- to daily live tracking of over 90,000 ships cific view), trading pattern analysis (visi- globally. Customised ship data can be dis- bility of the movements of all vessels of a played, allowing for current ship informa- certain type, such as tankers, worldwide), tion to be available on request with no and logistics scheduling and optimisation new platform purchases required. (visibility of progress of ships compared “We are extremely proud and excited with the schedule). to announce this addition to our service Anti-piracy and other maritime safety offering,” said Graham Stickler, senior security applications, using the ability to director of global marketing for monitor vessels when in high-risk or high- exactEarth. traffic areas, are also planned. “exactAIS is already the leading source The tracpoint portal already supports of global AIS data, providing the most applications delivered over GSM and satel- complete and comprehensive picture for The Veritas MTC will provide accredited Furuno ECDIS training lite networks, as well as displaying data global maritime domain awareness.” from private terrestrial AIS receivers. They “GWS now opens this powerful infor- include ‘track and trace’ on a mapping mation source to a much broader audience interface, a database for centrally recording without the need for sophisticated data- New marine certified computers details of all assets in the fleet, and a report- bases and maritime analytical systems. We ing module for analytical support. are very eager to make these data more www.captec-group.com toring, cargo management and safety sys- Gwyn Roberts, managing director at widely available than has ever been possi- tems. TerraMar Networks, says: “The addition ble before.” Captec reports that it has introduced two The computers, featuring Intel Core i new marine certified computers, available processors, are approved for use with a Keep your finger on the pulse with our weekly e-mail newsletter now. range of graphics and I/O extension cards and our online network for maritime IT professionals The equipment is designed for critical and operate without fans. ship systems, such as navigation, propul- Mounting kits are available for installa- sion control, machinery control and moni- tion on desks, walls, or in 19-inch racks. www.thedigitalship.com

Digital Ship April 2013 page 32 p27-36:p15-25.qxd 08/03/2013 19:17 Page 7

OPENING CONFERENCE JUNE O4 2O13

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

9:30 WELCOME & AWARDS

BY INVITATION ONLY. REQUEST YOURS AT www.nor-shipping.com

TROND KLEIVDAL TROND GISKE KOJI SEKIMIZU Complimentary networking luncheon President, Norwegian Norway’s Minister of Secretary General, IMO Shipowners’ Association Trade and Industry follows the conference at 12:00 10:25 WHAT’S NEXT? WHAT’S NEXT?

MASAMICHI ALI OBAID KRISTIN HOLTH STURLA HENRIKSEN CLAUS V. MOROOKA AL-YABHOUNI Group Executive VP, DNB Director General, Norwegian HEMMINGSEN President, ICS UAE Governor, OPEC Shipowners’ Association CEO, Maersk Drilling Rep. Director, NYK Line CEO, ADNATCO & NGSCO

11:15 THE CHANGEMAKERS

ANDREAS PETER NEFFENGER HENRIK MADSEN KOJI SEKIMIZU WALTER QVAM BJÖRN ROSENGREN SOHMEN-PAO Deputy Comander for CEO, DNV Secretary General, IMO President & CEO, Kongsberg President & CEO, Wärtsila SPONSORED BY: CEO, BW Maritime & BW Gas Operations, US Coast Guard Group Corporation p27-36:p15-25.qxd 08/03/2013 19:17 Page 8

ELECTRONICS & NAVIGATION The unmanned vessel

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

ver increasing attention is being COLREGs is far from being an insur- words ‘sees’ and’ hearing’ when applied sight and hearing, aided by standard nav- EEgiven to unmanned transport sys- mountable obstacle. to an unmanned vessel. igational sensors and information sources, tems. Since the late 1990s, experimental colli- not necessarily including radar. In fact, fully automated rail transport sion avoidance advice systems have been Keep out of the way Especially on smaller vessels, the has been common for a number of years, demonstrated on simulators and at sea, Some have been wondering whether inbuilt ability of humans to sense motion especially on shorter distance networks apparently with good success – at least as Rules 18 and 27 of the COLREGs can be and touch also contributes to their aware- such as the London Docklands Light an advisory system to an onboard human applied to unmanned vessels, effectively ness of the situation, such as the respon- Railway and many other metro systems navigator. implying that other vessels should keep siveness of the vessel and the immediate throughout the world. An important missing factor with such out of their way. effects of waves and wind. The present growth in interest is driven systems has been that they generally only But just because a vessel is unmanned On a remotely controlled vessel, do we by what has now become truly feasible for take inputs from the radar, AIS and chart- is there any justification for it to be consid- just need to collect and transmit suitable more complex transport systems, particu- ed data. The COLREGs have words such ered to be grouped under vessels “not images of the visual situation, together larly in the air and on the road. as “when the vessel sees the other ahead” under command or restricted in their abil- with real-time information from naviga- At the heart of this is the affordable tech- and “sees the masthead lights”. ity to manoeuvre”? tional and motion sensors? nology now available – including immense Unmanned vessels today and into the Then the vessel could surely be safely processing power, advanced sensors and future should surely be designed specifi- navigated from an onshore simulator-like sophisticated digital communications. cally to behave like their ideal manned environment. Even VHF voice traffic It is not surprising that all this activity counterparts. Nevertheless, it would per- could be accommodated via the digital is causing a growth of interest in the mar- haps make sense that that they were link from the unmanned vessel to the itime sector. obliged to carried distinctive lights as well remote operating location. Particular attention is being given to as a special daylight-visible indicator. A number of practical issues, such as smaller craft but many of the issues are The broadcast of a unique AIS identifi- the costs and integrity of current commu- directly related to vessels of any size. Also, er should perhaps also be compulsory. In nications, immediately step in the way of some of the areas of interest, such as auto- addition, maybe smaller unmanned ves- making such a simple concept actually matic collision avoidance systems, also sels should be obliged to carry a passive or viable. However, maybe it just needs some potentially provide highly useful decision active radar reflector to aid their funda- clever ideas in bandwidth reduction and support on manned vessels. mental detection by other vessels. integrity enhancement. Particular examples of unmanned craft On the other hand, it could be argued Perhaps because of such difficulties being considered and trialled include that none of these are necessary. If an most business interest appears to be con- those for hydrographic survey and for the unmanned vessel could be designed that centrated towards totally automatic inspection of marine structures, such as oil behaved identically to a manned equiva- unmanned systems – although the per- rigs and wind farms. lent, would it really need to stand out, ceived cost savings in reducing the human These tasks can typically be performed either visually or electronically? element is likely to be the main driver. by quite small vessels – somewhat less Indeed, this should be the immediate It is not difficult to imagine the image than 10 metres in length. However, cur- goal of the emerging technology – to make from a sophisticated camera system being rent military interests include much larger the vessel’s behaviour replicate the actions digitally analysed onboard to ascertain the vessels, with applications for surveillance of one that is being handled by a compe- presence and aspect of surrounding ves- and the safe handling of dangerous situa- tent onboard human navigator in any situ- sels and/or their lights, together with tions at the forefront. ation, either under full automation or by other navigationally significant features. Right now it does not appear that any remote control. Especially if correlated with radar and current IMO regulations or guidelines The safe conduct of a vessel basically AIS, such data could prove to be at least as London’s Dockland’s Light Railway is one explicitly mention unmanned vessels but it requires good and continuous situational reliable as that determined by an experi- of a number of examples of driverless is difficult to argue that existing regulations awareness, together with the knowledge enced human navigator, and thus be able to transport around the world for manned vessels do not generally apply. and ability to fulfil the vessel’s mission form the input to a totally automatic system. Even so, military vessels are normally within the legal framework applying to Of course, the unmanned vessel must considered exempt from IMO require- This wording implies that an automat- the areas within which the vessel operates. be conventionally visible to other seafar- ments, whether manned or unmanned. ed system must also use optical tech- For unmanned vessels, whether fully ers, by sight, radar and also by AIS. In niques to corroborate the direction and automatic or remotely controlled, the main- addition, for the foreseeable future, the The COLREGs aspect of surrounding vessels. In addition, tenance of high integrity situational aware- vessel needs also to be able to appropri- Compliance to the COLREGs appears to be ‘hearing’ is used within the COLREGs, ness is perhaps the most difficult to achieve. ately react on VHF voice channels, per- a particularly clear requirement for implying that effective acoustic detection If the surrounding situation can be haps via a digital link to its onshore man- unmanned commercial or private vessels, techniques must also be employed on an properly captured then an expert system agement centre. not least because Rule 1(a) states that unmanned vessel. with appropriate database access can then IMO certainly needs to look at the “These rules shall apply to all vessels upon The regulations do not assume that ves- determine the safe actions of the vessel – issues that will arise with automated ves- the high seas and in all waters connected sels necessarily have radar to help anti- whether the expert is a remotely situated sels. In fact, they are already in use – with therewith navigable by seagoing vessels”. collision decisions but they particularly human operator or an on- or off-board no international guidelines or recommen- This is amplified in Rule 3(a) where it emphasise the appropriate use of sight processor-based system. dations pertaining to them. states that “The word ‘vessel’ includes and sound. In particular, interim guidance is every description of water craft ... used or They do require radar to be additional- Automatic or remote urgently required to enable responsible capable of being used as a means of trans- ly used where fitted – together with all control? application providers to be able to consid- portation on the water”. available means appropriate to the pre- Manned small vessels, even in close prox- er the relevant issues. Without such guid- In territorial waters, restricted areas vailing circumstances and conditions. imity to shipping traffic, are considered ance it may be difficult to prevent unsuit- could presumably be nationally defined There is no implication that radar can able to be safely navigated just by human able systems coming into use. DS that allow ‘COLREG-ignorant’ unmanned be used in place of sight and hearing on vessels to operate – such as close to wind any vessel, effectively underlining that use Dr Andy orris has been well-known in the maritime navigation industry for a farms – but generally prohibiting entry of of the bridge windows on manned vessels number of years. He has spent much of his time managing high-tech navigation those areas to other vessels. remains highly important to navigation. companies but now he is working on broader issues within the navigational In fact, automatic collision avoidance It would be interesting to hear how a world, providing both technical and business consultancy to the industry, gov- conforming to the requirements of the legal system would actually interpret the ernmental bodies and maritime organizations. Email: [email protected]

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