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November 2009

Satcom success in IN THIS ISSUE Northeast Passage satcoms Beluga Shipping recently became the first Western company to transit the Thrane reaches 5,000 Northeast Passage with a commercial vessel, without the need for FleetBroadband terminals in less than two years – 4 icebreakers. The company reports that it managed to maintain communications via e-mail and voice throughout its Arctic journey Anthony Veder agrees 14-vessel Ku-band – which could lead to more vessels exploiting this northern route VSAT installation contract – 6 Controlling costs in ICT using VoIP – 13 eluga Shipping of president and CEO of Northern waterways. go, regarded as the Mixing high and low speed Bremen, in conjunc- Beluga Shipping. The ships reported by e- Northeast Passage’s official communications systems BBtion with its com- The two Beluga heavy mail to the Russian adminis- exit in a westerly direction at Seacor Marine – 16 munications providers, lift project carriers tration that they had reached by the Russian administra- Iridium and H2OSatellite, involved in the journey a position at 70° 16.7’ North – tion, on September 12, 2009, has confirmed that it has used the Iridium OpenPort 057° 33.4’ East as they com- with its sister vessel MV software managed to successfully system, supplied by pleted the voyage. Beluga Foresight following maintain satellite connec- on September 16, 2009. tivity and communications The vessels arrived Improving maritime software reliability during its recent transit of safely in Rotterdam on using rejuvenation – 26 the Northeast Passage, the September 19th. Cutting costs and carbon first commercial shipping Passage through the with vessel optimisation – company to do so without waterway is only possible icebreakers. during a six to eight week 28 This route offers a sig- period between August and Online voyage risk nificant reduction in dis- September, when ice has assessment tool tance for vessels travelling thawed sufficiently to allow launched by BIMCO from Asia to Europe, with vessels like the Beluga pair Beluga Shipping noting to navigate the route safely. – 30 that it was able to cut 4,000 “By the completion of nautical miles off the jour- the Northeast Passage electronics and ney from South Korea to transit, and previously the navigation Rotterdam compared with safe offloading of the cargo transit via the Suez canal. in a rather remote area in "We are all very proud Siberia, we have opened LRIT system approved for use on US- and delighted to be the the gate to a seaway which flagged vessels by Coast Guard– 35 first Western shipping will further gain in impor- company which has suc- The route from Korea to Rotterdam via the Northeast tance in the future,” said ENC licensing needs industry Passage (in blue) cut 4,000 nautical miles off a similar cessfully transited the leg- Mr Stolberg. agreement – UKHO – 37 journey via the Suez Canal (in red) endary Northeast Passage and delivered (our) cargo Arctic Beyond the minimum – safely through this extraor- H2OSatellite, for voice The MV Beluga communication how to improve the ECDIS dinarily demanding sea and data links throughout Fraternity passed the Beluga Shipping began – Dr Andy Norris – 39 area," said Niels Stolberg, their transit of the extreme Nowaja Semlja archipela- planning its project to take © 2009 DUALOG AS. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. ALL RIGHTS AS. © 2009 DUALOG

Michael Mark, Vessel IT Manager for a fleet of 59 vessels, Meet us at Digital Ship Athens 2009 Clipper Marine Services, 11-12 November 2009, Athens Golf Club Dualog® Connection Suite™ - Take Control Copenhagen. p1-19:p1-14.qxd 23/10/2009 12:00 Page 2

SATCOMS

continued from page 1 advantage of the limited summer thaw city of Surgut, Russia. window more than 12 months ago. The specialist ice class E3 heavy lift car- In addition to consultations by Beluga riers have up to 360 metric tons crane with meteorologists, masters, chartering capacity, and had generators and 44 Vol 10 No 3 and operations departments, and safety power plant modules weighing in excess and security experts, the company of 200 tons each amongst the cargo. Digital Ship Limited approached its satcom provider Having been the first company to suc- 213 Marsh Wall H2OSatellite to advise on which equip- cessfully use the Northeast Passage as a London E14 9FJ, U.K. ment to carry to run its communications commercial route, Beluga Shipping www.thedigitalship.com at Arctic latitudes. This led to the decision believes that the opportunity to cut great to install the Iridium OpenPort. distances off the common route through PUBLISHER “We knew that Iridium OpenPort was the Suez Canal will mean that others Stuart Fryer the only choice for full coverage in those might soon follow. extreme regions where other systems are “Travelling the Northeast Passage is an EDITOR patchy or non-existent,” said Robert ambitious and worthwhile project since it Rob O'Dwyer: Tel: +44 (0)20 7510 4940 Kenworthy, managing director of offers great advantages for saving time, email: [email protected] H2OSatellite. bunker and thereby money, but also “The system allowed Beluga Shipping reducing environmentally harmful emis- CONFERENCE PRODUCERS to stay in constant touch with its vessels, sions which have to be decreased in the Karl Jeffery: Tel: +44 (0)20 7510 4935 which is essential for safety and security maritime sector,” said Mr Stolberg. ‘The crew were able to send and receive email: [email protected] in an area with drifting ice fields, ridges “The possibility of a direct seaway e-mail and SMS’ – Robert Kenworthy, H2OSatellite Cathy Hodge: Tel +44 (0) 20 7510 4945 and freezing temperatures.” connecting the prosperous European and email: [email protected] “Beluga also has a strong crew welfare Asian markets offers unmatched oppor- focus and the Mail4Crew service (provid- tunities for both strong cargo trade and areas of the planet. ADVERTISING ed by H2O) means that during their much efficient sea traffic, and Beluga Shipping “The Beluga ships provided an excel- Ria Kontogeorgou: Tel: +44 (0)20 7510 4931 needed breaks, the crew were able to send was determined to make the possibility lent testbed to demonstrate Iridium email: [email protected] and receive e-mail, SMS and even postal a reality.” OpenPort’s advanced capabilities in the messages, to stay in touch with home.” Iridium's Greg Ewert, executive vice extreme northern latitudes where other PRODUCTION The Beluga F-class vessels MV Beluga president, global distribution channels, satellite systems cannot reach,” he said. Vivian Chee: Tel: +44 (0)20 8995 5540 Fraternity and MV Beluga Foresight, expressed his satisfaction at the successful “This is a pioneering product for the email: [email protected] both 12,744 deadweight tons, carried completion of the project, which allowed maritime industry, and it has been proven crews of 15 or 16 men and transported Iridium to demonstrate the capabilities of to be a robust and reliable system for ships EVENTS power plant equipment destined for the the OpenPort in some of the more remote anywhere on the high seas.” DS Diana Leahy Engelbrecht Tel: +44 (0)118 931 3109 email: [email protected] SpeedCast partnership to aid Orange Asia expansion CONSULTANT WRITER Dr Andy Norris (navigation) www.orange.com On the maritime side, this partnership Asia Pacific, Orange Business Services. [email protected] www.speedcast.com has included the delivery of a maritime “This integration is a business-critical VSAT network supporting the world’s benefit to our customers, enabling seam- DIGITAL SHIP SUBSCRIPTIONS Orange Business Services is expandingits largest offshore company, with a fleet less and robust communications regard- GBP £150 per year for 10 issues satellite and support services in Asia of more than 200 existing offshore sup- less of geography.” Subscribe online at through an extended partnership with ply vessels and an extensive newbuild Nick Dukakis, vice president maritime www.thedigitalship.com SpeedCast, which will include access to programme. of SpeedCast, added: "The synergies or contact Stephan Venter on SpeedCast's local testing facilities as “We are very pleased to be able to between the two companies are very evi- [email protected], well as installation and engineering sup- build on the initial success of our partner- dent and very complementary. It is a great tel +44 (0)20 7510 4937 port services. ship with SpeedCast by developing an pleasure for SpeedCast to be working with SpeedCast has been in partnership increasing number of value added servic- such a leading international telecommuni- UPCOMING CONFERENCES with Orange Business Services since the es that can be transmitted (over satellite), cations company as Orange Business DIGITAL SHIP ATHENS second half of 2007, helping the company such as VoIP, ERP, e-mail and video Services, and to be able to provide them Athens Golf Club expand its satellite and support services among others,” said Eric Ng, vice presi- with the satellite and support services they November 11-12, 2009 across Asia. dent, global communications solutions, need for their expansion across Asia.”

DIGITAL SHIP CYPRUS St Raphael Hotel & Resort February 3-4, 2010 CBM, Intelsat and iDirect in maritime VSAT agreement

www.intelsat.com Evolution X5 Satellite Router and a marine single provider,” said Bill McKinnell, Printed by www.idirect.net stabilised antenna designed by Marine vice president of CBM. The Manson Group Ltd www.marine-technologies.com Technologies to operate in both Ku-band “Intelsat’s robust infrastructure offered Reynolds House 8 Porters' Wood and C-band. us the cost-effective, scalable and resilient Valley Road Industrial Estate Intelsat and CBM Communications (an Designed specifically to run over this transmission network we required as we St Albans affiliate of Marine Technologies) have network, the CBM Communications appli- looked to launch our Global Broadband IP Hertz AL3 6PZ announced a multi-year agreement cations available with the service employ a platform.” U.K. whereby Intelsat will supply global Ku- proprietary data consolidation and com- Frode Klepsvik, vice president, Marine and C-band transmission facilities for pression technology, which CBM says Technologies, added: "Our expanded No part of this publication may be repro- CBM as it launches its Global Broadband makes them 10 to 100 times more band- service is based on years of experience duced or stored in any form by any mechanical, electronic, photocopying, IP platform, based on iDirect technology. width efficient than standard onboard serving the most demanding needs in the recording or other means without the This new service, launched at the applications. maritime industry and is designed to prior written consent of the publisher. Digital Ship Singapore 2009 conference, Applications are bundled onto a net- transform VSAT networking into an inte- Whilst the information and articles in will operate with capacity on eight satel- work server installed onboard and can be gration and productivity tool to improve Digital Ship are published in good faith lites, as well as utilising Intelsat’s managed remotely. business operations.” and every effort is made to check accura- GlobalConnex Network Broadband man- “Seamless connectivity for remote “iDirect is the only platform with the cy, readers should verify facts and state- aged service, which leverages the satellite locations needing to communicate with intelligence inside to make this new ments direct with official sources before acting on them as the publisher can operator’s global teleport, fibre and satel- headquarters - or each other - is critical service model work thanks to its TDMA- accept no responsibility in this respect. lite network. when seeking to achieve operational based shared network model, advanced Any opinions expressed in this maga- The GlobalBroadband VSAT network success. Now (we are) able to offer an Group Quality of Service capabilities, zine should not be construed as those is built on the iDirect Intelligent Platform, industry-leading IP network that will mobility features and network manage- of the publisher. with vessels to be equipped with iDirect's meet these requirements, all from a ment tools."

Digital Ship November 2009 page 2 p1-19:p1-14.qxd 23/10/2009 12:00 Page 3

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ÅLESUND OSLO SINGAPORE HOUSTON SEATTLE LONDON REYKJAVIK p1-19:p1-14.qxd 23/10/2009 12:00 Page 4

SATCOMS NEWS

FB 8k and 16k streaming Thrane reaches 5,000 FB terminals available from Vizada www.thrane.com December 2007. space of time reflects how quickly The 5,000th terminal, a SAILOR 500 FleetBroadband has been accepted and www.vizada.com Thrane & Thrane reports that it has FleetBroadband, was delivered to one also how end-users appreciate the quality completed shipment of its 5,000th of its UK-based Master Distributors, and reliability of SAILOR products," com- Vizada has announced that has intro- FleetBroadband terminal, less than NSSL Ltd. mented Walther Thygesen, CEO, Thrane duced two new lower streaming IP service two years since deliveries started in "Reaching this milestone in such a short & Thrane. rates made available by Inmarsat to run "The market for FleetBroadband contin- over FleetBroadband. ues to grow and, based on the perform- These services, which came into effect ance of SAILOR terminals so far, we hope on 1 October 2009, will offer two new, sep- to hit the next milestone of 10,000 termi- arately billed streaming classes at 8 kbps nals much earlier than expected." and 16 kbps. Thrane & Thrane originally introduced The streaming IP packages are the first FleetBroadband 500 terminal designed to operate over the when the service was launched in FleetBroadband 500 and 250 terminals, November 2007, and was also involved in and will not be offered on the the development of key components in the FleetBroadband 150. system's ground infrastructure. The services will be available automati- June 2009 saw the company complete cally to all existing SIM cards where the the full family of FleetBroadband termi- streaming rate is 16 kbps or greater, with nals, with the FB150 joining the FB500 new SIM card activations able to select and FB250. these services via a dropdown box in "The highly regarded SAILOR name Vizada's 'The Source' software system. and being first to market was of course an Streaming services will be billed per advantage in reaching the 5,000 terminal minute for 8 kbps increments, but the milestone so quickly, but SAILOR uplink/downlink can be selected in 1 kbps FleetBroadband quickly proved itself as granularity up to 64 kbps. Selection of the the FleetBroadband terminal of choice 8 and 16 kbps services is done via AT com- because of its ease of installation, high per- mands (a set of low-level commands used formance and ability to withstand the to control modems). harsh maritime environment and continue Other services from the same terminal to operate reliably," noted Scott McBride, are still available while running the 8 kbps Walther Thygesen, Thrane & Thrane, and Scott McBride, NSSL, commercial director, NSSL Ltd. or 16 kbps streaming. celebrate the deal for Thrane’s 5,000th FleetBroadband system Inmarsat and VSAT combined by World-Link

www.shipsat.com VSAT antenna (60 cm) with auto switch- ing, and includes a FleetBroadband 150 or World-Link Communications reports that Iridium OpenPort system to be used as a it has launched a new combined Inmarsat back up in areas where VSAT coverage is and VSAT managed communications marginal. service for the shipping industry, called World-Link says that it will aim the ShipSat. ShipSat service at vessels in the "high end This broadband IP solution integrates of merchant shipping" looking for a global Ku-band VSAT and Inmarsat’s L-band IP solution. services to deliver global IP access, least- Service rates are tiered to accommodate cost-routing (LCR) and switching capabil- ships that already have Fleet or ities among Inmarsat FleetBroadband, FleetBroadband systems onboard, but are VSAT and other wireless broadband tech- looking to add VSAT capabilities. ShipSat nologies including Iridium OpenPort, 3G, plans start at $1,850 per month, including WiFi, and WiMax, for a flat monthly fee. a VSAT 256kbps/128kbps service plus a The various technologies are integrated FleetBroadband 150 or an Iridium through the ShipSat 'Gatekeeper', which OpenPort with a 36 month contract. performs switching, security, routing and “We saw that our customers are LCR services. demanding flat fee broadband access Designed and developed by World- that is offered today by Ku- VSAT; Link, the Gatekeeper features a number of shipping also requires the global reliabili- communication management functions, ty of the Inmarsat system,” said including a firewall that limits access Asad Salameh, president of World-Link based on users and available networks, Communications. compression of up to 80 per cent, black "ShipSat marries VSAT and Inmarsat in and white lists of web sites, advertising a cost efficient solution that delivers relia- blocking on web browsing, and switching bility and cost predictability to the mer- and routing between different services. chant shipping community. We are confi- I\Zil`kd\ek The Gatekeeper also acts as a central dent that ship owners and managers are hub onboard that links the ship to the primed to enhance their vessel operations shore network via secure encrypted tun- by the opportunities presented by nels, and manages billing of different serv- ShipSat’s broadband reliable capabilities." ices onboard, including e-mail and crew "Whether it is enhanced data security, N`k_e\n

Digital Ship November 2009 page 4 p1-19:p1-14.qxd 23/10/2009 12:00 Page 5

Digital Ship Clipper Tankers to install mini-VSAT Iridium certifies satellite phone docking station

www.kvh.com the crew onboard will use to perform www.iridium.com ly in an emergency. TracPhone V7 hardware installations "With innovative tools provided by Clipper Marine Services of Copenhagen, going forward. Iridium has certified the SatDOCK 9555 Iridium partners, such as the new Beam Denmark, has agreed a deal with KVH The on-shore IT team will then follow fully-integrated docking station for the SatDOCK, customers have the global to install the TracPhone V7 mini-VSAT each installation remotely, installing the Iridium 9555 satellite phone from Beam access they've grown accustomed to with system aboard its fleet. Dualog software once the system is Communications, one of the first fully- Iridium but with powerful features, such Over the coming months, 22 Clipper online. integrated Iridium 9555 docking stations as continual charging, immediate porta- Tankers’ vessels will be equipped with “We are excited to field the mini- to receive certification. bility and instant data connections, to KVH’s 60 cm antenna, to carry multiple VSAT Broadband service on Clipper The SatDOCK provides a semi-perma- expand and enhance their user experi- voice service lines, broadband internet, Tankers following an extensive and nent installation, using echo cancelling ence," said Greg Ewert, executive vice e-mail, and data access. successful field testing programme. and full duplex technologies for enhanced president, global distribution channels, “Prior to installing the TracPhone These vessels travel among ports voice quality, while also featuring intelli- Iridium. V7, we were using an F77 antenna worldwide, carrying a wide range of gent software and hardware management. "The Iridium 9555 satellite phone is truly and the Inmarsat Fleet service,” says materials, and require dependable, It provides a secure locking mechanism a reliable, critical, global lifeline for cus- Michael Mark, vessel IT manager for affordable satellite communications in with protection for the handset, though tomers because it is used where no other Clipper Group. order to function at their best,” said the phone can be removed almost instant- form of communications is available." “We chose to switch to mini- Svend Lykke Larsen, managing director VSAT Broadband because it is a more of KVH Europe. affordable solution and also offers “The TracPhone V7 and mini-VSAT Intellian launches FB range us more advantages for support and Broadband provide these services at such crew retention.” an affordable cost that Clipper is now www.intelliantech.com gle coaxial cable is required for connection Clipper will continue to use Inmarsat able to use communications as a crew to below deck equipment (BDE). services in conjunction with the mini- retention tool, a critical benefit in an Intellian Technologies has launched its Intellian has suggested retail prices of VSAT, with use of the different systems increasingly competitive industry.” line of FleetBroadband antennas with bun- $18,995, $12,995 and $7,495 for the FB500, to be managed by the Dualog software “Thanks to their choice to deploy dled airtime programmes, the f-series. FB250 and FB150, respectively. package. Dualog software to integrate the mini- The new Intellian FleetBroadband “We are happy to partner with Thrane Clipper's field installation pro- VSAT Broadband service with existing antennas are designed by Thrane & & Thrane and provide Intellian customers gramme for its office-based vessel IT onboard systems, Clipper’s satellite Thrane, and the range features all three an Inmarsat solution that is well tested employees was provided by Polaris communications solution is not FleetBroadband models, including the and meets Intellian’s rigorous quality Electronics, KVH’s Danish distributor, only more affordable than other options, FB150. requirements,” said Eric Sung, president after which the Clipper employees creat- it’s more convenient and efficient The f-series systems include a plug and and CEO of Intellian Technologies. ed their own installation guides, which as well.” play IP handset with a 2.2-inch colour The company says that it plans to offer screen, with echo cancellation and noise the systems in conjunction with its suppression software also included. A sin- Satellite TV and VSAT antennas. Radio Holland expands VSAT coverage

www.radiohollandgroup.com have VSAT connectivity across all major global shipping routes Radio Holland has become the latest mar- “While Radio Holland traditionally is itime VSAT provider to sign an agreement known as a supplier of navigation and to offer VSAT coverage under the Ku- communication equipment, our strategic band footprint of the Telstar T11N satel- focus now and in the future is directed lite. towards services such as providing con- The T11N offers Ku-band satellite cov- nectivity and managed services agree- erage with an Atlantic Ocean beam, cover- ments,” said Dé Slager, CEO of the Radio ing trade routes between North America Holland Group. and Europe. “It allows us to provide a total, efficient This new capability will be used to and effective solution. More and more expand coverage of the company’s Radio Holland becomes one point of con- ‘Connector by Radio Holland’ communi- tact for the shipowner, for a whole pack- cations offering, which it says will now age of systems and services.”

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The T11N offers Ku-band coverage over a large section of the Atlantic Ocean

Digital Ship November 2009 page 5 p1-19:p1-14.qxd 23/10/2009 12:00 Page 6

SATCOMS NEWS Eutelsat and SpeedCast expand VSAT offering NSSL celebrates 40 years with 4mb www.eutelsat.com an Auto Beam Switching (ABS) Ku-band more Ku-band capacity over the oceans, www.speedcast.com maritime service in March 2008. we will be continuously upgrading our The Ku-band system provided by both network coverage to offer our customers a www.satcom-solutions.com SpeedCast and Eutelsat Communication companies offers internet access, video and best-in-class service." have announced an expansion of their voice services for a fixed monthly fee, Laurent Paul, director maritime services NSSL is celebrating its 40th anniversary maritime VSAT solution, with the exten- using a one metre antenna. with Eutelsat Communication, also com- this year with the launch of a new 4mb sion of coverage across the Atlantic Ocean "This is a logical next step in our ambi- mented: "Addressing the high market broadband service for its Cruise IP and and the Americas. tion to meet our customers' demands for demand from ship-owners for extended BroadIP customers. The companies say that the VSAT sys- greater maritime VSAT coverage, and a coverage of the Americas was a further For the same monthly fee as the compa- tem now covers all the main shipping lanes clear indication of the growing popularity important step for Eutelsat and ny's current 3mb service users will now over the Pacific Ocean, the Atlantic Ocean of Ku-band in particular," said Nick SpeedCast." have access to 4mb broadband connectivi- and the Indian Ocean, as well as around Dukakis, vice president maritime services, "This demand also demonstrates how ty across the whole of NSSL’s DVBS2 cov- the Americas and the Panama Canal. SpeedCast. VSAT services are now fully integrated as erage area. SpeedCast and Eutelsat have been in "As more satellites are planned to be a core solution in the worldwide maritime NSSL first launched in 1969 in the UK, partnership since March 2007, launching launched over the next few years with broadband market." providing radio communications for the aero and maritime sector, before moving into satellite communications for the mar- itime industry in 1979. Stratos and BOW in GSM deal Today NSSL is a distribution partner for Inmarsat and Thuraya, and owns and www.stratosglobal.com BOW to resell FleetBroadband from vessel's commercial airtime. operates its own DVBS2 earth stations for www.blueoceanwireless.com Stratos with its GSM solution, as part of a "Partnering with Stratos to develop and its CruiseIP and BroadIP services. bundled service offering to non-Stratos market BOW GSM Service from Stratos Roger French, NSSL’s engineering and Stratos reports that it has reached a coop- customers. helps ensure that the maritime industry projects implementation manager, is the erative distribution agreement with Blue Stratos notes that Wallem can quickly benefit from this impressive company's longest serving employee, hav- Ocean Wireless (BOW) for the deployment Shipmanagement is to offer its customers new communications solution. Together, ing started at the firm in 1984. of onboard GSM services via Inmarsat the opportunity to upgrade from Fleet to we will help make life easier and more “When I joined NSSL back in the early FleetBroadband terminals. FleetBroadband with the GSM service fol- productive for thousands of seafarers 1980s we were a much smaller company Under the terms of the agreement, lowing the announcement. Sixty-five worldwide," said BOW CEO Paul Wallace. with only 35 people located in Croydon," Stratos will resell BOW's GSM service to Wallem-managed vessels are now Stratos president and CEO Jim Parm he recalls. existing Stratos customers, under the equipped with BOW GSM. added: "As demonstrated by Wallem's "In those days we mostly sold ship brand name ‘BOW GSM Service from The vessel system includes onboard adoption of our new solution, this new radio systems and I started work as a Stratos’. pico cells, a gateway and a FleetBroadband agreement with BOW adds convenience project engineer. For me the big change at Existing BOW customers using BOW's terminal, which can also be used for and flexibility to our existing GSM offer- NSSL over the last 25 years has been the GSM system on Inmarsat F33 will also be commercial traffic. Crewmembers and ing. We are always working closely with move to focus on providing end-to-end able to upgrade to the new service, at what officers pay a per-minute charge, as part our technology and channel partners to solutions and the investment and devel- the company calls "attractive rates". of a pre-paid solution. Billing for all help ship managers deploy the most inno- opment of our fully managed DVB RCS The agreement additionally enables crew GSM calls is kept separate from the vative communications solutions." Systems with our own Ground Stations and NOC (network operations centre)." “Over the years I have seen huge developments in the industry, in the Anthony Veder agrees 14-vessel VSAT contract things we sell and the services we offer. If you’d have asked me in 1984 whether it www.shipequip.no T11N satellite over the Atlantic Ocean, one crew network with separate band- might be possible for someone to use a helped the company to come to its decision. width allocations. The crew net is distrib- satellite connected to a modem the size of Ship Equip has signed a VSAT contract "Our vessels are small scale LPG/ uted via Wi-Fi on each deck." an A5 notebook to interact with some sort with the Anthony Veder Group of Ethylene carriers with 15 to 20 crew sailing "One lesson we learned was to have a of super speed teletext system from Rotterdam, the Netherlands, to deliver the regional routes," he said. secure network onboard in place before almost anywhere in the world I would company's SEVSAT maritime broadband "The availability of bandwidth and good installing the SEVSAT system. It is impor- have laughed - but that’s exactly what’s system to 14 vessels. coverage that Ship Equip has on the T11N tant to do this because otherwise the crew happening today." The contract is for Ship Equip's Ku-band satellite in these regions greatly contributed might attempt to connect the existing In other news, NSSL has also recently VSAT solution, and applies to Anthony to our choice of solution. Onboard the ship network themselves, causing possible launched a new 'Crew Card' communica- Veder's fleet of LPG/Ethylene carriers, the network is split in one operational and security issues." tions service to run over the Inmarsat which operate mainly in Europe, Asia and FleetBroadband network. occasionally on routes across the Atlantic. The Crew Card service will allow those "We found SEVSAT from Ship Equip to serving onboard to access the satellite sys- be the best solution after testing two and tem for voice calls, on a global basis 24 evaluating six or seven other VSAT hours-a-day, all year round, at costs of providers," said René van't Hof, CFO of $0.75 per minute. Anthony Veder Group. NSSL is an existing provider of crew "We needed to improve communica- calling cards for different Inmarsat distri- tion for the crew, get better access to main- bution partners, including Stratos and tain and support the IT infrastructure on Vizada, and offers both physical and vir- board and to improve operational com- tual cards for those onboard. munication between the vessel towards "Communications with home are vital the office, providers and other mainland to keep crew members happy and moti- resources.” vated whilst they are at sea for long peri- “The decision to install Ku-band ods of time, and we are extremely SEVSAT came after a 5 month trial period pleased to be able to provide that to our where one competing system also was maritime customers," said Danielle tested. Now both vessels are fitted with Edwards, product marketing manager Ship Equip’s SEVSAT system and a rollout at NSSL. plan for the remaining 12 vessels is being “Our FleetBroadband solution coupled mapped out." with the new Crew Card service means Mr Van't Hof notes that Ship Equip's that at whatever time, wherever the ship, recent coverage expansion, via an agree- the crew will be able to contact home at an The Coral Methane is one of 14 LPG/Ethylene carriers to be equipped with VSAT ment for transponder space on the Telstar affordable price."

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SATCOMS NEWS New VSAT service from rebranded Global Technology

www.h2osatellite.com and is to begin offering VSAT communica- additional services under the new H2O VSAT system is aimed at vessels operat- www.kns-kr.com tions to customers in addition to its exist- brand, and will continue to supply com- ing in European waters, and operates on www.astra2connect.com ing e-mail, virus protection, crew messag- munications packages from various the Astra2Connect broadband service ing and hardware installation services. providers, including Inmarsat and from satellite operator SES Astra. The Global Technology has re-launched under Global Technology, founded ten years Iridium, to complement its VSAT service. onboard antenna has been developed by a new name, H2OSatellite (see page 1), ago, also intends to offer a range of further The newly launched H2OLiteSpeed Korean manufacturer KNS, and can come in sizes down to 60cm in diameter. Bandwidth speeds of up to 2Mbits/second are avail- able with the service, with the hardware and broadband communications included in one monthly fee. “H2OSatellite are con- stantly pushing the bound- aries of maritime communi- cations so the exclusive partnership with ASTRA Broadband Services and KNS to provide H2OLiteSpeed in Europe is a very significant step forward,” said Robert Kenworthy, H2OSatellite managing director. “The combination of com- pact equipment, reliable satellite technology and bandwidth optimisation is exactly what the maritime market wants. Add to that the reassurance of H2OSatellite’s industry lead- ing customer and technical support guarantee and you have a major new mar- itime offering.” Orbit reports $5 million VSAT orders

www.orbit-techgroup.com

Satcom antenna manufactur- er Orbit Technologies reports that is has received a record number of quarterly orders for its marine VSAT systems, agreeing deals worth in excess of $5 million for the second quarter of 2009. The company’s portfolio of marine systems includes Ku-, C- and X-band VSAT, installed onboard a wide variety of vessels. "We anticipate that in the near future, every moving platform such as a ship or train will have broadband connectivity capability," said Avi Cohen, Orbit CEO. "We believe this to be the inevitable consequence of the ever increasing ‘staying connected’ demand. Orbit is certain to benefit from this growth." "As we continue to add value to our customers, we enjoy very high demand lev- els for Orbit's VSAT."

Digital Ship November 2009 page 8 p1-19:p1-14.qxd 23/10/2009 12:00 Page 9

Digital Ship FB cost control from Skymira Furuno to launch VSAT antenna in 2010 www.furuno.com 2008, offering multi-regional Ku-band to www.skymira.com customer-specified proper uses, these globally trading vessels. SafeComNet also charges can be more effectively managed. Furuno reports that its new Ku-band now offers FleetBroadband as part of its Skymira has released its new SAILOR 150 “Finally, the maritime industry has an VSAT antenna for maritime broadband overall communications offering. FleetBroadband system featuring affordable hardware solution for accessing communications is to be introduced to the Through this technical collaboration 'Intelligent IP Controls', designed to limit satellite fleet broadband; however, the market in the first quarter of 2010. with Mitsubishi Electric Corporation, the excessive satellite charges. lower cost of the terminal doesn’t assure The new antenna is a result of a techni- company will be able to provide cus- Using the control system, internet lower satellite service charges,” said cal collaboration between Furuno and tomers with its own VSAT antenna as part access and IP connectivity can be con- Robert Landsfield, CEO, Skymira. Mitsubishi Electric Corporation of Japan. of the service, under the Furuno brand. trolled at the satellite terminal to pre-empt “With our Intelligent IP Controls, Furuno entered the maritime VSAT busi- The antenna has a 1.5m diameter, a improper use or abuse that can result in there is a far less chance of getting ness with its SafeComNet service in October height of 1.7m, and weighs 165 kilograms. excessive carrier charges. one of those shockingly expensive satel- The company says that, by locking in lite bills.” NASDAQ warning for Globalstar

www.globalstar.com days, or until March 29, 2010, to regain compliance. To do this the bid price of the Globalstar has received notice from the company's common stock must return to a NASDAQ informing the company that its closing price of $1.00 per share or more for share price has dropped below the level a minimum of 10 consecutive business required for compliance with its listing days before this date. rules, and that it faces a possible delisting If this does not occur Globalstar if compliance is not re-established. will be eligible for an additional 180 The notification from NASDAQ was calendar day compliance period if it due to the fact that, for 30 consecutive meets the NASDAQ Capital Market ini- business days before 29th September 2009, tial listing criteria, except for the bid the bid price of Globalstar common stock price requirement. had closed below the minimum $1.00 per If Globalstar is not eligible for this share NASDAQ requirement for contin- additional compliance period, NASDAQ ued inclusion. says it would then provide written notifi- The notice stated that Globalstar will be cation that Globalstar's common stock provided a grace period of 180 calendar would be delisted. Furuno’s new VSAT antenna will measure 1.5 metres by 1.7 metres

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Digital Ship November 2009 page 9 p1-19:p1-14.qxd 23/10/2009 12:00 Page 10

SATCOMS NEWS

CEO of Globe Wireless. Globe Wireless to distribute Satlink FleetBroadband “They are an entrepreneurial and inno- vative company. We believe the partner- www.globewireless.com distributor of Satlink’s Inmarsat to promote, sell, install, service and sup- ship will be an excellent fit. The initial www.satlink.es FleetBroadband 150 and 250 equipment. port Satlink FleetBroadband equipment. order is fully accounted for and we are Globe Wireless has also made an initial “Satlink equipment provides the full already looking to make an additional Globe Wireless and Satlink have substantial order of FleetBroadband units suite of FleetBroadband services in a cost order in the near term.” announced the signing of an agreement following this marketing and distribution effective, robust, and reliable package,” Faustino Velasco, CEO of Satlink whereby Globe Wireless will act as a agreement, which allows Globe Wireless commented Frank Coles, president and added: “Globe Wireless has an excellent reputation in the market, and proven sales and instal- lation abilities. We are very pleased to have a recognised name in the maritime indus- try promoting and servicing our products. We are also very pleased with their initial order, that will keep us busy.” CommBox integrated with Riverbed

www.virtek.no On Board www.zycko.no Virtek Communication reports that it has agreed an OEM agreement with and Norwegian IT distributor Zycko, which will include its CommBox technology in an In Touch embedded solution with the Riverbed WAN optimisation 3 voice lines system. Zycko already offers high speed data Riverbed Steelhead optimisa- tion products, and has suc- lowest cost cessfully integrated this tech- easy to install nology with the CommBox to offer solutions for customers pole-to-pole global coverage using IP over satellite links. The CommBox is implement- ed as an integrated part, as a virtual machine, on the Riverbed Service Platform (RSP). The system can be used to manage data communications for maritime vessels, and ® Zycko says that the combined OpenPort solution with the Riverbed Iridium system improves data com- munication significantly. Enabling communication at sea, everywhere "The throughput increases considerably, and the cus- tomers avoid paying for a bandwidth upgrade to their lease plan on their VSAT ter- minals. Web traffic alone is cut by as much as 90 per cent," said Odd Fjeldstad, product developer at Zycko. "CommBox gives Riverbed a solution for http/https proxy, which reduces the need for band- width and makes the brows- ing experience significantly better. In addition, the solu- tion includes features such as least cost routing, roam- iridiumopenport.com ing e-mail, carrier switching and more. It is also possible to use CommBox as a web filter, firewall and access control."

Digital Ship November 2009 page 10 p1-19:p1-14.qxd 23/10/2009 12:00 Page 11

Digital Ship KVH and On-Waves to offer GSM over mini-VSAT

www.kvh.com or of the ship, and below decks hardware phones for granted on land, but the mar- "With a dramatically larger Atlantic www.on-waves.com used to transmit calls over the mini-VSAT itime industry has been without these con- service region, the benefits of the mini- Broadband network via the 60cm antenna. veniences for far too long." VSAT Broadband network and our KVH and On-Waves have reached an "By pairing On-Waves' picocell technol- “By joining our efforts, On-Waves and TracPhone V7 satellite communication agreement to offer GSM services to the ogy with the TracPhone V7 and our global KVH can now bridge this gap and bring system are now available to and practical maritime industry via KVH's mini-VSAT mini-VSAT Broadband network, we are the very best satellite communications to for an even larger number of commercial Broadband system. essentially turning leisure and commercial crew, staff and guests.” maritime operators," remarked Brent C. The system will connect KVH's vessels into secure maritime cell towers," This move comes on the back of KVH’s Bruun, KVH's vice president of sales and TracPhone V7 satellite communications said Martin Kits van Heyningen, chief recent announcement of a further expan- business development. system with the On-Waves maritime cell executive officer of KVH. sion of coverage for its mini-VSAT service, "At the same time, the addition of phone service, to allow people on board "The addition of GSM and CDMA cell extending its reach in the Atlantic Ocean. expanded Atlantic coverage moves us ships to use their own cell phones to make phone service will expand the versatility The service was previously available another step closer to our goal of making a and receive calls by inserting an On- of our TracPhone V7 and the mini-VSAT only in the North Atlantic shipping lanes seamless global broadband communica- Waves SIM card. Broadband network and increase their between Europe and North America. The tions service available to mariners who The service offers a fixed price per value to ship owners and operators who new coverage area reaches as far north as seek the affordability of a compact VSAT minute, so users can avoid additional need to stay connected at sea. This is a Greenland and Northern Europe and solution." charges, though customers preferring to huge improvement in the convenience of extends south to support vessels travelling This expansion follows on the back of use their own cellular service companies maritime communications, and we're to the Mediterranean, north-western other recent coverage area additions in the will be able to avail of maritime roaming happy to work with On-Waves to bring it Africa, and approaching the northern last few months, with the company having agreements with over 450 GSM and CDMA to our customers." coast of Brazil. previously announced extended coverage service providers around the globe. Constantin Simeonidis, chief executive This new service area is now fully oper- capabilities in Australia and New Installation includes a picocell, a small officer of On-Waves, added: "Most people ational and available to all existing and Zealand, and in other parts of the Asia- piece of hardware mounted on the exteri- take high speed connections and mobile new mini-VSAT Broadband service users. Pacific region. New MTN unit to focus on Iridium begins NASDAQ listing commercial maritime www.iridium.com approximately $324 million, being held in trust and made available to retire Iridium has completed the final steps in its Iridium's net indebtedness of approxi- www.mtnsat.com MTN’s approach to the market and will quest to become a public company, and is mately $131 million, and other general leverage our ability to give customers now trading on the NASDAQ as Iridium corporate purposes. VSAT provider MTN Satellite access to the most comprehensive suite Communications. Greenhill & Co. invested approximate- Communications has formed a new of customisable VSAT services, global The investment company behind the ly $23 million in Iridium convertible debt business unit, Commercial Shipping coverage, and state of the art technology deal, GHL Acquisition Corp, announced prior to completion, for which it received and Energy Services, to improve its abil- available today." that its stockholders had voted to approve approximately 2.3 million common ity to offer maritime broadband services Leading the new business unit as its acquisition of Iridium Holdings LLC on shares (at $10.00 per share) of the com- to the commercial shipping and offshore general manager is Bradford Briggs, September 29th 2009, the final seal of bined company. energy vessel markets. also senior vice president of MTN. Mr approval on the deal. “This is an important milestone in the MTN has previously been best Briggs has 15 years experience in the The transaction valued Iridium at life of Iridium, as we take the first critical known as a communications provider in satellite communications industry, and approximately $591 million enterprise step toward securing the funding required the cruise and ferry industry, as well as has previously led SeaMobile's value, and renamed the company 'Iridium for development and launch of our next in the oil and gas sector. European operation. Communications Inc' following completion. generation satellite constellation, becom- "Investment has been going into Holger Ritter and Nico Schlette, both Iridium's existing management team will ing a public company and establishing the strengthening our core capabilities previously with Becker Marine Systems continue to lead the combined company. transparency expected of a company that while expanding our integrated services Communication, will also join the new The close of the transaction and the serves the critical interests of businesses into new markets and channels," said company. NASDAQ listing gave Iridium a market globally,” said Matt Desch, chief executive Jonathan Weintraub, CEO of MTN "With the addition of Holger Ritter capitalisation of approximately $785 officer of Iridium. Satellite Communications. and Nico Schlette and their proven million. At the time of writing common “I especially want to thank the extraor- "In recognition of our commitment to expertise in commercial shipping, we've shares in Iridium were trading at $9.11. dinary team of Iridium employees and our drive future growth of MTN, and the strengthened our management team Existing Iridium shareholders growing network of value-added partners fact that we now have more than 500 overall, and found the right people to received approximately $77 million of who are the driving force behind Iridium’s VSAT terminals in service today, this help build it into a valuable business," cash and 36 million common shares upon success, as well as our investors for their focused business unit will streamline said Mr Briggs. completion, with the remaining cash, faith in us.”

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Digital Ship November 2009 page 11 p1-19:p1-14.qxd 23/10/2009 12:01 Page 12

SATCOMS NEWS

iDirect Global Network Management MCS to implement iDirect for Carnival System capabilities. The iDirect Evolution network will be www.harris.com iDirect Evolution network to support Evolution XLC Line Cards, as well as an provided in accordance with a new five- www.idirect.net broadband IP services for one of its largest operating software upgrade to iDX 2.0. year contract between MCS and Carnival maritime customers, Carnival Corporation. The Evolution X5 supports mobility Corporation, covering internet access as VSAT provider Maritime Communication The service is based on iDirect's newest features for the maritime market such as well as voice and data services for cruise Services (MCS), a wholly owned subsidiary additions to its Evolution product line, the Automatic Beam Switching between ship passengers and crew. of Harris Corporation, has launched a new Evolution X5 Satellite Router and VSAT coverage areas, as well as adding The new managed services agreement covers Carnival vessels under the Costa Cruises brand, which currently oper- ates 14 cruise ships world- wide and expects to commis- sion three new ships by 2012. "In today's maritime industry, ship passengers and crew expect access to a full suite of onboard applica- tions, internet connectivity and voice services," said Rick Simonian, president, MCS. "With the iDirect Evolution platform, we can meet higher service level agreements that provide our customers with the opportunity of offering affordable flat-fee broadband worldwide." C2SAT eyes Asian expansion

www.c2sat.com

C2SAT has established a Singapore-based subsidiary, C2SAT Asia Pacific, as part of a strategic expansion in Asia that has also seen the company sign up new regional distributors and a new manufacturing partner. C2SAT Asia Pacific's focus will be on establishing a network of local distribu- tors and service and installa- tion partners, with Can Traders and Services, Singapore, and Consilium Singapore the first to have reached agreement with the company. C2SAT has also agreed a deal with PT AJN Solusindo in Indonesia for the supply of six 2.4m C-band antennas, to enable GSM service on passenger ferries owned by PT Pelayaran Nasional Indonesia, operating in the Indonesian archipelago. Delivery of the antennas will be made directly to PT AJN Solusindo, and is expected to be completed by the end of 2009. C2SAT has additionally entered into a production agreement with Fong´s Engineering and Manufacturing, Singapore, regarding local production of C2SAT antennas. Production in Singapore is forecast to be in place by first quarter 2010, at the latest.

Digital Ship November 2009 page 12 p1-19:p1-14.qxd 23/10/2009 12:01 Page 13

Digital Ship Controlling costs in ICT

Almost every company needs to have a satellite communications onboard its vessels, but deciding on the type of system and how it is to be used requires a thorough examination of your requirements – ask yourself what you need this for, writes G A Shankar, NOS Shipmanagement

ontrolling costs is a vital part of as one way of reducing our costs for voice the role of any IT manager at a communications with our ships. CCshipping company. The VoIP is like what you are using on There are many different areas where an existing PABX system, provided that it the IT department can have a big influ- can support your internet connection. If it ence, but one of the most obvious and can not then you can have an add-on sys- most immediate is in communications, tem to get your PABX system connected to which, for the vessels, is mainly going to the internet. mean satellite communications. Just like you normally dial ‘0’ or ‘9’ to Satellite communications for shipping make outbound calls in your office, you companies has two elements – shore can similarly use any other number to to ship connections, and ship to shore have your VoIP calls to the vessels, like a connections. ‘4’ or ‘7’ or anything else, that will connect For ship to shore communication, peo- you to a VoIP line. ple these days talk about unlimited usage It can be pre-programmed within the of internet connections onboard. But do system on the router so that dialling we really need it? that single number can have a function Sometimes we can end up wasting time for dialling the ships, allowing you to on identifying new requirements and dial the ships’ Inmarsat numbers directly killing the company with new costs by try- and quickly. ing to provide information that is really You can even set it up to use it on your not required. mobile phone. You can use the mobile We often talk about crew welfare and phone to connect to the office PABX sys- providing these communications options tem, and from there it connect you to the to those onboard, but how many of the ships through the VoIP system. crew have got computers at their home? Of course, it is not perfect. Because it is How many of their family members are through an internet connection, if you are computer literate, and who is going to just using your office internet connection, maintain the anti-virus solutions onboard then there could be inferior voice quality. and at the crews’ homes? We just have an internet connection to the We need to decide whether the basic LES (land earth station). necessity of these communication systems For VoIP you could use a separate is to serve shipboard operations or crew internet connection for the PABX system, welfare, which will influence how we and the quality will be much better. ‘We use VoIP as one way of reducing our costs for voice communications with our ships’ allow and monitor the usage onboard. There is also an installation cost, an ini- – G A Shankar, NOS Shipmanagement Using the computer for work and for tial set-up cost with fine-tuning your fire- play are two different things, and we need walls and doing all of those things. to consider how many more accidents are However, those are minor drawbacks munications partners contributed on the the calls you are making and the compa- to come just by providing more onboard compared to how cost effective we have set-up costs, because it was the first time ny is making to calculate this properly, than is required. found the system to be. they were trying out something like this. but there is the potential to save a lot Once you decide what your communi- Based on my previous experience, So we didn’t really incur any initial costs. of money. cations are for, then you can look at how to when calling a ship with an Inmarsat-B or Normally there are router costs, but as I control and provide the required solution. a Fleet 77 you can save anywhere up to 49 said, for $2,000 you can get a router. And Buying software Something like FleetBroadband can be per cent of the costs of making calls. our PABX system that we already had was Outside of the communication systems, suitable for the working environment one of the latest ones with internet capa- purchasing and running software systems onboard if you have full control from the Installation and bilities, so we didn’t incur any costs in for shipping companies can also be a cost- shore side. start-up costs updating that. ly and time consuming process. You can control internet access by pro- With the installation of this kind of VoIP But even if you don’t have these things, Having looked at various types of soft- viding text only pages onboard, there are system, you have the power to negotiate I think for about $10,000 you should be ware and their usage in this industry, I’m plenty of safe ways of operating web with the supplier on how much you want able to create a complete VoIP system to not sure that I’ve seen even one single sup- pages on the ship if done correctly. Then to spend, you can go anywhere between call your vessels. plier that could provide a top class solu- you can also look at things for crew wel- $20,000 and $2,000, that is purely up to you. The savings can then be significant – tion exactly as per customer requirements, fare like chatting through internet mobile But when you think about it, the cost to our average cost was about SGD$14,000 to and remain fully cooperative and support- text messages (such as with Chikka), or call a ship from shore when you use a telco SGD$16,000 per month (approximately ive after getting the business. Skype for the voice calls, or instant mes- to call Inmarsat numbers, you could spend US$10,000 to $11,500) on our telecom bills, Customers are forced to work with the sages like Yahoo or MSN. $3.50. Compare that with calls through and normally people don’t consider those software that will suit a bit of what they VoIP, which for us can be as low as $1.80. things in their communications costs want, but usually not everything. Shore to ship As an IT person the set-up was very because it is not an Inmarsat cost, it goes in With my previous experience in vari- For shore to ship communications we simple for me, but to make the manage- the office admin account. ous shipping companies, I would like to have plenty of ways to reduce the cost. ment understand and give them the infor- When we go through each and every share some of the most difficult software People always talk about ship to shore mation about how we are going to save on bill you can see that the $10,000 can be implementation projects I have been communications and reducing those costs, the costs, that took me about three months recovered in maybe six months time, max- involved with. so this is a bit different. to explain. I had to repeatedly go to the imum. We could save about $6,000 per The first one involves a PMS (planned We can control the e-mail sizes and the management and keep telling them that month in our experience, so it could be maintenance system) software supplier who voice calls we are making quite easily on this would save on costs to get approval. recovered in two months. agreed to install the software on the vessels, shore. For us we use Voice over IP (VoIP) However, we were lucky that our com- It obviously depends on the volume of taking 35 per cent of the money in advance.

Digital Ship November 2009 page 13 p1-19:p1-14.qxd 23/10/2009 12:08 Page 14

SATCOMS

This company took two years to com- shown on the screen. I think many techies US$7000 to $15,000 per ship. resources behind them. plete the process of delivering the soft- would agree with me when I say that an While cost effectiveness and cutting Identify the resources you have for ware (not including the ship specific data- Excel version of a PMS is more simple and costs may not have unduly bothered ship implementation and training. In-house base), due to the fact that their top man- easier to maintain. managers when times were good, now training is the most suitable solution, agement changed every six months. Nevertheless, I will point out one of the each and every one of us is being forced to rather than outsourcing it to the supplier Our next PMS supplier was very coop- suppliers who is providing us with good cut costs wherever possible. and biting your nails at the end of the day erative and flexible in delivering our service, that is cost effective and includes when you are paying for their company’s requirements, but our company did not minimal annual maintenance charges, Choosing a PMS running costs. have one single person to deal with the with full support. Since I have worked on a number of Identify the actual costs involved – like supplier for support (our staff turnover This company is based in India, with PMS systems in various companies the software cost, backend database cost, was high at the time). more than 100 programmers working for and evaluated many of them, I have a implementation cost, data population cost, At this stage we laid a lot of the blame them, and has developed a fully operating few suggestions of what needs to be annual maintenance cost, airfare for the on the previous existing supplier and ship based / shore based software system considered before going ahead with any marketing person cost, airfare for the tech- decided to find a third supplier, which had over a period of 10 years. PMS implementation. nician cost, courier cost for manuals. Then add 10 per cent extra for imple- mentation and communication, and any unknown or hidden costs. We ICT managers, as the representa- We ICT managers, as the representatives of ship managers and owners, tives of ship managers and owners, must come out and discuss among us the best must come out and discuss among us the best way to assist way to assist our companies to reduce cost in various ways. our companies to reduce cost in various ways. I hope after reading this article you may send me a message, and we can all combine our efforts. Hopefully we will be able to work a system that was easy to change but diffi- They started with software for crew You need to identify what you want together to provide solutions on how to cult to implement. We are still struggling to management, and are now completing this software to do. Keep your company control costs in communication (both implement the PMS onboard the vessels. their new web based software solution needs as the high priority and don’t shore to ship as well as ship to shore), and I often wonder why the costs are so (which I believe one of the major ship- become amazed by the different functions reduce the cost of maintenance. high for PMS systems which do not seem management players will soon have in all that the software can perform. You may contact me by e-mail at: to be very different from one another. of their 20+ worldwide offices, covering Identify the data population time [email protected], or call me on Could any of the software developers tell over 300 ships). required for each ship, and don’t get +65-8161-6794. DS you what is really superior in their system This company charged us about trapped by what the supplier says about compared with the others? US$3,000 to $5,000 per vessel, including their company and what they’ll be able to About the author – G A Shankar is IT To me they are all the same, the only implementation. Many of the other play- do in the future. Check them out based on Manager for OS Shipmanagement thing that is different is the interface ers I have looked at charge approximately what they have already done, and the Pte. Ltd., and is based in Singapore

by RRsat %

Digital Ship November 2009 page 14 p1-19:p1-14.qxd 23/10/2009 12:01 Page 15

Reliable Satellite Communication even during harsh conditions and heavy seas

Unpredicted dynamic weather conditions calls for a specific kind of VSAT that is robust and above all reliable for those requiring constant always on communication, without loss of signal. C2SAT develops, manufactures and supplies innovative stabilised maritime VSAT antenna systems that provide vessels in motion with on-line two-way satellite broadband communication. By adding the forth axis the C2SAT VSAT system solves high elevation problems and enables accuracy and high speed even during dynamic conditions. The C2SAT antenna system is flexible and able to carry reflector sizes from 1.2m up to 2.4m all frequency bands.

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C2SAT, DALVÄGEN 16, SE-169 56 SOLNA, SWEDEN, +46 (0)8 748 01 40, [email protected] www.C2SAT.com p1-19:p1-14.qxd 23/10/2009 12:01 Page 16

SATCOMS Mixing technologies at Seacor Marine

Managing the IT networks at Seacor Offshore Marine Group is a difficult proposition, as the company’s fleet profile mixes the latest in VSAT with radio systems that are decades old. Rick Groen of Seacor Marine told Digital Ship about how choosing where to deploy these systems comes down to one four letter word - cost

eacor Offshore Marine Group oper- tically in the Gulf of Mexico, but, by far, company who was showing me a system “Back in 2005 and 2006 there was a ates a large number of vessels, in most of the boats are in the international for managing the tank levels in the office tremendous run on the crew, they were SSdifferent parts of the world and with arena. That can differ, anywhere from the over the VSAT. But the crews onboard moving from company to company for varying communications requirements. Russian Far East to India, Indonesia, the know all about how to manage those $10 extra in the day rate. We were one of As such the company uses a number of Middle East, or West Africa. We’ve got a things, I don’t.” the first ones to put it on for that, but different communications technologies to large fleet in West Africa, and also ships in today there are a lot of workboats in the satisfy its requirements, ranging from top Brazil, Mexico – anywhere really.” Gulf of Mexico that have VSAT, so that of the line, multi-megabit VSAT systems “Our customers send them around the edge is gone, but crew retention is not a costing many thousands of dollars per world, we send them from charter to char- big problem at the moment with month, to basic radio transmissions where ter, so they still have to be equipped and the downturn.” costs are measured in hundreds of dollars. able to operate worldwide.” “So, since we’re not having problems In charge of these systems, and respon- with that any more, the other driver is the sible for justifying the variances in cost, is VSAT onboard customers. We have boats out in the Rick Groen, director of systems and One of the technologies that Seacor has Caspian Sea now with VSAT on board advanced technologies at Seacor Marine. introduced to cope with the demands of because the oil company requested it.” Mr Groen joined Seacor in 2001 as a an internationally operating fleet has been The VSAT-equipped vessels all have marine projects manager in the Far East, VSAT, which the company has installed wireless internet onboard, where crews and moved to the company’s headquar- on 20 vessels in its fleet. can log in and have access to the internet. ters in Louisiana, USA, in July 2005. He “Those vessels are integrated to the That access is only limited with the same took on his current position when Seacor Seacor network, we get back data and can restrictions as exist in the Seacor offices. created a new division specifically to man- log in to the boats remotely, and it’s all With crews having been provided with age and develop its IT systems a couple of fantastic stuff,” said Mr Groen. the communications options they were years later. “We can do a lot of things, we can be in looking for, Seacor then proceeded to “In 2007 our general manager decided the office and pull up a navigation screen explore alternative uses for the new sat- that we needed a new department,” he from any boat that has VSAT, and we can ‘When you put more technology on your com system, to realise as much value as explains. look at the screen that the boat is seeing at boats, the demands go up’ – Rick Groen, possible from its investment. “Our IT department was in corporate, that time, what’s happening with the Seacor Marine “Crew retention was how we started it, and in the domestic headquarters there speed and everything else. So if a cus- but then we started developing on that were a lot of initiatives going on in areas tomer calls in and wants to know what’s once we had the bandwidth available any- like communications, preventive mainte- going on he can double click on the screen “Being able to see tank levels for all of way, we started putting the CCTV and nance, electronic navigation.” and see himself.” the vessels, we would then need to have things like that on,” said Mr Groen. “I was guilty of a lot of them as an oper- Mr Groen says that he has been amazed people managing that and getting some “We started to integrate the electronic ations manager, but there was no coordi- at the scope of the changes that these types value from it or it’s just useless data, so chart systems with it, and the preventive nated effort on the development. So our of technologies have brought about in the that’s an extra demand on us. You can do maintenance goes through it, but that stuff general manager asked me to head up the shipping industry, noting how vastly dif- extra things but we have to employ more was all an added bonus. However, now systems and advanced technologies ferent the current maritime experience can people to manage these features.” we’re committed to it and I’m sure we’re department.” be compared with his seafaring life. There is also a substantial investment going to stay with it.” The fact that the company is working “This is all great technology, and we involved in outfitting the vessels with Despite the introduction of these new with customers in the oil industry makes have come a long way from when I was a VSAT systems, and Mr Groen notes that processes Mr Groen is wary of going over- running these systems particularly chal- second mate, 21 years old in the Indian justifying that spend without providing board in the introduction of new technolo- lenging, says Mr Groen, as they can be Ocean on a bulk carrier, and the captain serious value returns is not very easy. gies, and implementing new systems just extremely demanding in their specifica- gave me a three minute phone call as “There’s one little word that my bosses for their own sake. tions of what they require. my 21st birthday present, over the radio,” don’t like, it’s a four-letter word called “Video conferencing and a lot of that “Our customers are the major oil com- he said. ‘cost’,” he said. stuff is overrated, I’m sorry to break it to panies, and when they charter a boat it’s “I thought it was fantastic to talk for “We are a commercial company, and people, but we have no use for it,” he said. not on a bare boat basis, they really direct three minutes to my mother. Now we can every time I spend money it’s looked at – “We don’t even use it in the office, the vessels, telling them where to go and see on a screen what’s happening on our and stuff like this costs a lot of money. The between our Houston, Fort Lauderdale, when to go,” he told us. boats, log in to their computers and really crews are asking for it, the customers are New York and Louisiana offices we have “We really have a hard time keeping up know what’s going on.” asking for it, everybody’s asking for it – the best of the best conferencing technolo- with that. We do manage them, things like “On some of the big vessels we have but my boss doesn’t really like it because gy – I think our department is the only one the maintenance and purchasing is up to live video footage of the deck. Once, when it’s very expensive.” that knows how to use it.” us, but since we don’t have full control we had an incident, the next day our- “We spent thousands of dollars on that, over what the vessels are doing it can selves, the customers and the anchor han- VSAT drivers but no one uses it. I quite like it, but the sometimes be quite hard to keep track of dling company were sitting in our board- While Seacor has introduced a number of reality is that people have no need for it. them and stay on top of things.” room, and were able to watch the incident new initiatives to take advantage of its Having things like internet and TV, it can These challenges are exacerbated by happening from four different angles.” VSAT connectivity, Mr Groen admits that be a distraction, but you can’t ‘un-invent’ the fact that the fleet is spread to a wide Capabilities like these have changed the these were only a secondary aspect of the things. It’s there, and there to stay.” range of diverse locations, and the IT sys- way that Seacor is able to run its business – satcom project, with the company origi- On top of the possible distractions tems have to be able to cope aboard ships however, Mr Groen is not convinced that in nally installing the system to make sure involved there is also no way of imple- that could be in any number of far flung all instances these increased capabilities it could keep its top crew members on menting these new technologies without destinations. will lead to improved operations. its ships. incurring at least some additional costs. “Seacor Marine, as a workboat opera- “All of this technology, I don’t neces- “I think there’s great value in it, don’t “We do great things with it but we also tor, at the moment operates about 173 ves- sarily like it, I don’t want to be negative get me wrong, I’m a computer nut and I’m have to foot the bill, and when I have to go sels,” said Mr Groen. “Our boats in gener- but it puts a lot of pressure on us as an IT not trying to boycott the technology, I’d ask my boss to sign off on a million dol- al are below 300 feet, and the crew can department when we have to put all of really like to have it there,” he said. “But lars, he’s going to ask me pretty strongly consist of anything between four and fif- this stuff on the boats,” he said. as far as what drives us to put VSAT on a what we need it for,” he said. “Right now teen people.” “When you put more technology on boat, on the anchor boats in the Gulf of that’s customer driven.” “A portion of the boats operate domes- your boats the demands go up. I had one Mexico it’s crew retention.” “I have companies showing me all of

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the things I can do with the technology, ber of vessels using the HF set-up for basic the price for reductions, but you don’t able to send reasonable attachments, so we but it all costs money. If I had enough communications. get much.” can send data back and forth.” money I could go to the moon, it’s been “We have 20 boats with VSAT, the “It also depends on where we are, in In pursuit of this control of costs, Seacor done before.” other boats all still have the HF,” he said. the Caspian Sea or in West Africa it’s very has looked at a couple of straightforward “We can do excellent things to make “I can still recommend it, if that’s what expensive, it all depends on how much methods to prevent usage creep becoming life safer, and let the crews talk to their you want, but we have moved on and bandwidth we take. We always want ded- excessive in these situations. families anywhere in the world, but we have some vessels where we need to do icated bandwidth to tie in with our net- “First, we can limit the message size, have to spend money on that.” more. With HF, of course the bandwidth is work, so that tends to be more expensive and keep it under half a Megabyte, that’s limiting you to very small transmissions, but we can do more with it.” possible to do, but we need more than HF radio but you can still do quite a bit with it, that,” said Mr Groen. To emphasise the importance of cost and within 15 or 30 minutes you can send your FleetBroadband “We are thinking of having our own value in Seacor’s IT strategy, Mr Groen message and get a message back.” and OpenPort dedicated server where we would funnel points out that, despite having installed “On one hand we have all of this tech- With costs being such an important issue all traffic, so we can filter it and keep it VSAT on 20 vessels, the mainstay of the nology installed that we can play with, but for Seacor in its IT planning, Mr Groen has on hold until it’s decided to let it through company’s communications, even today, on the other hand we still use the relative- also explored the possibility of using some or not.” is the Globe Wireless HF radio system. ly primitive HF system – the reason for of the latest L-band IP-based technology, “I don’t want to restrict the communi- “Around 1995, when the ISM code came that is cost. HF allows us to send messages such as Inmarsat’s FleetBroadband and cations, I want to enhance it, but I’ve got out, Seacor needed to write an SMS (Safety and communicate with the boat, and is rel- the Iridium OpenPort, but notes that it my boss breathing down my neck to keep Management System),” he explained. atively low cost.” would need to be very strictly controlled the costs down.” “They found that the means of commu- The differences in the costs generated to be cost effective in his eyes. To learn more about how the company nication which they had at the time, which by the HF vessels compared with the “On a day to day basis, if you really might potentially use these methods to was basically SSB (single side band radio), VSAT vessels is enough to constantly worked hard on it you could make an control one of the IP-based systems, Mr though there were a few boats with remind Mr Groen of the premium he is Iridium OpenPort or a FleetBroadband Groen has proceeded with trials of the Inmarsat-A and –C, was just not good paying for the improved capabilities of the system as inexpensive as a HF system, but OpenPort system. These trials are still in enough.” high speed system. the issue is the runaway cost, the usage their early stages at this point, though he “Around 1996 and 1997, the only viable “If I talk about a budget for a typical creep,” he told us. says that results so far have been mixed. good solution they could see to have an e- boat, in general these boats have a “What is a nice technology that is not “We’ve started experimenting with the mail based system was the Globe Wireless monthly budget of about $500, give or necessary today becomes something they Iridium OpenPort, and we haven’t got as HF system. This was a dedicated SSB with take, that’s what we try to keep it under cannot live without tomorrow. They may far with it yet in our tests as I was hoping a coupler and a modem, and a dedicated and I’d like to keep it even lower,” said have done without it for twenty years, to, to get a good idea about it,” said Mr PC with Globe software scanning a set Mr Groen. “That includes repairs, main- but once it’s there it becomes needed. Groen. “I have to say that we have only array of frequencies for sending and tenance and airtime.” That creep definitely exists, for any satel- been doing the tests for about a month, so receiving messages.” “The budget for the VSAT boats is obvi- lite systems.” I don’t have enough data to judge proper- Despite the fact that the system was ously an awful lot higher, there’s no other “Cost control is the name of the game ly yet.” first introduced by Seacor more than 20 way around it. Our main provider of on my side of the table. I have no need for “We have two systems in West Africa years ago, Mr Groen is happy to say that VSAT is Broadpoint in Louisiana, and I http and ftp on my boat – we have it on a and two in the North Sea, and two in the the company is still getting excellent think they could testify that I’m beating few of the VSAT vessels but in general we Gulf of Mexico, which we are testing. The results from the technology, with a num- them over the head pretty hard on don’t need it. We want e-mail and to be data has been excellent, it has worked

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well, but the voice has not been great.” “I’ve stayed away from the FleetBroadband for the moment because of the extra cost, so I’m hoping that the Iridium system will work well for us, but the voice hasn’t been excellent, especially at northern latitudes – which is where I would have thought Iridium, going over the Poles and with their 66 satellites, would have been a lot better.” VSAT advice Having been through the VSAT installa- tion process, and having negotiated his company’s own bandwidth packages with its VSAT provider, Mr Groen notes that there are a couple of things to look out for when embarking on this type of project. “Read the fine print,” he said. “We did a lot of homework on this before we bought it, and there can be some suffering on bandwidth on the lower price pack- ages. We have 1Mb dedicated bandwidth in the Gulf of Mexico, and that’s not cheap.” “Deterioration during bad weather is something to really think about too – Communications systems on Seacor vessels range from high-end 1Mbit VSAT to low-cost HF radio transmissions that’s the time you really want it, so think about how you deal with that.” Groen found out after the VSAT systems number of new navigation systems to its to the technical and operations teams. In Mr Groen has also found that, despite were installed. vessels which have helped to improve fact, we are so equipped and trained that the lure of potentially ‘unlimited’ usage “We had another experience, in a ships’ performance. we can respond to anything that happens with VSAT, the systems have to be con- crowded port where there are about 800 or “We got our entire DP fleet on a cen- in the Gulf of Mexico almost immediately.” trolled and maintained. 900 workboats floating around at any one tralised DGPS provider, that was one of Seacor has also introduced PC based “When we first installed the initial 12 time in a small area,” he told us. the biggest headaches we had, we’d had a navigation systems for all of its vessels VSAT units in the Gulf of Mexico, we “We could always recognise our boats lot of different providers,” said Mr Groen. operating in the Gulf of Mexico (though found that the breakdown ratio and the with the VSAT because they always had “Another thing we did was build an not internationally), based on a program management needed to look after them about 10 other boats stuck up close to AIS network out in the Gulf of Mexico. I called Coastal Explorer. was extremely high, basically every day them because people had figured out that don’t think it’s the case anymore, but for a “We went a little further with that and we had one system down,” he said. they could get free internet from the wire- long time I think we could honestly say we worked with the developers of that soft- “We started filtering and limiting some less system! So we had to make sure we had the largest AIS receiving station net- ware to produce an ECS (electronic chart of the ways it could be used and the sup- restricted that, to make sure we weren’t work in the Gulf of Mexico, you could see system) version, that is now on the mar- port calls went down dramatically. People causing collisions.” literally any vessel to about 200 miles off- ket, “ said Mr Groen. had got VSAT on the boats and said ‘oh, shore. Even today, other than the Coast “Since we have introduced electronic we have internet, I can do P2P file shar- Other onboard Guard there’s probably nobody else with navigation we can say that we have ing’, downloading movies and whatever.” technologies anything like it.” reduced our navigational incidents. I don’t Security is an issue that has even fur- Beyond the communications, Seacor’s sys- “We have a dedicated, 24/7 manned want to say 100 per cent, but it’s very ther reaching repercussions, extending tems and advanced technologies division control room, boats can always call in, we close, just a very small one every now and beyond just the vessel network, as Mr has also worked hard on introducing a can track them. Any problems are directed then, and you could argue over whether that’s down to the captain or the naviga- tion system.” “It also creates electronic voyage plans, the crew makes their route and pushes a button and it makes a plan, and also e- mails it to the office where we can analyse it and save it in the database.” Having upgraded the navigation sys- tems and communications systems of a number of the vessels, the next step is inte- gration of the technologies to keep those onboard updated with the latest informa- tion to help them navigate the ships as safely as possible. “We have been working on a system where our control room can instantly send navigational warnings to our fleet,” said Mr Groen. “If we get a report from one of our ves- sels saying there’s an unlit platform in this location, the control room can send out a warning that displays a circle on their ECS and tells them to be careful. Then we can take away that circle from the chart afterwards.” While keeping all of these systems up and running requires a lot of work on behalf of the IT department, it continues to create new and different potential methods for improving ship performance – and Mr Groen wouldn’t have it any

other way. DS

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SOFTWARE NEWS Digital Ship Videotel training videos aim to shock Buffalo Marine completes FuelTrax test

www.videotel.co.uk devices and internet downloads, as well as www.fueltrax.com on DVD. The DVD comes with a support Videotel has joined forces with the e-booklet, where for each video clip there Nautical Control Solutions (NCS) reports Standard Club to produce a set of ten is a chapter detailing the main hazards that Buffalo Marine Service of Houston has short video clips, with the assistance of and precautions to take. successfully tested its FuelTrax bunkering Inmarsat, the UK MCA and numerous The clips were shot using real crew system on a delivery of 1,500 metric tons of shipping companies, that aim to highlight doing real work, and are geared at provid- IFO 500 to Maersk Wyoming. the gruesome potential consequences of ing highly-targeted training points. The test for the 292-metre container ship, maritime accidents. Stephen Bond, Videotel managing direc- operated by Maersk Line, took place at The 'Hazards Series 1' clips each show tor, says that they tackle the key issues of Barbours Cut terminal at the Port of The Barbours Cut terminal in Houston in graphic, and what Videotel calls "some- personal awareness and responsibility Houston. The crew of Buffalo 401k hosted the Maersk Wyoming during times shocking", detail what can happen head on. pumped at the rate of 250 metric tons per the FuelTrax trial when the correct procedures and working “In all walks of life, we see individuals hour, with accuracy measured to less than techniques are ignored when carrying out knowingly taking unnecessary risks and 0.1 per cent between the barge and the ship. ing and reporting fuel transfers takes a task. The same task is then shown being seafarers are no exception," he said. The accuracy of the system was verified away the uncertainty in selling and pur- undertaken in the approved manner and "Take the daily event of driving a car: by Maersk Wyoming’s own in-line mass chasing marine fuels.” with the right equipment. when we are behind the wheel, we can all flow meter. “As consumers, we expect accuracy when Aimed primarily at cadets, deck and knowingly take risks even with our chil- The FuelTrax-based system provides real- fuelling our automobiles, but the marine engine crew, students at maritime colleges dren or grandchildren on board. If with time measurement of bunker deliveries irre- industry has had to make do with manual and training officers, the hard-hitting this project we can reduce accidents in the spective of product type, viscosity, or tem- dipping of tanks and volume-to-mass con- nature of the clips aims to grab the view- same way that governments have done perature. The system can accurately measure version calculations that introduce error. Not er’s attention and depict the potential through the use of shock commercials on barrels and tons regardless of whether there anymore. Ship owners can now expect to severity of the results of some easily television, then it will have been a very is air, fuel, or both in the piping system. receive what they pay for at the pump.” avoidable mistakes. worthwhile exercise.” Utilising a Micro Motion Coriolis-type Mr George notes that the company is now It is planned to distribute the videos in A preview of the programmes is avail- meter from Emerson, mass, volume, density, introducing Version 2.0 of the system, which a variety of ways, such as through mobile able at http://tinyurl.com/videotel. and temperature readings were displayed will provide customers with a web-based simultaneously on a touch-screen monitor portal to access their bunkers worldwide. aboard Buffalo Marine’s San Joaquin, a 23 “Coupled with a fuel product digital Shipbroking web portal online metre tug that pushes Buffalo 401k. signature, terminals, transporters, and When all the fuel had been delivered, vessel owners will have the ability to rec- www.shipbrokerportal.com through RSS feeds. the crew of San Joaquin printed the bunker oncile purchases online once the delivery The company says that it also intends delivery receipt directly from the system. is completed,” he said. Strategic DataWorks has launched a to add further new features over time, “This is an industry changing event,” “It will move the business transaction new online Shipbroker Portal, a free such as blogs from industry leaders, said Anthony George, CEO of NCS. part of bunkering from the deck to the customisable web-based tool for ship- forums for portal members and cus- “This highly accurate way of measur- office where it belongs.” brokers. tomised website update notifications. The system has been designed to "Our emphasis for this product is sim- enable shipbrokers to access various ply to make sure that shipbrokers are types of online information from one fully equipped from one tool," said portal, with applications such as indus- Natalie Ponting, product manager, try news, market indices and online data Strategic DataWorks. "Therefore, as sources all included as standard. demand for new functionality arises, we Users can customise the portal to will develop the portal and gadget roster include any and all of the online and accordingly." offline applications they so choose. It "The Shipbroker Portal is a first for the also features communications tools to shipbroking industry as never before has allow shipbrokers to keep in touch with all information used on a daily basis been their industry community and share available through one source.” opinions on the issues that affect their “The free resource which we have cre- daily activity. ated enables shipbrokers to access a Users can check the time or weather diverse range of online sources, including in cities around the world, view the whatever applications they may want to current shipping indices, search the add, presented to them in one place, internet, store links to their favourite removing the need to trawl through websites and create their own 'gadgets' many different websites and resources."

The online portal compiles relevant data from a number of different sources

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SOFTWARE NEWS Tankerska Plovidba agrees Safeguard to enhance ship software deal for newbuilds evacuations through simulation

www.spectec.net www.bmt.org Safety & Survival Centre, Bureau Veritas, PRINCIPA, Safety at Sea Ltd, Color Line Software provider SpecTec reports that it Work has begun on Project Safeguard, an Marine, Royal Caribbean International has agreed two new deals to supply its EU-funded programme of research led by and Minoan Lines Shipping. AMOS systems to Croatian ship owning BMT Group, which aims to evaluate the “Safeguard are proud to continue the company Tankerska Plovidba. effectiveness of ship evacuation models work started in this exciting project, the Tankerska Plovidba currently has through simulation and other methods. results of which will lead to modification eight new buildings on order, with Currently the IMO MSC.1/Circ. 1238 of the (IMO MSC Circ 1033) though deliveries scheduled to take place in 2010 evacuation policy sets out how long it research on realistic passenger response and 2011. should take to evacuate passengers and times," said Jenny Gyngell, project man- The company has reached two sepa- crew from a ship in the safest possible ager at BMT Group. rate agreements with SpecTec with way. These timings should then be tested "We hope that the results of the regard to a number of these vessels, with during four scenarios - two during the Safeguard project will again lead AMOS software and databases to be sup- day and two during the night. improvements in maritime safety and plied to two new buildings under con- Using data from sea trials, alongside changes to IMO regulations." struction at the Jiangsu Eastern Shipyard computer simulations of ship evacua- Antoine Breuillard, fire and evacua- in China, and two new vessels being tions, Safeguard will then investigate tion expert for Bureau Veritas (BV), also built at the SPP Shipyard in Korea. whether more scenarios need to be noted: "BV has worked on advanced The first two of these vessels are conducted to ensure the safety of crew evacuation analysis for more than a expected to be delivered in January 2010. and passengers. decade and is constantly on the lookout Tankerska Plovidba has used AMOS The total budget for the project is for new and improved simulation tools. for planned maintenance and purchasing just over €3.5 million, with European However, these simulation tools require a across its fleet since June 1997, with ten Tankerska Plovidba will take delivery of partners receiving funding from the dataset generated from evacuation crude oil carriers, totalling over 1.5 mil- four newbuilds with AMOS installed European Commission’s 7th Framework demonstrations for validation purposes." lion dwt, and six dry bulk carriers all Programme, and the Canadian partner "As Safeguard will provide these vali- currently operating with the system. through the AMOS system with the com- funded by the Newfoundland and dation scenarios, BV sees it as a crucial All of the vessels replicate data pany's head office in Zadar, Croatia. Labrador Research & Development project that will give greater confidence Corporation and Transport Canada, in the results of available software. This Marine Safety. will allow ship designers around the The eight partners working with BMT world to design innovative, but safe, pas- Integration for Veson Nautical and DA-Desk on the project include the University of senger ships thanks to a better prediction Greenwich, Marine Institute Offshore of the evacuation performance." www.veson.com a good partner to complement our offer- www.da-desk.com ing. In addition, DA-Desk’s independent methodology, which allows it to work Veson Nautical has teamed up with DA- with any agent or system of their cus- Desk, a provider of port cost management tomers’ choice, mirrors our own as IMOS ShipDecision in India deal services, to provide a new, fully integrated can integrate with any front office or back chartering, operations, financials and port end system.” www.shipdecision.com grate with other maritime IT systems. disbursement system. “A number of our customers are “We are delighted to associate with Following requests from DA-Desk cus- already benefiting from this integration MC HR Management and Stelvio have Stelvio, who have developed a product tomers using Veson’s IMOS system, port and we look forward to expanding the reached an agreement which will that can revolutionise the way ship opera- disbursement data captured by those usage to more of our customer base. see Stelvio’s ShipDecision software tors and their associated agencies manage users in DA-Desk can now flow seamless- Benefits include improved accountability distributed in India by the Chennai-based the business,” said Ranjit Mohanty, direc- ly into IMOS, omitting the need for dupli- for financial transactions, immediate company. tor, MC HR Management. cate data entry by ship operators. integrated and transparent workflow The two companies signed an exclusive Albert Carbone, president and CEO of The integrated system also allows for and operational scalability for shippers distribution agreement during the INMEX Stelvio, also commented: “We are hon- the management of invoicing, accounts seeking to increase their fleet size or port 2009 exhibition, held in Mumbai. oured to be represented by such a well receivable and port disbursements from locations.” ShipDecision is a web-based system respected company with deep roots in the this single platform. Jan-Hein Dissel, managing director of that integrates information and docu- maritime shipping community." DA-Desk services now available to DA-Desk, notes that this new integration ments needed for cargo voyage manage- "I am very pleased that the MC HR Veson Nautical customers include the of the two systems will benefit the increas- ment, with specific modules available for management team has recognised the company’s core offering, Port Cost ing number of his company’s customers shipowners, operators, charterers, and value that web-based ship management Management, as well as Port Payables that have begun using the Veson Nautical other maritime stakeholders. and control technology can bring to the and Data Integration, which are available IMOS software package. The software is also designed to inte- industry.” via the web-based DA Administration “Early on, we noted a growing number System. of our customers taking an interest in the The Port Cost Management service cov- IMOS system,” he said. “Already in 2004, ers the overall process of agency appoint- we had the pleasure of working with ment, pro-forma verification, approval of Veson on a request from a joint customer the advance payment through to final DA to design an automatic integration.” processing and final settlements. “Since then, we have implemented sev- Port Payables pays out and recovers eral such projects together, using more funds from suppliers on behalf of cus- advanced methods of exchanging data. tomers; the DA Administration System is In addition, both companies are believers used for forms review, approval and digi- in making the maritime industry more tal archiving; and the Data Integration transparent.” service links the package with existing “Clearly an integrated system handling operational and accounting software. chartering, operations, financials, and port “We are pleased to partner with DA- data provides huge benefits to our cus- Desk, the market leader in this industry tomers. DA-Desk has a policy of working sector for port cost management,” said with any software solution chosen by its John Veson, president of Veson Nautical. customers. We are pleased to be able to Albert Carbone, Stelvio; R K Mohanty and K Chidambaram, MC HR Management; “Our goal is to continue to add inte- offer an efficient package to the IMOS and Olivier Rukerankiko, Stelvio, formalise the software distribution agreement grated data services to IMOS; DA-Desk is users in our customer base.”

Digital Ship November 2009 page 22 p20-30:p15-25.qxd 23/10/2009 12:16 Page 4

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SOFTWARE NEWS

number of initiatives in the Commission EU looking to electronic systems for short-sea which are looking at these issues," he said. The European Commission has called for of the Commission's transport and energy which can cope with all the problems of "It is something we are very aware of." the adoption of unified modern electronic directorate said there are several initiatives different administration practices, nation- In his comments Mr Pipitsoulis was management systems by EU Member in the pipeline which aim to bring to an end al languages, computer systems and infor- responding to a suggestion from Alberto States to aid in the development of short the reliance on paper documents which cur- mation requirements, but added that the Magrassi, a representative of IT firm Elsag sea shipping in Europe. rently prevails in many countries in the EU. Commission's attempts to find a solution Datamat and a member of the Commission's Speaking at the PROPS Varna Workshop Mr Pipitsoulis accepted that it is not were well-advanced. PROPS2 consortium aimed at promoting conference in Bulgaria, Christos Pipitsoulis easy to develop an agreed framework "This is a real concern and there are a short sea shipping, that the EU force its member states to adopt new electronic systems. The reliance on paper sys- tems is undermining the LEADER IN MOBILE BROADBAND attempts of short sea shipping to compete with road and rail freight, Mr Magrassi said. "In many states it is still the requirement to present papers signed in triplicate to authori- Coverage ties - some countries like Italy expands again! have adopted unofficial sys-

What broadband at sea was ® tems but these are just short- SM ® mini- BROADBAND cuts to presenting the papers SM meant to be – TracPhone V7. in their original format a few Asia-Pacifi c Persian Gulf days later," he said. New Zealand "The European Australia Commission should force Dramatically cut your airtime costs member states to speed up the adoption of modern systems and improve your ship’s operations in order to have real support with KVH’s mini-VSAT BroadbandS–M for short sea shipping." PROPS (Promotional the most affordable service for Platform for Short Sea Shipping and Intermodality) is a three- broadband Internet, e-mail, and year framework project funded telephone! by the European Commission Directorate-General for Transport and Energy, and aims to promote the use of short sea shipping and inter- modality within Europe.

An end-to-end communications Laurin Maritime Fast, low-cost Internet at sea – solution with a compact 60 cm newbuilds to Rely on broadband Internet with speeds as antenna and a fully integrated fast as 2 Mbps down and 512 Kbps up while control unit and modem. get AMOS saving up to 80% versus other solutions. “We were particularly impressed with the www.spectec.net TracPhone V7’s small size and affordable Crystal-clear telephone calls – SpecTec has signed a contract airtime. We are excited to have a new Make calls whenever and wherever you want with long term customer using either of the two lines of integrated voice solution for day-to-day shipboard satellite Laurin Maritime as agents for Anglo-Atlantic Steamship service optimised for maritime customers. communications that is both affordable and easy to install alongside our existing Inmarsat Co., to supply its AMOS soft- ware system for the first in a Easy to install and setup – and GSM systems. This helps to keep our series of five newbuildings. ViaSat’s exclusive ArcLight® spread spectrum business operations efficient, and allows The newbuild vessel technology enables a small 60 cm antenna the crew to use the services to stay in touch Cavatina is being built at the with dramatically superior performance, easy with their loved ones. This is especially Trogir shipyard in Croatia, installation and activation in as little as 1 day! and will be followed by important, because in our industry retaining another four similar IMIO II Seamless global coverage – quality crew and officers is essential.” chemical and oil products Mini-VSAT Broadband is a rapidly expanding tankers, with a deadweight Ku-band global network with totally automatic - Runar Gaarder, ICT Manager for Mowinckel of about 46,200 tons each. satellite switching between regions. Ship Management The ships will have 20 coated cargo tanks, each with a capacity of approxi- mately 3,000 square metres Find out how KVH TracPhone V7 can change your business at: and strengthened to carry high density cargoes. www.kvh.com/digitalship The first vessel is sched- uled to be delivered in December 2009, with further -EETUSAT$IGITAL3HIP!THENS +6(BOOTHNO deliveries scheduled to be completed by 2011. +6(%UROPE!3s+OKKEDAL)NDUSTRIPARK"s+OKKEDALs$ENMARK Laurin Maritime has 4EL s&AX s% MAILINFO KVHDK already been operating with ©2009 KVH Industries, Inc. KVH, TracPhone, and the unique light-colored dome with dark contrasting baseplate are registered trademarks of KVH Industries, Inc. 09_V7miniVSAT_Comm_DigitalShip2 SpecTec software, including “What Broadband at sea was meant to be” and “mini-VSAT Broadband” are service marks of KVH Industries, Inc. ArcLight is a registered trademark of ViaSat, Inc.; all other trademarks are the property of their respective companies. Patents Pending. the AMOS Business Suite and AMOS Mail, since 1997.

Digital Ship November 2009 page 24 p20-30:p15-25.qxd 23/10/2009 12:17 Page 6

Digital Ship ABS and LR agree on common software for CSR www.lr.org announced that, once the testing of the cation of the Common Rules for these two eties in December 2005. They became www.eagle.org new software has been completed, it will ship types,” said Mr Somerville, while also effective for vessels contracted on or after be made available to other IACS members. noting that usage by other members will 1 April 2006, applying to all double hull ABS and Lloyd’s Register have agreed to use “At that time we will welcome any require a licensing agreement. tankers of 150m in length and above and a common software system for the assess- approach by our colleagues from the other The IACS Common Structural Rules for to single and double side skin bulk carri- ment of scantlings of bulk carriers and oil societies to join this endeavour to intro- Tankers and Bulk Carriers were unani- ers of 90m in length and upward, other tankers designed to comply with the new duce a standardised approach to the appli- mously adopted by the ten member soci- than ore carriers. IACS Common Structural Rules (CSR), following two years of work to identify and implement the best of both societies’ existing packages. The new common software draws on different elements of the existing applications, with RADIO HOLLAND CONNECT: AIRTIME ANYWHERE the Lloyd’s Register approach being used for the initial scant- ling evaluation (CSR Stage 1) and the ABS approach being used for the finite element assessment (CSR Stage 2). Testing of the new joint WE C NNECT AT SEA software is being finalised and design review engineers from both societies are scheduled to begin intensive training on the application during October. Once this process has been concluded, each of the soci- eties will withdraw their exist- ing CSR software and all new designs presented to either society will be evaluated using the new common software. “Although shipyards, designers and shipowners have welcomed the adoption of the IACS Common Structural Rules, they have made repeated requests for a similar approach to be taken with the software needed for the application of the Rules,” said ABS chairman and CEO, Robert D. Somerville. “This joint initiative by two of the leading classifica- tion societies directly addresses that need.” Richard Sadler, chief exec- utive of Lloyd’s Register, emphasised that the goal of the Common Rules can only be met if, ultimately, the soci- eties use a common approach to the software used for the evaluation of the designs. “We have moved from ten sets of Rules for tankers and another ten sets for bulk car- riers to a single standard for each ship type,” he said. “Yet the classification soci- eties have developed multiple software programs for each of the new Rules. It is inevitable that such an approach will return different results and FOR ALL YOUR our experience to date has C NNECTIVITY SOLUTIONS shown this to be the case. That dilutes the intent of the Rules and introduces an unneces- sary element of confusion for the designers and shipyards.” In the interests of promot- www.radiohollandgroup.com ing technical consistency and maritime safety, the two societies have also

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SOFTWARE Improving maritime software reliability using rejuvenation

As software systems run for extended periods of time, error conditions are accumulated and the risk of failure increases. Software rejuvenation can help to mitigate this problem, writes Dr Nikitas Nikitakos, University of the Aegean

he use of computers in shipboard tional requirements issues, right across the ods such as restart, rollback and progres- TTsystems is increasing rapidly. Com- spectrum from shipping personnel to soft- sive retry were developed as potential puters are probably used in at least ware developer. solutions, as was occasional rebooting. All an order of magnitude more shipboard In recent years much research has been of the above methods are reactive in applications compared to a decade ago. focused on finding the causes of computer nature; they take place after the software The decision about the use of software system failures. The results of this degradation or the crash failure. is often taken on economic rather than research have indicated that these failures A proactive approach that counteracts safety grounds. For example, the employ- are more often due to software faults than the phenomenon of software aging was ment of computers in an engine room can due to hardware faults. Therefore, to con- reported, first by Huang, called software create significant fuel cost savings since struct a reliable system it is necessary to rejuvenation. It is a preventive and proac- the computer can be programmed for opti- improve software reliability. tive solution. mum operation. Despite the great effort expended in Software rejuvenation is the concept of The safety implications are more diffi- this area, fault avoidance is very difficult periodically restarting an application at a cult to assess. Some in the shipping indus- for complex software systems. When soft- clean internal state, and Huang defines it try claim that increased use of software ware applications run continuously for a as "the periodic preemptive rollback of increases the safety of the system. long period of time, error conditions are continuously running applications to pre- However, since it is so difficult to measure accumulated and the result is perform- ‘Changing a single bit in a computer vent failure". An extreme, but well-known software reliability, this is difficult to justi- ance degradation or even a crash failure. program can have a very unpredictable example of software rejuvenation is the fy in practice. This phenomenon has been reported as effect’ – Dr Nikitas Nikitakos, hardware reboot. Software reliability could be increased software aging. University of the Aegean Software rejuvenation has the same with software verification and validation, Software rejuvenation is a very impor- motivation and advantages/ disadvan- but measurements on the effectiveness of tant way to counteract the phenomenon of Another important factor is usability. tages as preventive maintenance in hard- such approaches are hard to come by. In software aging and system failures. It is a This is the effort required to learn, operate ware systems. any case, relying solely on software seems preventive and proactive solution and, in and interrupt a functioning system. Many important examples of software to be a foolhardy approach. a few words, is the periodic restart of an Usability is a major problem with the sys- rejuvenation came about from the exam- Despite this, it is sometimes presumed application at a clean internal state. tem, since the human interface is at a ples I mentioned: at AT&T with their that software is totally reliable in some cal- medium or elementary level for several billing applications, a process restart in culations since software does not wear out Quality of maritime operators, and automatic operation is a Apache, and the Patriot missile system in the same way that hardware does. software new factor onboard of a ship. software starting a ‘switch off and on’ However, errors do occur, and in a much A quality factor is an aspect of a software Reliability describes the ability of a soft- cycle every 8 hours. more random and unpredictable manner. product which is important to the customer ware system to carry on executing tasks NASA's X2000 Advanced Flight Software is a digital rather than ana- or the developer. Sometimes it is important with little interruption. Since a maritime Systems Program also provides a good logue artefact. As such, techniques such as to both. These factors are the guidelines in system’s operation is safety-critical it example, as it introduced on-board pre- interpolation and extrapolation, used by maritime software development. could be specified in terms of metrics, ventive maintenance for long life deep- many hardware engineers in calculations, The maritime software system is primi- involving factors such as mean time space missions. do not apply. Changing a single bit in a tive, in shipbuilding production or ship- between failure. A great amount of research effort con- computer program can have a very unpre- ping operations, and has many differences Efficiency is another important quality centrates on software aging and software dictable effect on its operation, or may be with other already well-known produc- factor. It is used to describe the degree to rejuvenation using continuously running completely benign in some circumstances. tion systems. which computing resources - file space, software systems. Given the above problems with the The first quality factor is correctness, memory and processor time - are used in Huang uses some sophisticated mathe- inclusion of software in ship safety-critical that is, that a software system actually an application. This is a difficult factor to matical models (Continuous Time Markov systems, the decision to depend on soft- conforms to its requirements specification, categorise and to explicitly specify. Chain) to model software rejuvenation. ware to ensure the safety of a system in our case meaning that it conforms to Integrity is used to describe the extent to Another research article deals with the should be taken with great caution. several operating scenarios. which the system and its data are immune idea of periodic rejuvenation using anoth- Given the fact that every ship is a ‘one The next is maintainability or modifiabil- to access by unauthorised users. In mar- er model (Markov Regenerative Stochastic of a kind product’, the development of ity, which describes the ease with which a itime systems there are many sensitive Petri Net model). maritime software has to be considered a software system can be changed. In a operating data interchanged during oper- A subsequent work concentrates on the challenging task influenced by both envi- maritime system this is very important ations and any modification of these could arrival and queuing of jobs in the system ronmental factors and the user-interface. during the whole development proce- cause severe errors. and on a ‘load and time dependent’ reju- Requirements for safety and reliability - dure, due to imperfect and unpredictable The final quality factor is interoperabili- venation policy. Performance degradation like other so called non-functional require- shipboard conditions. ty. This is the ability of a system to operate modelled by the decrease of the service ments for computer based systems on There are three categories of modifica- in conjunction with another software sys- rate is available in research literature and, board of a ship - are often stated in impre- tions. The first category of modifications, tem, for example a spreadsheet. This fac- generally, the effects of aging (hard and cise and ambiguous terms, or not at all. needed for error fixing, are known as cor- tor is of direct interest for future develop- soft failures) are considered in the model Specifications focus on functional and rective changes. The second category, per- ment of automatic operation of all func- of transaction based software systems. technical aspects, with issues like safety formed by the developer responding to tions on board of a ship. covered only implicitly, or not addressed changes in requirements, are known as Maritime software directly because they are felt to be obvi- adaptive changes, and the third category, Rejuvenation principles rejuvenation ous; unfortunately what is obvious to an which improve a system, are known as The phenomenon of software aging, as In the model that it is going to be presented, end user or system user on board of a ship perfective changes. mentioned above, has been observed in we are interested in deciding if maritime is progressively less so to others, to the Testability is another factor describing the many applications, such as Netscape, the communication downtime can be reduced extent that a software developer may not ease with which a system, or part of a sys- AT&T transaction processing system, in when performing software rejuvenation. even be aware that safety is an issue. tem, can be tested. A maritime software sys- resource exhaustion in Apache, and in the A reduction in downtime will lead to a Therefore, there is growing evidence tem, which has a very poor requirements Patriot missile system's software. cost reduction - hence our purpose is to supporting the need for greater under- specification that contains a large number of Dealing with software aging has been a propose a rejuvenation policy that will standing of safety and reliability opera- ambiguities, is very difficult to test. research area for many years, and meth- reduce the cost. This cost is dependent on

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Digital Ship

the rejuvenation cost, the failure rate and In the model presented in this figure, wider period the time required can be used in probability theory to model the the downtime cost. state 0 is the 'highly robust' state, which the approximately modelled. state of a process at a certain time, inde- As the communication system fails a process is in when the communication man- In the case where rejuvenation is per- pendent of its history before that time. As number of times in six months, approxi- agement (CM) system first begins to work. formed on the software used for CM, the the communication operation is continu- mately once every 45 days, and the rejuve- The time that the process spends at state 0 is probabilistic state transition diagram is ous, we use a Homogeneous Continuous nation cost is small we should perform called the 'based longevity interval'. more like the one in Figure 2. Time Markov Chain (HCTMC) to model it. rejuvenation every month in order to Next, the process will move to state 1, In this case, when the process reaches In a model where the rate (or more avoid a failure. with the change happening at a particular the 'failure probable' state 1, software reju- rates) are dependent on time (ie being a The availability of the ship’s communi- rate (probabilistically determined). State 1 venation is performed at a certain rate function of the global 'clock'), a Non- cation system is impaired when we per- is a 'failure probable' state. (Rate X) and the process goes to the 'reju- Homogeneous Continuous Time Markov form rejuvenation. Hence the rejuvenation After the process reaches that 'failure venation state', state 3. Chain (NHCTMC) is used to model the downtime cost has to be considered. probable' state, it will stay in that state for The rejuvenation rate, Rate X, depends on behaviour of the system . On the other hand, rejuvenation a small amount of time before moving to the time when the rejuvenation is going to be Numerical examples based on these involves a scheduled downtime and hence state 2 (again at a rate that is probabilisti- performed, so Rate X is a function of time. procedures were performed by the its cost is expected to be lower than an cally determined). This is the 'failure state'. After the rejuvenation is performed, the University of the Aegean onboard of a unscheduled downtime caused by a After a failure occurs, a repair is per- system is repaired and the process reaches ship (a tanker) during a 6 month deploy- comms failure. formed on the CM system’s software, which the robust state 0 once more (again at a ment at sea, and were used to illustrate the In order to determine the downtime makes the system as good as new, and rate that is probabilistically determined). results of our study. cost, the 'probabilistic state transition' dia- returns the process to the robust state 0. In this model, without any rejuvenation The evidence gathered by this real- gram (showing how a process moves The repair time is assumed to be expo- action the software used for CM, as time world test proved that the cost in the case between a stable state towards a potential nentially distributed - this means that the passes, experiences software aging, which of rejuvenation for the CM software is failure) of the case without rejuvenation time intervals taken for repairs will not leads to unavailability (with the process lower than the cost of the case without must first be considered (Figure 1). always be exactly the same, but that over a moving from state 1 to state 2). rejuvenation. DS The CM system cannot deal with the communication needs of the ship, and a * A research paper on software rejuvenation failure will then occur. When a failure in maritime applications by Dr ikitakos and Rate 0 0 3 Rate4 Rate3 occurs the CM is completely out of service colleagues at the University of the Aegean can be found at: http://tinyurl.com/digiship. and it has to be repaired immediately. Further information on software rejuvena- When software rejuvenation is per- tion (non-maritime) is available at 2 Rate1 formed, the rejuvenation action is trig- 2 3 http://srejuv.ee.duke.edu, and http://software- gered when the process has reached a rejuvenation.com Rate1 state of probable failure, and so the system is able to avoid such a failure. About the author - Dr ikitas ikitakos is Rate2 1 Rate2 1 Ratex Further investigation of the effects of a Professor in the Department of Shipping software rejuvenation can be done with Trade and Transport at the University of the Continuous-time Markov process. the Aegean, and president of AMMITEC, Figure 1. Model without rejuvenation Figure 2. Model with rejuvenation The Continuous-time Markov process is the Association of Maritime IT Managers

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SOFTWARE

Cutting costs and carbon with vessel optimisation

Applied Weather Technology has released a new version of its BonVoyage System for vessel optimisation, with a range of additional functionality newly included in the software package. Skip Vaccerello and Rich Brown, AWT, explained the improvements to Digital Ship

essel optimisation company would be 1.4 million tonnes of CO2 emis- the use of these averages can defeat the sometimes you can add ten miles but get VVApplied Weather Technology sions, so it's pretty significant.” purpose of forecasting, to a great extent. 50 miles back, if you have the right cur- (AWT) has released Version 6.0 of “Beyond the short range or medium rents,” Mr Brown explained. “It can make its BonVoyage System (BVS) software, Enhanced data range forecasts you use climatological a huge difference.” introducing some additional new features One of the ways that AWT differentiates weather, but when you average weather it “We restrict the size of the area they can designed to help ship captains and fleet itself from other optimisation services is in ends up being very light,” he told us. “If get (in high resolution) to avoid huge file managers reduce fuel costs and curb CO2 the enhancement work that it performs on you're always down at the low end there's sizes – if you got the whole North Pacific emissions by planning the most fuel-effi- the data it receives from various sources. never much speed loss.” in quarter degree resolution it could get cient routes given the latest weather and Raw output data can be quite different “What we did is take ten years' worth of out of control, so we’ve tried to restrict sea conditions. to the enhanced information, with big dif- historical weather data and ran billions of that down so it will never be too big.” AWT claims that many of the new inno- ferences in waves and winds and the simulations, getting the speed losses based “For most ships there’s a limit of vations in BVS 6.0 are completely new for inclement conditions that come with them, on headings, ship types and weather pat- around 300kb, but the files are usually the shipping industry, such as high-resolu- much less than that.” tion NCOM (Naval Coastal Ocean Model) The company is also adding fuel optimi- data, 16-day forecasts which are updated sation into its system to combine with its four times daily, and the integration of 10- route planning, an option that wasn’t avail- years of historical climate data for the plan- able with the previous generations of BVS. ning of voyages longer than 16 days. “With the fuel optimisation it’s not only With this latest version of the software planning the best track across the ocean, having been released at the end of it’s also planning the best speed,” said Mr October, Skip Vaccarello, president and Brown. “Those are really the two biggest CEO of AWT, believes that current market things for fuel savings that a ship can do.” conditions, including changes in fuel “For routing, if you run into a storm and prices and an increasing focus on the envi- have to change your route you can add two ronmental impact of ship emissions, as or three days, and that means you’re well as the global economic downturn, adding two or three days of fuel. With the have increased the potential demand for speed, if you have an ETA window that this type of optimisation system. you’re easily going to make, and you’re “Our number one concern is safety for going full speed, you’re wasting fuel.” ships and crews, so whenever we route a “With the time optimisation it figures ship that's our paramount concern, but out what speed is needed, based on the another driver of the business is clearly cost weather and currents, to make it on time. savings, and on time arrivals,” he told us. That tells the captain ‘you’re doing 20 “As fuel prices get higher these become knots, but you only need to be doing 10’. significant drivers of the business. Just as Avoiding harsh sea conditions like this typhoon is a safety issue, but can also Generally speaking if you’re doing the one example, a ship could use as much as reduce fuel used during a voyage, and consequent CO2 emissions time optimisation you’ll put in a speed $500,000 of fuel to cross the Pacific, and we and then it optimises that and tells you can demonstrate how we can save explains Rich Brown, AWT vice president terns. This created a huge amount of data, when you’re going to arrive.” between 5 and 10 per cent of that fuel.” of product management. which gives us a great tool for determining The other major new feature is the pro- “That's $25,000 to $50,000, and it could “Most people are just taking raw data, what the best recommendation should be.” vision of 16-day forecasts which are be even more than that depending on the repackaging it and sending it out to the “This is done for the whole world, for updated four times daily, which AWT ship, for a service that typically costs ship,” he said. “We're actually making every day, for multiple ship types, contain- says is unique in the industry. $1,000 or less. I've been involved in other changes to it.” ers, tankers, bulkers – there's about 15 dif- “As far as I know all of our competitors technology businesses, but this is the first “We do a pre-process before we run a ferent models we run just by ship type. We are updating twice a day,” said Mr Brown. one where you can clearly demonstrate on wave model to match the winds and pres- keep track of what's going on, what pattern “A lot of people might say ‘how good is a piece of paper the return on investment sure with what the government agencies we're in, and then project it out six months. a 16-day forecast?’ but it’s really used for you could get.” are saying. This can make a dramatic dif- Nobody else is doing anything like this, strategic route planning. If you know An additional benefit of these cost sav- ference. When you're simulating and opti- everyone else is using climatological weath- what the storm track is then tactically you ings from reduced fuel consumption is, of mising and trying to pick a route it will er, this is definitely a unique model we're can think about what is the best way to get course, a reduction in consequent CO2 have a big impact.” using and it's giving us real good results.” around it.” emissions, and with one ton of fuel creat- “We actually getting two different “The key to strategic routing is to see ing three tons of carbon dioxide this can sources of data and putting them together, New features where that storm track is, and that’s what start to add up very quickly. and we've automated all that. When we One of the new features within BVS 6.0 this 16-day forecast is all about. If the cap- “The environmental savings, the CO2 simulate a ship it's 'where is he, and what that AWT believes could make a big dif- tain has access to better data he’ll make savings go along with that,” said Mr time is it?', and we can run the data.” ference in voyage optimisation is the pro- better and safer decisions, which will Vaccarello. “That's another element, the One such data source is NCOM, the vision of higher-resolution updates of reduce issues of cargo or the ship getting whole shipping industry is looking at Naval Coastal Ocean Model produced by NCOM current data, which will allow ves- damaged, or of people getting injured.” emissions so that increases the value of the the US Navy, which provides daily analy- sels to view real-time analysis and fore- The BVS 6.0 release is available with type of service we can provide.” sis of currents with 72 hour forecasts and casts of ocean current conditions at a quar- multiple service levels combining different “This can immediately provide CO2 one-eighth degree resolution. ter by quarter degree, rather than at the combinations of data. Each of the three lev- emissions savings and in fact doesn't cost To improve on this further AWT com- generally available one by one degree. els – BVS Viewer, BVS Planner, and BVS anything, you'll save money doing it, bines the data from this model with other AWT says that it is the only company to Ultra Planner – includes all of the data of the while proposals to do things like putting sources, like, for instance, tidal data, to try offer NCOM data at this level of detail and previous level, but with additional content. scrubbers on stacks are $2 million or $3 and get the most accurate picture possible accuracy, with users also able to request The Ultra Planner level contains all of million solutions.” of sea conditions. further nested high resolution wind, wave the newest features, including the high “When we've estimated some of the This method also extends to the use of and swell data to show a more detailed resolution data of NCOM currents. All savings, as a company, if people around climatological ship resistance models, used view of areas of interest. levels have four times daily updating on the world closely followed the reductions to predict at-sea conditions over longer “It’s very fine resolution, if you get a different aspects of the service, and will be that we've seen, about 450,000 metric periods by averaging out differences in small area of a route that you’re going to available under pay-as-you-download or

tonnes of fuel could be saved, which weather over time. Mr Brown notes that be doing you can really fine tune that – monthly subscription options. DS

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SOFTWARE Online vessel risk assessment from BIMCO

Piracy represents just one of a number of risks that shipping companies must take under consideration when planning vessel voyages. With this in mind, BIMCO has launched AVRA, an automated tool that aims to provide guidance on the level of risk a particular voyage might entail

n Automated Voyage Risk ing charter parties or contemplating dif- into the system’s Risk Engine, and an pirate-infested waters than a small, low AAAssessment tool (AVRA), which ferent routes. assessment of the risks likely to be freeboard vessel, with a small number of provides users with a ship and Collating data from a range of intelli- encountered during the voyage is present- people aboard. A ship with plenty of crew voyage specific preview of security threats gence sources, the system can provide ed on the screen. An in-built ‘traffic light’ and security equipment would offer more that may be encountered throughout a an up to date and ongoing picture of system then provides an instant picture of of a challenge to robbers in a roadstead proposed voyage, has been made avail- the risk realities as they apply to a partic- the risks which the ship might meet. than a ship less well equipped.” able by the maritime organisation BIMCO. ular ship on the specific voyage that is “Each element of the voyage is ‘scored’ “Similarly, in Port A the main threat This web-enabled and fully automated being assessed. separately, (green being low risk through might be that of stowaways, while in Port system has been developed in conjunction “AVRA picks up all the hazards which to red as a high risk), with this visual indi- B the level of crime ashore might be seri- with the private security consultants may affect the safe prosecution of the voy- cation being backed up with a written ous. The informed operator can be thus Aegis and the International Maritime age, and provides all the information that report covering the whole spectrum prepared to take appropriate precautions. Bureau to assess the level of all sorts of is needed to make proper judgements on of maritime crime which might present AVRA provides a new comprehensive non-navigational risk that need to be con- all security issues,” said Mr Noakes. a threat during the voyage,” said threat analysis process that will reform sidered during the full extent of a voyage. “It will ensure that Masters get the most Mr Noakes. security assessment procedures at the While concerns about piracy might be detailed and risk based voyage instructions “It can also be provided as a PDF file, click of a button and simplify the task of high on the present agenda, AVRA con- to operate safely and effectively.” so that it can be assessed at leisure, and re- the Company Security Officer.” siders all other types of illegal activity transmitted to ships.” A team of Aegis analysts has been ded- which may be met with, from the risk of How it works Mr Noakes is keen to stress that this is icated to keeping the AVRA system up to stowaways, people trafficking or drug Mr Noakes says that the web-based opera- not just a piracy warning tool, and that the date, backed by the global round-the-clock smuggling, to the level of crime and rob- tion of AVRA is easy to follow, just requir- additional data available on other risks facilities of the Aegis Risk Intelligence bery in port and at anchor and the prob- ing users to input ship and voyage details can be just as important in planning for System, which covers land side risks as lems of corruption which may arise in into fields on the screen – a process he a voyage. well as those which ships can encounter. some parts of the world. compares to the type of on-line system “It might be apposite to think of AVRA Assessments are also fed with daily According to BIMCO’s chief maritime people might be familiar with when as a piracy warning at a time when this is piracy information from the International security officer Giles Noakes, nobody to obtaining car insurance quotes on very much on people’s minds, with Maritime Bureau, who specialise in this date has produced an automated system the internet. heightened piracy risks in many parts of type of threat, with the aim of providing that will provide such a range of guidance “On page one the user enters the name the world, but AVRA will assess all illegal an ongoing update system, so that users on the level of risk a vessel is likely to of the ship, its IMO Number, flag and maritime activities all around the world,” can be informed if a situation has changed encounter throughout a proposed voyage. technical details, ship type, cargo, speed he explained. just before or during a voyage. “It is very important to be properly “It will remind users of the need to briefed on risks of stowaways in certain apply best security practices in accordance ports, or people trafficking, narcotics with the ISPS codes and indeed, when smuggling, and the preponderance of rob- transiting such high risk waters as the bery and other crimes against property Gulf of Aden, a pop up of the Best and the person in ports, roadsteads and Management Practices for the region will even sea passages.” appear,” said Mr Noakes. “And piracy is to be encountered in far “Our main task however is to present more places than off the coast of Somalia, the facts and the reality of the problems. It with recent incidents being reported in the is then up to the judgement of the Member Gulf of Guinea, the Malacca Straits and as to how this information is used, how it South China Seas. Owners need to know is provided to the Master of the ship and about these hazards.” what additional precautions might be Information on corruption in various taken in the light of the intelligence.” regions is another key area that Mr “There is no compulsion to use the Noakes believes will be of great benefit to information, but it is anticipated that companies conducting business in differ- it will be important and useful to have ent parts of the world. an assessment of the reality of risk “AVRA picks up all these hazards when negotiating a voyage with charter- which may affect the safe prosecution of ers. It then becomes an important com- Piracy is just one of the risks automatically assessed by the AVRA system the voyage, and provides the member mercial tool.” with the information that is needed to So far Mr Noakes says that BIMCO has make proper judgements,” he said. seen a number of various maritime stake- “Effectively a ‘one-stop shop’, it on passage, freeboard, number and “AVRA will give early identification of holders express interest in the system, in enables an owner to stay abreast of poten- nationality of master, officers and crew,” specific threats giving time for preventa- different parts of the world. tial hazards, to fulfil more meaningfully he said. tive procedures to be incorporated and “There has been great interest the responsibilities required by the “No more than two minutes is needed implemented into the Ship’s Security Plan expressed in AVRA by insurers and P&I International Ship and Port Facility Code, to enter this data. The next page requires and reduce the risk.” Clubs, and notably in the United States, and goes far beyond the publicly available the user to enter any details of existing where it could become a valuable instru- intelligence information that an owner has security information, protective measures Specific vessels, ment in fulfilling the requirements of the hitherto depended upon,” he said. installed, such as CCTV, or Long Range specific risks new US Maritime Security Directive, “It simplifies the ship planning process Acoustic Devices, the use of security One of the key features of the AVRA sys- where AVRA ticks all the necessary providing owners and operators with a guards, or intention to use naval tem is the generation of ship-specific data, boxes,” he said. pre-planning tool to enhance crew, ship escorts/convoys.” with the level of voyage risk dependent on “The fact is that AVRA is cost-effective, and cargo safety and security through an “Finally the user enters the voyage the type of vessel involved. easy to use, and perhaps most important, automated web based service.” details, departure and arrival ports, and any “Different ships will present very dif- removes the fog of mystery from security Foreknowledge of such risks enables intermediate stops, intended route, coun- ferent risks throughout their voyages,” risks. Transparency, as represented by the proper precautions to be taken, and tries to be visited or passed in transit, sea said Mr Noakes. truth about the realities of risk, will bene- BIMCO notes that AVRA can also be areas etc. and agrees terms and conditions.” “Thus a fast ship with a high freeboard fit all parties and BIMCO is proud to offer used as a commercial tool when negotiat- All of this information is then entered and a large crew would be less of a risk in this service to its members.” DS

Digital Ship November 2009 page 30 p31-40:p26-32.qxd 23/10/2009 12:33 Page 1

ELECTRONICS & NAVIGATION NEWS Digital Ship MaxSea and Ecdis Ltd form training partnership ADVETO into India

www.maxsea.com exclusive trainers in the UK because of Coastguard Agency (MCA). www.ecdis.org.uk their unique ability to take the training to “We are delighted to form a partner- and US West Coast the customer,” said MaxSea managing ship with MaxSea," said Malcolm MaxSea has formed a partnership with director, Frederic Algalarrondo. Instone, operations director of ECDIS www.adveto.com ECDIS training company Ecdis Ltd, to "The training they give and their expe- Ltd. provide portable training on MaxSea's rience will allow the customer to get the "Whether you are yacht racing, ECDIS provider ADVETO has announced Time Zero software system. very best out of our products." commercial or more leisure inclined, two new partnership agreements that Ecdis Ltd will be the exclusive MaxSea Ecdis Ltd provides training and consul- Time Zero is a superb tool worth will extend the company's presence trainers in the UK. tation solutions in electronic charting, and consideration for all your navigation in India and on the West Coast of the “We have chosen Ecdis Ltd as our is accredited by the UK's Maritime and requirements.” United States. Navtek has entered into an agreement to provide ADVETO sales and service cov- erage in and around India, with ADVETO Worldwide sub-metre accuracy from Kongsberg and Fugro targeting the region as an area of poten- tially high growth. www.kongsberg.com “The renowned ECDIS from ADVETO www.fugroseastar.no and the company’s long experience in maritime navigation makes it a perfect fit Kongsberg Seatex and Fugro SeaSTAR are into our offer to the shipping industry” to join forces in the provision of a new said Shiva Shaktivel, general manager of Differential Global Navigation Satellite sales with Navtek. System (DGNSS) that will offer sub-metre “The timing is perfect with the growing accuracy in positioning on a worldwide number of ships in the Indian waters basis. using ECDIS.” The two new products on offer, DPS The new services offer corrections to both GPS and GLONASS positioning signals Harris Electric in Seattle will also part- 110 and DPS 112, have been developed by ner with ADVETO to offer sales and serv- Kongsberg Seatex to utilise the new Global 'orbit and clock' corrections. vessel categories. ice coverage in the North Pacific, includ- Satellite Based Augmentation System The DPS 110 and DPS 112 are also capa- "Operators have to consider the balance ing Alaska. (Global SBAS) introduced by Fugro, the ble of supplementing SeaSTAR SGG cor- of cost versus operational benefits in “The idea of partnering with an inno- SeaSTAR SGG service. rections with regional SBAS and local choosing a professional DGNSS solution vative, high tech navigation firm like This new navigation service offers DGPS corrections, for increased reliability. for workboats and platform supply ves- ADVETO is exciting,” says Erik corrections to both GPS and GLONASS DPS 112 extends the GPS capability of the sels," said Arne Norum, managing director Sundholm, president of Harris Electric. that enables sub-metre accuracy, and, DPS 110 by utilising dual frequency of Fugro SeaSTAR. “Also, with the implementation of unlike most regional SBAS services and GLONASS signals. "SGG gives sub-metre level accuracy, ECDIS and growing demand for vessel local DGPS services, SeaSTAR SGG Kongsberg Seatex and Fugro SeaSTAR and we believe this will be an ideal solu- tracking systems, it is the perfect time for utilises Fugro's own network of dual hope that these new products will help tion for these kinds of applications where ADVETO to expand its global sales and system reference stations to calculate to extend their user segments to new availability and reliability are paramount." service network.”

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Digital Ship Ship November 2009 page 31 p31-40:p26-32.qxd 23/10/2009 12:33 Page 2

ELECTRONICS & NAVIGATION NEWS

Sperry systems for Brazilian tankers AVCS now available via ChartCo broadcast

www.sperrymarine.northropgrumman.com The four-ship order at the Mauá ship- www.chartco.com est in electronic charts, fuelled by the yard is part of Transpetro’s multi-billion- www.ukho.gov.uk ECDIS mandation, means that all vessels Sperry Marine has been awarded a con- dollar modernisation and renewal pro- must consider how to implement a suit- tract to supply integrated bridge systems gram for its tanker fleet, involving the con- ChartCo has announced it is now able to able policy that addresses both electronic (IBS) for four new product tankers being struction of some 42 ships at Brazilian deliver updates to UKHO's Admiralty and paper products for the bridge." built in Brazil at the Estaleiro Mauá ship- shipyards. Vector Chart Service (AVCS) cells across "With the launch of a service for AVCS yard, near Rio de Janeiro. “Brazil is an important market for both its Broadcast and Select delivery users, ChartCo is again at the forefront in The four ships will be delivered to Sperry Marine,” said J. Nolasco DaCunha, services. supplying update services to satisfy the Transpetro, the shipping arm of Petrobras, vice president of Sperry Marine. The ChartCo Broadcast service, which most demanding of shipowners." the Brazilian state oil company, with a “The Transpetro contract is the latest in uses the Inmarsat point to multi-point Hayley Jopson, head of channel man- complete VisionMaster FT IBS, with a series of recent orders to supply naviga- service, has been operational since agement and marketing at the UKHO, also WideView high-resolution displays. tion systems for new ships being built in January 1999. The more recently intro- commented: "It's great news that ChartCo The system includes a three-node elec- Brazil, including offshore supply vessels duced ChartCo Select offers service deliv- customers can now get very cost-effective, tronic chart display and information sys- and military patrol craft.” ery through broadband or dial-up internet real time remote access to updates for tem (ECDIS), navigation radars, adaptive In other news, Sperry Marine also access, as well as e-mail. those extra ENCs via ChartCo Broadcast self-tuning autopilot, voyage data reports that it has received type approval "We have watched the launch of AVCS and Select services." recorder (VDR), speed and heading sen- from the Russian Maritime Register of and the subsequent growth of subscribers "Between 20 and 30 ships are making sors, and other navigation components. Shipping for its VisionMaster FT marine with great interest," said Steve Mariner, the decision to switch to AVCS every Sperry Marine’s sales and service rep- radars. ChartCo manager. week, and we see our collaboration with resentative in Brazil, Vision Marine, will The type-approval certificates apply to "In the last few months it has become ChartCo as an important step in the ongo- be responsible for installation, commis- its X-band and S-band Cat 1 and 2 models, very apparent from our customer base ing development of the service and to sioning and servicing of the equipment on including chart-radar and radar-only ver- that an update service through ChartCo ensuring it continues to meet the needs of the vessels. sions for high-speed and standard craft. was urgently required. The growing inter- the shipping industry." DP simulator achieves Class A approval Lithuanian GMDSS completes modernisation

www.kongsberg.com shore industry, with the best possible www.transas.com be reorganised, with a focus on greater training tools. The new Class A approvals integration. Kongsberg Maritime has announced that reflect the high levels of simulator realism Transas, and local partner Belam-Riga The modernisation project will ensure its Polaris Dynamic Positioning (DP) sim- and pedagogical value in the Polaris DP SIA, have recently finalised a modernisa- the provision of a constant monitoring ulator has achieve DNV approval, the first and the Polaris Ship's Bridge Simulator." tion programme for the Maritime Rescue service using CCTV, VHF and MF/HF, system to be approved under the stringent The latest approvals, awarded in Control Center (MRCC) at Klaipeda, supporting both voice and DSC communi- Class A standard. October 2009, come in addition to existing which runs GMDSS (Global Maritime cation channels. DNV approval to Class A standards DNV Class A approvals for the Polaris Distress and Safety System) services In other news, Transas has been award- has also been achieved for Kongsberg's Ship Simulator and Kongsberg Maritime's in Lithuania. ed a contract by KASI Malaysia, a marine Bridge Operation simulator, including engine room simulators, which became The project was initiated by the survey, inspection and consulting service class notification of DP, Ice Navigation, the first to achieve DNV approval to Class Lithuanian Armed Forces and includes provider, to deliver a Navi-Trainer High Speed Craft and Tug simulation. A standard, in January 2008. one control centre in Klaipeda and Professional 5000 simulator for research The purpose of the DNV Class A "The Polaris Dynamic Positioning four remote sites. These offices cover and development. approval is to ensure that the simulations Simulator plays an important role in the the whole GMDSS zone of responsibility The simulator will upgrade an older provided by the technology include an recognised and certified DP training pro- for Lithuania. system and provide KASI Malaysia with appropriate level of physical and behav- grammes used by training institutes and The sites will be re-equipped with tools to assess the effectiveness of safety ioural realism in accordance with recog- offshore companies around the world," said new technology, and a new control improvement planning of port and har- nised training and assessment objectives, Terje Heierstad, product and technology centre will be initiated. The communica- bour facilities, and to test and train in the according to new standards based on manager, simulation, Kongsberg Maritime. tions system of the network will also safe handling of ships. STCW Convention Regulation I/12. “Our Polaris Ship's Bridge Simulator, "The Class A standard was developed now with DNV classification for ice naviga- as the pinnacle in simulation realism and tion, is used by many to train on navigation IMSO and Pole Star sign LRIT data agreement quality," said Capt Aksel Nordholm, man- in extreme conditions such as the Arctic ager simulator certification, DNV SeaSkill. waters. For that reason we are constantly "Kongsberg Maritime is a key partici- improving our simulators to harness the lat- www.imso.org IMSO Assembly in 2008. pant in the scheme as the company recog- est technology, in order to add training www.polestarglobal.com The IMSO LRIT Audit Procedures nises the importance of providing its cus- opportunities and value by providing the provide that the LRIT Data Centre oper- tomers, and indeed the shipping and off- most realistic simulation possible." IMSO has signed LRIT Services ator should sign an agreement with Agreements with Pole Star Space IMSO before the audit takes place, and Applications on behalf of sixteen LRIT settle its financial obligations with IMSO Data Centres, which have delegated before the final audit report is submitted authority to Pole Star. to the IMO Maritime Safety Committee. The nations included in the agree- Six LRIT Data Centres were integrat- ment are Australia, Bahrain, Belize, ed into the original LRIT production Bermuda, Cayman Islands (UK), environment at the end of 2008 - Croatia, Faroe Islands (Denmark), Isle of Bahamas, Brazil, Canada, Republic of Man (UK), Israel, Jamaica, Jordan, Korea, Marshall Islands and the United Marshall Islands, Pakistan, Qatar, Sierra States. Leone and South Africa. In addition, a further twenty-nine A total of 22 LRIT Services LRIT Data Centres have been integrated Agreements have now been signed into the LRIT system by IMSO, stretch- between the parties. ing across the world from Jamaica The LRIT Services Agreement, pre- to Japan. scribed in the IMSO Convention, estab- A further nine Centres are in the lishes the relationship between IMSO, as process of testing, and are expected to be the LRIT Coordinator appointed by integrated shortly. This will bring the IMO, and the LRIT Data Centre for the total number of LRIT Data Centres inte- audit and review of each Data Centre. grated by the end of 2009 to 44 overall. A Model LRIT Services Agreement These Centres integrate more than 80 Class A approval is used to ensure appropriate levels of realism in simulation was approved for this purpose by the per cent of the world’s registered fleet.

Digital Ship November 2009 page 32 p31-40:p26-32.qxd 23/10/2009 12:33 Page 3

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YLVLWZZZMUFHXURSHFRPDQGGLVFRYHUDOOLQVDQGRXWV p31-40:p26-32.qxd 23/10/2009 12:33 Page 4

ELECTRONICS & NAVIGATION NEWS Sperry celebrates 60 years of radar

www.sperrymarine.northropgrumman.com descendent of the Decca Company, which Europe and other regions for more than and customer service embodied in our was established prior to the First World four decades. radar product lines,” said J. Nolasco Sperry Marine is marking a milestone in War and became known for its Decca In 1946, Decca started a research proj- DaCunha, vice president of Sperry its history following the recent celebration gramophones and record label. ect to develop a commercially viable Marine. of the 60th anniversary of the launch of its During World War II the company was marine radar product. This R&D effort “Over the past six decades, our R&D first marine radar. responsible for developing and deploying resulted in the Type 159. Sperry says team has been responsible for important August 1949 saw the UK-based Decca the Decca Navigator System, a long- that the company has sold more than innovations in marine radar technology, Marine Group introduce its first commer- range radionavigation aid that was used 150,000 marine radar sets in almost every including the first true motion radar in cial marine radar product, the Type 159, to assist Allied ships in the D-Day land- country of the world since that first prod- 1956, the first anti-collision radar in before the company was later incorporat- ings at Normandy. uct appeared. 1968, the first type-approved colour ed with Sperry Marine under Northrop The Decca Navigator System was com- “We are delighted to take advantage of radar in 1982 and the first computer- Grumman ownership. mercialised after the war and has been this important milestone to honour the controlled automatic clutter suppression The Decca Marine Group was a direct used for electronic navigation throughout long tradition of engineering innovation in 1998.” New vessel control range from SAM Kemilinks LRIT available over Iridium

www.sam-electronics.de figurations for highly advanced vessels. www.kemilink.com Collecte Localisation Satellites (CLS), The series also features a new IP radar www.iridium.com EMA, Faria Watchdog, and Trident SAM Electronics has introduced its new which, by direct connection to a ship’s Sensors – have successfully tested NACOS Platinum range of vessel control own IP network, enables complete radar Kemilinks International has announced their LRIT products for operation on systems, combining navigation, automa- images to be accessible from any worksta- that it is now offering Long-Range the Iridium satellite network, and tion and control functions. tion. Identification and Tracking (LRIT) have systems approved for LRIT Jointly developed with Lyngsø Marine Similarly, ECDIS displays can be made through the Iridium satellite network. compliance. of Denmark and L-3 Valmarine of available for viewing via IP in an engine Kemilinks acts as the LRIT “Iridium offers a robust, worldwide Norway, the series is based on identical control room, the Captain’s office or any Application Service Provider for the flag solution for ships needing to comply with components and a common network, sup- other ship area. states of Kiribati, Tuvalu, Mongolia and, the IMO’s LRIT carriage requirements,” porting SAM’s Radarpilot, ECDISpilot, The Platinum systems use standardised through its partners, Cambodia, said Frankie Neo, director, Kemilinks. Trackpilot and Conning systems. hardware and software components Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand. As an “With its global satellite coverage over The combination of networked archi- which SAM expects will reduce mainte- Iridium Value-Added Reseller (VAR), all the Earth’s seaways, its low-latency, tecture and modular components allows nance requirements and the need for spare Kemilinks is now able to sell and provi- two-way short-burst data (SBD) links, users to more easily install integrated sys- parts. This will be further supported by sion Iridium-based LRIT connectivity to and high network quality, Iridium pro- tems, from a small set of alarms or a stand- the use of self-monitoring facilities and ships flying those flags. vides an ideal communication medium alone ECDIS, to very large, complex con- online diagnostics. Four Value-Added Manufacturers – for LRIT reporting.”

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Digital Ship November 2009 page 34 p31-40:p26-32.qxd 23/10/2009 12:33 Page 5

Digital Ship US approves LRIT system

www.iridium.com vessels flying their flags, and will man- that ships fitted with Iridium-based ter- market will have the chance to have www.lrit.fr age requests for position reports of non- minals can be more reliably tracked,” such a terminal onboard. We are EU flag vessels entering EU coastal said Gaëtan Fabritius, LRIT sales manag- very pleased to have developed The US Coast Guard has type- waters. er of CLS. this partnership with Iridium for LRIT approved the CLS Thorium terminal, “As one of the major ASPs, we know “Now, many ships in the US purposes.” from Collecte Localisation Satellites (CLS) and Iridium Communications, for Long-Range Identification and Tracking (LRIT) use on US flagged ships, in compliance with interna- tional LRIT carriage requirements. Pole Star, the US LRIT Application Service Provider (ASP), conducted the conformance tests on behalf of the Coast Guard to ensure the product meets inter- national LRIT performance standards. “Iridium’s global service coverage includes all ocean areas, including the north and south Polar Regions,” said Greg Ewert, executive vice president, global distribution chan- nels, Iridium. “As the only LRIT Communications Service Provider (CSP) capable of satisfying the LRIT requirements for ships operating above 70 degrees north or below 70 degrees south latitude, Iridium- based terminals, such as the Thorium, provide reliable, critical informa- tion to and from ships at sea in compliance with LRIT regulations. Iridium provides global, low-laten- cy, highly reliable short- burst data links, which are ideal for LRIT reporting.” The CLS Thorium unit has already been type approved in Europe, and other administrations such as Chile, Panama and Vanuatu have this unit installed on their flagged ships. CLS has also recently been awarded a contract by the European Maritime Safety Agency (EMSA) for the provision and operation of the European Union (EU) LRIT Data Centre, as well as the associated ASP and CSP (Communications Service Provider) functions. The EMSA LRIT Data Centre – the largest in the world – will enable the 27 EU Maritime Administrations, and those of Iceland and Norway, to track more than 10,000

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Digital Ship ENC licensing needs industry agreement - UKHO

The debate on ‘first use’ and licensing of ENCs that has emerged since the release of Datema’s ENCTrack service will require consensus and harmonisation between the RENCs to be resolved, and should form part of an increasing overall focus on e-navigation, writes Mike Robinson, chief executive, UKHO

he art of navigation is rapidly Any mariner will confirm that naviga- tracking technology and ECDIS makes Next steps TTmoving into the digital age. In just tional charts, whether paper or electronic, this a novel service, which might have So, how do we move forward? I believe a few short years, all mariners will are first used in planning long before put- some appeal although in many situations there is a need to improve the flexibility of use electronic navigation to find their way ting to sea and using them to plot the would result in many more charts being ENC licensing arrangements. The very and traditionally disparate data streams ship’s position against the planned track purchased than actually required. digitisation of navigational data means it will become increasingly integrated and during its subsequent passage. However, the move to charging only is inherently more flexible, and we must enhanced through applications and tools Indeed, it is estimated that between 50- for those charts used in voyage execution work to make the most of that attribute. to serve not just data, but intelligence to 70 per cent of a navigational chart’s real and none for planning represents a signif- In my view, the best solution would be the mariner. value and use is at the planning stage of a icant shift in the navigational value chain a licensing system based on flexible pric- This holistic overview of the marine voyage. Passage planning, as enshrined in which affects hydrographic offices around ing. This would see the cost of ENCs split environment will allow the mariner IMO SOLAS rules, requires that any ship the world. across both the planning and execution to quickly and easily plan, initiate and must prepare a detailed voyage plan cov- One must also bear in mind that the phases of navigation, giving full recogni- maintain the most efficient, safest voyage ering its journey from berth to berth. navigating officer is making informed tion to the use of ENC data at each stage of possible. The reason for this is simple – the over- decisions affecting ship safety from con- any vessel’s passage. whelming majority of navigational acci- sulting all the charts relevant to his plan The UKHO, and I believe most IC-ENC dents are caused by human error, where and not just the data either side of a nar- countries, support this concept of a split essential information that could have pre- row track over which he subsequently price. However, to achieve that flexibility, vented an accident was available but not passes. Again, this is not something the we need to harmonise all of the licensing used by those responsible for navigation ‘ENCTrack’ service recognises. arrangements between the two main when planning. In an unusual development, PRIMAR RENCs and also look to the requirements While passage planning cannot eradi- (acting as a supplier of a commercial ENC of other end user service providers who cate human error completely, it has service and not as a RENC) gave its are also developing innovative solutions undoubtedly improved the safety of life at approval for the Datema product on that might require more flexible licensing sea by ensuring that any ship is as fully behalf of not just its RENC members from arrangements. prepared and informed for its journey as whom it had permission, but also in The work of achieving that consensus is possible. Accordingly passage planning respect of all its suppliers of data (includ- not headline-grabbing, but it is pivotal. It has enormous and measurable value. ing the members of IC-ENC) from whom requires dedication, commitment and it did not. patience from members of the two main First use for licensing I believe the vast majority of IC- RENCs and all non-RENC members. It is for this reason the UKHO believes that ENC members and other suppliers of Ultimately, such agreement will deliver the licensing of any chart should start on data to the PRIMAR ENC service, the improved services for the mariner, while the commencement of the planning UKHO included, feel that a principle that ensuring that hydrographic offices world- process; that is, when it is ‘first used’ in the places no value at all on the use of naviga- wide can continue to deliver the highest vital and mandated process of assessing tional charts in the planning process is quality data. the data available to enable a voyage plan unacceptable. To that end, UKHO is working with IC- ‘UKHO believes that the licensing of any to be prepared. For that reason, IC-ENC has started to ENC and PRIMAR through the appropri- chart should start on the commencement Although I cannot speak for other investigate, on behalf of its members, how ate channels to identify how to increase of the planning process’ – Mike Robinson, members of IC-ENC (the RENC that the its licensing rules can be amended to compatibility between the different UKHO UKHO operates on behalf of its members), accommodate a novel concept such as RENCs. We expect agreement on this to I believe that the majority hold this to be ‘ENCTrack’ but whilst maintaining the be achieved because as a whole we share The hydrographic community has a true and IC-ENC data licensing arrange- principle that there is real value in its one purpose– improving the safety of life huge role to play in bringing the vision of ments are exactly in line with this view. members ENCs at the planning stage. at sea. e-navigation to life. The IMO’s ratification At present though, there is an apparent While this process is taking place and While the necessary contractual agree- of the ECDIS Mandate in June 2009 sets a difference between IC-ENC’s view on the appropriate agreements are sought, ments are an important part of helping clear timetable for what the maritime com- ‘first use’ and that of the members of the Datema has unfortunately had to place its this move forward, there is a more funda- munity needs to achieve. PRIMAR RENC (this RENC being operat- product on hold. mental issue which also requires urgent The use of ENCs and ECDIS is begin- ed by the Norwegian Hydrographic serv- Clearly, this is not a satisfactory situa- attention. This, in many ways, will have a ning to have a positive impact not only for ice as part of their commercial PRIMAR tion. Willem Amels, Datema’s Director, more direct impact on the success of any those afloat who use the systems day-to- ENC Service). has shown that as the marine navigation ENC or ECDIS system. day, but also their shore-based colleagues. The difference in approach has come to service industry begins not just to adopt, As e-navigation becomes more preva- However, driving transformational light following Datema’s recent launch of but embrace the digital format, there is lent, we need to ensure that mariners change across the entire maritime world is its ‘ENCTrack’ service. plenty of room for innovation in service using it are able to do so confidently and never going to be easy, and along the way The ‘ENCTrack’ service aims to pro- delivery towards providing benefits to to its full potential. With the clock count- there are always hurdles to overcome. vide its customers with effectively free the mariner. ing down to 2012, and an estimated Here, I would like to address just a couple access to all ENCs. The ship is tracked via However such innovation can only 500,000 people who will require ECDIS of issues which are generating debate at satellite and ‘ENCTrack’ only charges for truly flourish in an environment of broad training over the next 8 years, the issue is the moment. the charts over which the vessel passes. industry agreement on how ENCs should this: Beyond supplying the best ECDIS Firstly, there is an ongoing discussion Effectively, ‘ENCTrack’ considers the be licensed. The concern here is that and ENCs, are we providing the necessary relating to ENC licensing arrangements, chart’s ‘first use’ to be when the vessel is PRIMAR’s unilateral decision regarding training input and accompanying support the debate effectively coming down to a passing through the chart region, not ENC licensing, as in the case above, could to mariners to guarantee their successful different view as to how and when when the mariner starts his planning delay or hinder further progress that transfer to electronic navigation? mariners first use ENCs, and how they are process with those same charts. needs to made in the near future for the There have been some recent incidents charged for the use of that data. It is appreciated that the combination of good of all involved. which would suggest not. One accident

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ELECTRONICS & NAVIGATION

was caused by the bridge team failing to which aims to complement other training correctly set up the ECDIS, but still relying that’s currently available. It is focused on it for navigation. from an entirely practical-user standpoint The lack of in-depth knowledge of the on teaching them how to read and use ECDIS and ENCs meant they were ENCs and exploit all the features of an unable to effect a change to their voyage ECDIS system to optimum effect. plan safely. The result was the vessel run- Already trialled successfully with a ning aground on a bank which was group of marine pilots, we are now tuning nonetheless clearly marked on both the content from the feedback and expect paper chart and ENC. to make it available early next year. The assumption that the technology The introduction of ECDIS provides must be right creates the risk of over- great opportunity for improvements in reliance. The situation is not confined to service delivery and better innovation in mariners. We’ve all heard stories of driv- the maritime navigation sector of the ship- ers relying on satellite navigation technol- ping industry. It has the potential to make ogy, such as the Swedish couple who hit a step change in the safety of life and ships the headlines earlier this year when they at sea and to drive measurable business ended up 400 miles away from their desti- efficiency along the way. nation of Capri due to a spelling mistake In order for ECDIS to deliver on its and too much slavish faith in the sat-nav. potential though, we all need to deliver ECDIS training must educate people the right environment – educationally, not only on the many documented safety legally and commercially. and efficiency enhancing capabilities of The ECDIS training that is available today is imperfect, at best I believe that by continuing to build the technology, but also on its limitations. broad consensus and agreement we but there’s little uniformity and the requirement in the revised STCW code that will achieve just that, and the result IMO updates requirements are not always very robust. is scheduled for adoption next year. will be a safer, more efficient outcome The training that is available today is ECDIS training requires our attention. Without this clear and consistent set of for those who produce navigational imperfect, at best. The IMO has devised a Ship owners and mariners alike need to training guidelines based on international services and those who use them. The model course, but there are some reserva- know that when they invest their time and agreement there would have been contin- UKHO’s focus will always be to make tions about its comprehensiveness. money in training that it is to good effect; ued confusion about who, what, where the needs of the latter the absolute driv- Beyond that, the situation is even less and the next generation of mariners at col- and when to get trained on ECDIS. To er for the former. DS clear. Some flag states are developing lege now and in years to come must be help drive the necessary training and rules to make ECDIS training mandatory, sure in the knowledge they are gaining the development, the UKHO is also working For further information on the licens- but how or when is not yet clear. Some of right skills to meet modern electronic nav- with a number of organisations. ing issues raised by the release of the larger shipping companies have igation techniques. Furthermore, UKHO is using its expert- ECTrack, see Digital Ship’s October installed training facilities as part of their It is therefore good to know that the IMO ise and understanding of ECDIS require- 2009 issue, page 31 International Safety Management code, is set to include ECDIS training as a specific ments to develop a training syllabus, First operational use for Vizada teleports to get LRIT upgrade space-based AIS system

www.exactearth.com www.vizada.com demand, new central computer equip- will number 10,000 by the end of 2009. www.thrane.com ment to provide more processing power, The upgrade is also expected to COM DEV International's space-based full-IP access for more data delivery improve the quality of service provided to AIS subsidiary, exactEarth, reports that it Thrane & Thrane has won an upgrade to customers and additional software Vizada's Inmarsat-C customers in general. has successfully employed the technology agreement with Vizada for two Vizada functionalities. "This is the latest development in the assisting the Canadian Forces (CF) and teleports, at Aussaguel in France and Eik One such additional functionality will long lasting business relationship between Department of Fisheries and Oceans on the south coast of Norway, to improve enable Vizada service provider partners to Vizada and Thrane & Thrane," comments (DFO) in monitoring illegal unregulated LRIT communications. connect to its own Inmarsat-C stations Kim Gammelholm, senior vice president, unreported fishing (IUU) activity in the The contract, valued at approximately through an electronic interface. Thrane & Thrane. Pacific Ocean. DKK 15 million (approximately US$3 mil- This new cooperation has been estab- "By enabling Vizada to increase capaci- For several weeks the company's NTS lion), is already underway, with the lished to support Vizada's initiative for ty and improve management of LRIT com- nanosatellite monitored a targeted region of majority of the project expected to be managing LRIT (long range identification munications, Thrane & Thrane is continu- the northern Pacific tracking AIS signals, delivered by the final quarter of 2009. and tracking) communications for the ing its role as a key technology player in combining the data with other surveillance The upgrades include additional majority of European Marine Safety the critical fields of marine safety and information to enable the Canadian Forces capacity to handle increasing traffic Agency (EMSA) registered vessels, which security." and DFO to focus their efforts on specific vessels suspected of IUU fishing. The AIS data was provided on a daily basis over the entire region of the IUU Jeppesen provides ECDIS training systems study - a region which spanned more than six million square kilometres in the north- to Bergen school ern Pacific Ocean. This represents the first time exactEarth's AIS solution has been www.jeppesen.com Johnsen, the school’s navigation and tion the correct route, depth, speed, weath- deployed for operational, rather than bridge simulation instructor. er and navigational aids. demonstration purposes. Jeppesen Marine reports that it is to sup- “They decided to equip all pilots with Eventually, this route forms the basis exactEarth has announced plans to ply systems and data for ECDIS training to laptop computers and electronic chart sys- for further work on the school’s ECDIS sta- launch a constellation of larger microsatel- one of Norway’s leading maritime train- tems after the Rocknes accident. I thought, tions and bridge simulators. lites and offer a full-scale, commercial AIS ing institutions, Bergen Maritime ‘shouldn’t we, as a training institution, be “We know that electronic charts will data service beginning in 2010. Technical School. equal to, or even exceed, the authorities?’ I contribute to the safety of maritime navi- "We are pleased our technology has In additiona to the C-MAP Professional believe that it is a landmark in maritime gation, but this depends on the aptitude been able to contribute to international vector database and ENCs that Jeppesen training to offer the kind of functionality and readiness of deck officers to employ efforts to ensure sustainable fishing prac- Marine already supplies for the school’s that we now offer, thanks to Jeppesen the necessary tools,” said Willy Zeiler, tices," said Peter Mabson, president of bridge simulators, the company will now Marine.” Jeppesen Marine marketing manager. exactEarth. supply more than 50 C-MAP OceanView Students at the Bergen Maritime ”We support and encourage the efforts "This project illustrates just one of the systems for route planning. Technical School will be able to download of maritime training institutions world- many applications made possible by the “I got the idea from the Norwegian necessary electronic charts onto their PCs wide to provide navigators with appropri- exactAIS capability to detect ships from Coastal Administration,” said Kåre A. for route planning, taking into considera- ate education and familiarisation.” space rapidly over a wide area."

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Digital Ship Beyond the minimum – how to improve the ECDIS

With ECDIS usage continuing to grow, and set to accelerate with mandatory carriage requirements appearing over the horizon, Dr Andy Norris looks at some of the functions that manufacturers might consider introducing to make navigation on the equipment a little easier for those onboard

espite the prevalence of ship- to that given by a comparably scaled Unfortunately, on many systems this can However, on some systems it appears borne electronic chart systems paper product. only be performed at the detailed level. that little thought has been given to their DD(ECS) we are really only just In order to preserve situation aware- To establish whether the latest updates practical use. entering the age when true ECDIS operat- ness it is therefore very important to be have been applied it is useful to have an The easy management of Mariners’ ing with ENC data is being properly used able to rapidly change the scale and scroll easily accessible menu function that dis- Notes is really an essential feature on in place of paper charts. the chart in route monitoring mode, for plays a log of when each update took ECDIS, as they can readily become numer- This is occurring for a number of rea- instance, to provide good look-ahead. place, at the disc level rather than at the ous. On some systems the management sons, mainly led by the immense improve- Unfortunately, on some equipment individual cell level. facility is just confined to allowing users to ments in ENC data coverage that have changing scale takes several steps to effect It would show a list of the update discs view all notes as a long list, which can be occurred over the last couple of years and and a significant time to redraw. applied, with the latest at the top, the date individually edited and deleted. the fact that IMO carriage requirements In route monitoring mode it is very ben- and time of application and whether the This makes it a time consuming process for ECDIS are being generally phased in eficial to be able to scroll a chart such that process successfully completed updating that may prompt use of the ‘delete-all’ from 2012. own ship is off the display. In particular, all the licensed cells addressed by the par- button, even though many notes may have ticular update disc. useful time to run. Other users may just By making it hierarchical, it would then put up with the clutter of many out-of- allow users to delve down into any date notes, ignoring the possibilities of desired detail, or alternatively by individ- information overload. ual cell selection. Some systems can automatically gener- Such a top level approach provides a ate Mariners’ Notes, or a separate overlay, quick and easy indication to the user as to from NAVTEX data. In principle, this the update status of the ECDIS. It would seems a very worthwhile add-on, as it can also assist the master and port State take much of the manual labour out of this inspectors to more readily ascertain if the important task. ECDIS is up-to-date and that updating Ideally, there should be methods for procedures were being followed. categorising notes to enable easy review If the ECDIS has base data from differ- options and, in particular, the ability to ent services, the user will need to take this enter an end date on individual notes so properly into account as it may require that they are automatically deleted at the more than one update disc to be inserted appropriate time. to ensure a complete update of the licensed base data. User manuals The survey quality of ENC data is con- There are many gripes from mariners con- Display clutter occurs when showing CATZOC starred symbols in ECDIS tained within the attribute CATZOC, cerning user manuals. In particular, con- ‘All other Information’ display mode which stands for ‘Category of Zone of cern about their readability – written by Confidence’. When selected for display as and for engineers, not mariners – is a uni- Although ECDIS equipment has been this is useful when using large scale charts a chart layer it is depicted by star based versal, if not entirely accurate, complaint. around since 1995, manufacturers have to check the detailed route ahead of own symbols, with five stars showing the best Despite being an engineer, I have also been quite slow in evolving new equip- ship to enhance situational awareness. survey data and one star the worst. experienced extreme difficulties in getting to ment designs, simply because few units On some equipment this is difficult An ECDIS really needs to show the grips with using various functions on some were being sold, yielding little profit to because the commonly used display CATZOC overlay with an easy-to-access equipment when using the manual, mainly invest in product development. modes of real and relative motion imply command, as its knowledge is essential for because of inaccuracies or poor descriptions. However, now that a real market is that that own ship’s position is always safe navigation. Of even greater concern is the sheer coming into view there have been a num- maintained on the display. Unfortunately, on many systems it is length of many manuals – some are ber of new models appearing. Not least, To overcome this a third motion mode really only accessible by selecting ‘all other approaching 500 A4 pages of fine type. these are benefitting from the steadily is called for that is not related to own information’ to be displayed. This shows a These are formidable documents. evolving international standards for ship’s position. Perhaps this should be display cluttered with all sorts of addition- Although for reference purposes I ECDIS – now at Issue 3 – as well as the called ‘stationary motion’ to link with the al data, and not just a simple CATZOC agree that there are good reasons why a direct reaction of individual manufactur- terms real and relative motion, despite its overlay, as depicted in the illustration. fully comprehensive manual should be ers to user experience with earlier models. linguistic illogicality. provided, there is a real need for a much No doubt, with more ECDIS users This mode option and reversion to the Mariners’ Notes shorter user guide that concentrates on the coming on line every day, user comment previously selected motion mode needs to A particularly important function on basic functions. will help evolve even better systems in be easily accessible because it should be in ECDIS is the display and use of geograph- Maybe this should be no longer than a the future. frequent use. ically referenced Mariners’ Notes. These few tens of pages and should take the user Having spent some time in the last few IMO already requires ECDIS to be able have a variety of uses, taking the place of simply through how to use the IMO- months completing a user text book for to display own ship on the largest avail- pencilled comments and sticky notes on required features of ECDIS. ECDIS I have developed my own list of able scale chart with a single operator the paper chart. For more comprehensive information ‘highly desirable’ features that go beyond action, and so it will always be quick and In particular, they are useful for ensur- or to use the more advanced functions the currently defined minimum require- easy to get own ship position back onto ing that Marine Safety Information and provided by the manufacturer there ments, even though various existing mod- the display. Preliminary and Temporary Notices to should be appropriate references within els get a tick in the box for at least some of Mariners (when not available in the ENC) the guide to the relevant sections in the the items mentioned. Data quality are inserted at the correct geographical full manual. An important aspect of all charting work point for reference during the voyage, as Ideally, a training mode on the ECDIS Zooming and scrolling is knowing the quality of the hydrograph- well as being taken into account during linking in with the guide would also Perhaps at the top of my list is being able to ic data. Is it the latest information avail- the voyage planning process. be available. DS easily zoom and scroll the displayed chart. able and what is the status of the survey Although in the more distant future we that the chart is based upon? Dr Andy orris has been well-known in the maritime navigation industry for a will see chart displays similar in size and On some systems it can be surprisingly number of years. He has spent much of his time managing high-tech navigation definition capability to a paper chart, pres- difficult to determine these facts. IMO companies but now he is working on broader issues within the navigational ent ECDIS displays provide only a small requires ‘a record of updates including world, providing both technical and business consultancy to the industry, gov- window onto the charted scene compared time of application to the SENC’. ernmental bodies and maritime organizations. Email: [email protected]

Digital Ship November 2009 page 39 p31-40:p26-32.qxd 23/10/2009 12:33 Page 10

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