“I was walking around the docks at Houston on an August day, watching the stevedores working among the trucks, the cranes and the ships. In the middle of all this, an ice cream truck came by and suddenly everything stopped. All these tough stevedores in their hi-vis vests were sitting around eating popsicles and Eskimo pies and I thought that would be a dynamite photograph if you did it right.”

That was 2002 and since then Vest has carried a digital camera with him as he works as a pilot at the busiest port in the United States. The results, posted on his Flickr page are a fascinating document of his daily working life, as well as providing the bridge team’s perspective on handling ships in close quarters.

Vest takes his pictures when safety and conditions allow, many of which find their way into presentations, collections as well as exhibitions in downtown Houston.

What the pictures demonstrate is not just the volume of ship traffic a Houston pilot has to handle – some 200 ships per year – but also the tight conditions in which that happens. The Houston ship channel is 53 miles long, crossing Galveston Bay at 530ft wide, with docks beginning at mile 30 and narrowing to 300ft wide for the last 10 miles.

It’s a tight squeeze for the Aframax tankers and post-Panamax containerships that call at the port but Vest says his game plan every trip is ‘to stay out of trouble’.

“They say a pilot is a person of superior judgement and ship handling experience who uses his superior judgement to avoid situations where he has to use his superior ship handling experience,” he chuckles. “People ask me if my job is exciting. Actually it’s my job for it not to be exciting. I want to make it as uneventful as possible. If I can do that then I’ve had a successful trip.”

That much nonchalance takes practice, accumulated in Vest’s case during five years in the US Navy followed by service as a master in the merchant navy before being invited to join the pilots in 1986. The Houston pilots require a three-year apprenticeship and recruits mostly masters and first mates – demand for positions is such that there is currently a long waiting list.

It’s a job that requires the right combination of nous and knowledge, because despite the digital data supplementing their ship handling skills, in-port navigation still requires a certain individualism.

“I have a photo of a pilot getting onto a ship at night and looking up into the darkness and it’s very accurate, because the truth is you don’t know what’s up there. You don’t know if the ship can steer well or how competent the crew is going to be. If I’m turning a ship in basin and I’ve got 100ft on the bow and that 100ft is 800ft away from me, do I rely on a mate I’ve never talked to before? I can’t rely on him alone, but I use his information and put it together with what the tug, my own eyes and the laptop are telling me.”

That doesn’t stop him advocating the use of digital navigation technology, in fact he’d happily use more. Houston pilot units employ bespoke navigation charts and hardware equipped with Differential GPS for position monitoring, a ‘PPU’ which can also plug into the bridge to receive AIS and heading data from the ship’s gyro.

Vest’s feeling about technology is that he’d like to see some fresh thinking on how such systems connect. That could mean expanding the data coming through the ‘pilot plug’ and further ahead, replacing the large bridge consoles of today for an integrated digital system that concentrates on display and overlay of whatever data and information the bridge team needs, on demand.

“People are in a box and not thinking outside it. We’re already machine minders – the whole ship is a machine,” he says. “If we’re going to be minding several screens, we might as well have them integrated. It’s far harder if you are looking back and forth between displays on different consoles, and what happens when they don’t agree? With an overlay you can see right away that something is wrong.”

This is not an argument for technology for its own sake, but rather what Vest sees as the need to reduce duplication when for example, the mate is required to record buoy positions during passage to the berth, something Vest’s laptop is already doing. It might sound like good navigational practice but as he says, ‘recording data is what the machines are for’.

“I understand the need for data but that job is already being done. While the mate is doing that job he’s not a second pair of eyes and ears for the bridge team. He’s another machine. He is not watching the pilot or the channel and learning the important thing, which is how to take ship into port.”

By Neville Smith

Something like a consensus is slowly emerging but there is a significant spread between the estimates we have been able to gather.

At the recent ECDIS Revolution conference, we caught up with Nautical Institute ECDIS guru Harry Gale for his estimate.

Gale reckoned that the need might be as high as six officers per ship, assuming three on and three off multiplied by 40,000 SOLAS ships. Assuming some training already done and variations for ship size and that’s still well north of 200,000.

Later in the conference, Ulf Steden of ECDIS training provider Safebridge put the number of SOLAS ships closer to 47,833 and assuming three officers per ship, estimated just shy of 150,000 officers to be trained.

Right in the middle is Admiralty’s own unofficial assessment, which takes the IMO’s estimate of 54,897 merchant ships and multiplying by three (master, chief officer/chief mate and second officer/second mate) arrives at a little over 160,000 officers requiring training.

This is still a very blunt measurement – some smaller ships only have a master and chief mate, while the bigger ships have third officers/third mates.

But the issue is in many ways more about supply of training places than the demand itself. ECDIS Revolution heard plenty of debate as to whether training itself needs much better oversight, certification or even regulation.

It’s not unusual to hear of the five-day IMO course conducted in two or three days with a certificate issued on completion. Computer-based training is being used as a stopgap but some professional bodies are concerned that it is being used as a substitute for classroom time.

Much of the same is true for type-specific training, with the concern that completing the IMO course on specific equipment might be counted as familiarisation or type-specific training too, further limiting the time seafarers get on equipment before they get on board.

Indeed, one of the take-aways from ECDIS Revolution was whether there should be closer checks of the course content of generic training to ensure all teaching establishments are setting the same high standard, with new regulation if necessary.

The thought of more regulation might make readers recoil but if the IMO five-day, 40-hour course really is being completed and signed-off in two or three days then all training facilities are far from being equal.

Training is clearly a challenging issue for the industry. Perhaps you have a better understanding of the number of officers needing training, or an opinion around the quality and availability of ECDIS training courses?

By Neville Smith

Initially we had planned three sessions, but due to popular demand we added an extra one to the schedule. Over the course of the show around 100 maritime professionals attended the workshop; most attendees were ship managers keen to get more information about how to introduce digital navigation into the ships they manage.

Some of the questions that arose during the interactive sessions are included below with answers provided by Master Mariner and ECDIS consultant Capt. Paul Hailwood, who worked with us to develop the workshop.

Q. ‘What problems are liable to arise if the organisation I intend using for ECDIS generic training has not be approved by the flag State?’

A. The generic training may not be approved by the flag state but could be accepted if it is approved by another flag state. This should be confirmed by contacting the flag state of your ships. If not approved or accepted, the certificate is not valid and the officer is not qualified to keep a watch with ECDIS. This could be considered a breach of the carriage requirements for nautical publications under SOLAS.

Q. ‘Is ECDIS type- specific training the same as ECDIS familiarisation?’

A. Type specific training will cover all aspects of the particular type of ECDIS. This should be approved by the manufacturer and may take 2 days to complete. Familiarisation training is ship specific and identifies the key elements of the ECDIS on that particular ship which the officer needs to be familiar with. This can be conducted by another officer in accordance with ISM procedures.

‘Why must you also use paper charts when operating ECDIS in Raster Chart Display System (RCDS) mode?’

A. The requirement is to use an appropriate folio of paper charts when operating in RCDS mode. The reason given for this is the reduced functionality of the raster chart compared with the vector chart such as alarms and safety contours.

Attendance and feedback at the workshop highlighted the high demand for information about ECDIS and ENCs. Throughout 2012 Admiralty will be working to support the industry as it prepares to integrate digital technology into navigation procedures – we are running further sessions of the workshop in Singapore in March and Tokyo in April, and our experts are happy to receive questions on email at any time: ask.admiralty@ukho.gov.uk

You can watch a highlights video of our attendance at the show here, featuring comment from Bogerd Martin and Sweethigh Navigation Technology.

The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has recently established Particularly Sensitive Sea Areas off the East Coast and Caribbean, and the US Coast Guard has proposed new routes off California to keep whale and ship apart.

The fact that whale migration occurs seasonally makes the task of monitoring more problematic and, of course, whales don’t use AIS, so movement outside their ‘known’ areas of activity increases the risk of collision.

The NOAA, which administers east coast fisheries and whale protection areas, issues notices to mariners on whale movements on an ad hoc basis but these must be added to navigation charts by hand.

As Jens Schroder-Furstenberg of the German Maritime and Hydrographic Agency points out, the rigidity of the current S-57 ENC standard makes it hard to implement new information onto electronic databases despite the obvious advantages of using ECDIS to mark the danger zones.

In a recent article for Maritime Executive, Mr Schroder-Furstenberg suggests the roll-out of ECDIS and in particular the move to the IHO’s S-100 data standard provides an opportunity to include improved whale protection information in future ENCs and NMs.

The IHO working group on standardisation is already developing a product specification for Marine Protected Areas and Mr Schroder-Furstenberg believes use of the S-100 standard will make it possible to present the information to mariners in a more customisable way, improving safety for sailors and cetaceans alike.

Read the article: www.maritime-executive.com/article/whale-protection-areas-and-their-implementation-in-future-ecdis

It’s something Nautical Institute technical manager Harry Gale recently discovered for himself when he completed a Generic ECDIS training course with a private provider ECDIS Ltd.

Gale’s return to learning began when the company asked The Nautical Institute to accredit its Type Specific ECDIS course, which familiarises officers with the specific makes of hardware installed onboard ship.

“I went down there to check out the Type Specific course; how they present, what the facilities are and we were happy to accredit them. The follow-up to that was I asked if I could do the five-day Generic Course to see how that worked,” he says.

He duly found himself back in the classroom as well as working on simulators, with tests to track his progress and a very clear way to demonstrate his accomplishments.

“At the end of the course we made a passage plan which the tutor put onto the ECDIS simulator. He ran it, checking the bearings, ranges, plots and all the rest of it to see what you’d learnt,” he adds.

“I also learned something very important which is it’s wrong to say if you lose GPS input you lose ECDIS. You can still use the ECDIS like a chart. You’ve already taken bearings and plotted them and the ECDIS will update your estimated position from your inserts, so you still know here you are and where you are going.”

The course was something new for Gale who had done a three-day ECDIS syllabus on joining the Nautical Institute and the experience demonstrated vividly an issue which the NI takes very seriously: the difference between qualification and competence.

“After that three-day course I was supposedly qualified to go onboard a ship and navigate on ECDIS, but there was no way in the world I could have done that. After this five day course I do have a lot more knowledge, I feel more confident but I would still need Type Specific training,” he says.

With this in mind, the NI has established a Task Group which will monitor and advise on the need to demonstrate competence in ECDIS training. As Gale points out, there are many training options available and even completing a high quality course over five days does not guarantee that every candidate is ready for real-life operations at the end of it.

The NI would like to see competence demonstrated and there is a commercial aspect to this too, since Port State Control inspectors will be asking for the same when front of bridge ECDIS installation becomes commonplace. Failure to so could mean delays to sailing or even detention of the ship.

The NI is also trying to get ahead of the cycle with an ECDIS forum on its website and a shipboard postcard campaign which asks officers some basic questions about ECDIS and invites them to share their concerns. Questions and answers will be posted on the NI website to be followed by further updates and publications. But there is still more to do, some of which concerns the terminology as much as the hardware.

“One of the things we are trying to do is move away from the terms Generic and Type Specific training towards terms like General and Familiarisation,” says Gale. “Generic sounds pretty low level whereas the updated IMO standards for that [in the revised STCW convention] are more prescriptive and more comprehensive. ECDIS is not like radar, which is only ever an aid to navigation – this is a fundamental change in primary navigation and the training has to reflect that.”

Admiralty recently announced a series of ‘Digital Navigation Insights’ for 2012. These initiatives aim to help the maritime community prepare for the challenges of ECDIS compliance and include a training module which focuses on the practical use of ENCs. The module will help mariners develop ENC skills essential to safe day-to-day operations, which at the moment, many courses only cover briefly.

By Neville Smith

That might be the case for workers ashore but it is clearly not always true for seafarers. In a recent study ‘New Shipboard Technology and Training Provision for Seafarers’, the Seafarers International Research Centre (SIRC) concludes that current practices in training and handover are in some cases inadequate and in others, simply non-existent.

SIRC asked 1,000 officers about their use of main engine manoeuvring and control systems, ARPA/radar, AIS, GPS, GMDSS and ECDIS as well as oily water separators and high voltage equipment.

While the majority (82%) of seafarers felt training on new equipment was adequate, only a quarter were given input into the identification of their training needs. Almost half were expected to pay in part or full towards their training and more than a quarter were never compensated for leave time lost as a result.

Even when training is received it is often far from optimal. ECDIS training for example was reported as having been generally less than five days duration and though the majority was received onshore, more than half of respondents indicated they had received it after they were first required to use the equipment.

This in turn created a reliance on the use of manuals for problem solving – particularly for the use of GMDSS and ECDIS – suggesting an overwhelming dependence on documentation for knowledge acquisition, even though these might not be printed in the user’s mother tongue.

There were other cultural differences too, with quantity and quality of training varying strongly. The report acknowledges however, that preference for certain types of training, such as CBT, or the emphasis on cadet training may represent the limited alternatives available as much as they do an apparent divergence along national lines.

Focussing further on ECDIS, the report makes for even grimmer reading. Of the five pieces of equipment that deck officers were asked about, ECDIS was the one about which they had the least confidence. Some nine percent of respondents described their knowledge of ECDIS as ‘zero’ and 21% said their knowledge was only ‘basic’.

Training ashore remains the dominant form of learning about ECDIS but the use of manuals is also important for refresher and problem-solving. Unsurprisingly, the older the officers questioned, the less likely they were to include their cadet training as important to their understanding of ECDIS. Seafarers below the age of 30 were most likely to regard it as having contributed to that understanding.

Fewer respondents reported consulting colleagues or using handover familiarisation and notes when using ECDIS, which suggests they were relying more on previous experience than familiarity with the specific equipment when they took over from crew signing off.

The handover from one officer to another when joining a vessel is a crucial link in the safety chain but the SIRC research found that in their most recent handover, one in 10 junior officers and seven percent of senior officers described handover as inadequate, with no explanation of how the equipment worked.

The SIRC research asks many more questions than it answers but it comes at an important time. The need for increased quantity and quality of training has become something of a byword for the shipping industry’s wait-and-see attitude to the ECDIS mandate.

And yet hearing the day to day experiences of seafarers is a reminder that we should never be glib about their needs and the differences between life at sea and ashore.

Admiralty has already identified Officer of the Watch training as one of its three ‘Digital Navigation Insights’ for 2012, recognising that a competent crew is a critical factor in deriving the benefits of ECDIS. Further training resources on the practical use of ENCs to complement the IMO model course will follow in 2012.

To judge from the conclusions of the SIRC research, the need is considerable. Set this against the number of good quality training places available and the timescales of the ECDIS mandate and there seems no better time than now to refocus on training.

By Neville Smith

From shipbuilding to port handling and logistics, China is moving up the value chain. That shift requires that its navigation infrastructure is equipped to handle increased traffic levels safely and leave room for further growth.

In preparation for increased shipping volumes, China has installed the world’s largest shore-based AIS network, covering its coastal regions and its navigable inland waterways. By July 1 2012, 134,000 Chinese-flag vessels operating in coastal and inland waterway trades will be using the system.

A national study on AIS requirements was initiated in 2000 and following successful tests in the Pearl River and the Yangtze River Estuaries, the country invested RMB500m in a phased construction plan from 2004.

By the end of May this year, its coastal waters were covered and 179 inland river AIS base stations were established. The inland river and marine networks have been integrated and connected, with coverage along the Chinese coast reaching 99.97%, according to the Maritime Safety Administration.

This network represents a powerful safety tool for a ports and river system that is busy and becoming more congested. In the past decade, the MSA estimates that the role of AIS in monitoring ship traffic, course and speed has improved the success rate of search and rescue operations, saving more than RMB4bn since it began operations.

The MSA has also decided to embrace the latest practices, creating more than 800 virtual Aids to Navigation in coastal waters and rivers. Virtual Aids to Navigation, which can be used for marking new obstructions or wreck sites on ENCs and ECDIS systems have been recognised as adding considerable value to the business of digital navigation by the UK’s General Lighthouse Authority.

While AIS has been in operation globally for some years, its use in China – and the speed with which the network has been installed – is being interpreted as evidence that the country wants to increase reliance on smart data to manage new industrial sectors.

Earlier this year, the People’s Daily went so far as to herald China’s AIS network as ‘a maritime Internet of Things’. It’s a concept close to the heart of Premier Wen Jiabao who has been quoted as saying that “the Internet plus the Internet of Things equals the Wisdom of the Earth.” Applied to infrastructure and services, he continued, China’s Internet of Things (IoT) programme ‘will have a rosy prospect’.

The concept behind IoT – extending the Internet from more than simply computers into everyday objects so that they can connect and inter-react – has huge implications for the maritime industry, holding out the potential of shipping and port assets able to help manage capacity and congestion, conserve energy and control emissions.

That may sound futuristic but the Chinese government envisages huge demand in the IoT economy on a regional and national level and is already making the transition happen. According to consultancy CCID Consulting, China’s IoT market is already worth RMB193bn and will hit RMB490bn by 2013, with a growth rate above 30% for the next three years.

Marintec 2011 will be a prime opportunity to see how the industry is moving towards new frontier technologies and if it is able to use these to tackle stringent regulation and tough earnings pressure. It’s a topic we’ll be coming back to regularly in the next year as we unpack the disruptive forces acting on the maritime industry and their impact on the future of navigation.

-Neville Smith

The recent Weilbach e-Navigation seminar in Copenhagen gave us the opportunity to hear first-hand the challenges that chart agents have to overcome in helping their customers navigate into the future.

Director of Digital Sales and Service for Iver C Weilbach, Martin Mikkelsen admits that a few years ago the company was probably not fully prepared for the changes ahead. “We knew we wanted to go from paper to digital but we had to work out where to start, which products to provide and which extra publications and services we would need for this digital world,” he says.

Becoming a digital distributor meant moving out of the comfort zone the company had enjoyed since its foundation. “We took a decision to go fully digital as far as possible, to focus on it as hard as we could and learn from the experience during the process. You have to ask yourself some hard questions and take some tough decisions, you have to be brave and think about the future,” he adds.

This strategy involved some trial and error but Mikkelsen says the company is as strong in digital today as it is in paper – though the latter still makes up the majority of sales. Even so, he says that the company’s core role has extended to closely advising its clients on how to integrate digital on the bridge.

“When you talk about digital products and services a new world opens up and you need to think in terms of additional services and new ways of working, compared to paper. One of the main issues is that you can get ENCs anywhere at any time, so as a supplier we have to offer 24-7 support,” he says.

Weilbach has already opened a Singapore office and is planning a US presence and Mikkelsen says the support function plays both an internal and external role. Support staff need broad training and deep knowledge about all the digital products supplied. “Having a help desk in our own organisation assists customers but also helps us solve internal problems. It means they are the first point of contact for all digital services.”

One of the products Weilbach has developed to manage its customers’ ENC outfit is a digital logbook which tracks all products and services by client. It is also exploring new support methods for an increasingly diverse customer base, including Skype and computer-based training to help mariners get a better understanding of more complex products.

“It’s very important when you go digital that you don’t miss any steps in the roll-out,” he says. “To have the mariners onboard and all on the same page is a big challenge so we are working a lot with shipping companies when we are installing digital products across a fleet.”

Mikkelsen says the result of that forward planning is that Weilbach rolled out 200 digital product licences in October but support emails were less than 5% of total volume.

“Because we made a conscious decision to go digital we can pass on the advantages and help our clients with their integrations. Planning and assisting them in the roll-out is really important for a successful implementation,” Mikkelsen adds. “We don’t just sell charts and forget about it.”

The UKHO Guide ’10 steps to ECDIS Mandation’ is one of the key documents addressing the challenges of ECDIS adoption. Now, Master Mariner and ECDIS consultant Paul Hailwood (whose insights helped to shape ‘10 steps’) is giving the shipping industry a glimpse of where the process goes next with Admiralty’s new Digital Integration Workshop.

The workshop presents and explains the actions required by a shipping company to ensure the safety and efficiency benefits of ECDIS are realised across their fleet. To achieve this potential, a shipping company will need to ensure not just that ECDIS is operated correctly but that all the issues surrounding implementation are properly co-ordinated.

As Capt Hailwood explains, the most common issue is that navigators are well used to paper charts, which present a simple and straightforward means of plotting positions, albeit with limited functionality. With electronic charts, a hydrographic office provides official chart data which an equipment manufacturer turns into a display, giving operators the responsibility to maintain and manage it.

“The concept for the workshops is that the transition to ECDIS is a voyage, not just a list of do’s and don’ts,” Capt Hailwood told FoN. “I will be asking the questions that superintendents and seafarers are asking, explaining where the answers lie and where they need to go to find them. By the end of the presentation, they should be fully informed of what they need to do and how to do it.”

Despite the looming ECDIS implementation deadline, many shipping companies remain confused about what they need to do to comply and make the leap to digital navigation.

“The shipping market needs definitive answers and we want this workshop to be a definitive resource,” he adds. “We want to show people what they might not have thought of, show them what they will need to do and where they go to get it.”

The first full workshop will be delivered at Marintec by Joe Collins, a Master Mariner with almost 40 years’ experience in the marine industry. To reserve a place, visit: www.regonline.co.uk/admiraltymarintec.

The workshops will also be held in shipping centres around the world during 2012.

With Marintec 2011 less than a month away, we wanted to let you know about a series of Digital Integration Workshops which Admiralty will be running at the show.

The practical and easy-to-follow workshops – which are free to attend – look at the forthcoming ECDIS regulations and take delegates through the key issues involved.

The workshops look at each stage of complying with the regulations; from the initial fleet assessment and impact on Flag State requirements; through installation and crew training, to recommendations on managing the switch from paper to digital charts on the bridge.

The practical workshops have been developed in conjunction with Captain Paul Hailwood, a renowned expert on ECDIS and integrated bridge operations, and will be delivered by trainer Joe Collins, a Master Mariner with almost 40 years’ experience in the marine industry.

Captain Hailwood has managed the ‘real world’ introduction of ECDIS across a number of shipping fleets and the sessions offer insight from shipping managers and mariners who have successfully integrated digital navigation into their operations.

At the end of the workshop delegates will receive a simple checklist for every stage of the ECDIS journey, to help them with their own preparation.

Workshops will be held daily on Admiralty’s stand (5J31, Hall W5). To reserve a place visit: www.regonline.co.uk/admiraltymarintec.