ChartWorld has made several safety-enhancing additions to its state-of-the-art MyFleet application. MyFleet has been designed so that shore staff, wherever they are, can perform and check the voyage planning process and execution. The current situation is monitored by overlaying a variety of information on the electronic chart in the web environment. The MyFleet portfolio of tools has been expanded: it now includes the StayAway service (derived from bathymetry); the Custom Area service; the Incident Investigation Module; and the Office eGlobe G2 Service.
CIO+ StayAway
CIO+ StayAway is ChartWorld’s market-leading chart overlay showing bathymetries. StayAway Areas is the term used to refer to possible shallow hazards (‘shoals’), detected by satellites in an optical survey. Over the last two years, ChartWorld has invested considerable resources in developing this highly accurate safety overlay. With this function, the user can now activate the StayAway overlay in MyFleet.
The ‘Vessel Inside StayAway‘ alert can be activated by an onshore MyFleet user. The alert will be generated whenever the latest known vessel position (from the user’s fleet) is inside a StayAway Area.
Custom Areas
MyFleet’s Custom Areas function enables fleet managers to define geographical areas that they would like to monitor. For example, they can define Piracy High-Risk Areas (HRA), JWA Areas, or Risk Areas defined by IBF/ITF. MyFleet will overlay the customer-defined areas on top of the nautical information displayed. It will automatically notify the manager if a managed vessel enters such a monitored area.
The notification functionality of MyFleet covers a variety of other cases, such as automatic notification if a vessel enters an ECA, an area with mandatory reporting, or an area with strict environmental restrictions.
Incident Investigation Module (IIM)
The Incident Investigation Module enables a user to retrieve daily-recorded replay files from the on-board eGlobe G2 ECDIS Connect. The user can also perform a full-scale replay function in the onshore Fleet Operation Centre, with an eGlobe G2 ECDIS Connect installation running in Replay Mode. This feature enables vessel manoeuvring and bridge team decisions to be precisely and accurately investigated for the selected date in the case of an incident or a near-miss situation.
Office eGlobe G2 Service
The Office eGlobe G2 service includes a version of eGlobe G2 ECDIS software delivered and installed on a company’s computer. This enables a company to perform the following tasks:
Oliver Schwarz, ChartWorld’s Director of Business Development, commented on this rapid development of navigational oversight technology and the implications this has for vessel management: ‘As we have seen in recent grounding cases, it is now expected that onshore teams are making use of all the available technology to oversee navigational performance.‘
‘The pace of change in this area has been rapid – first with connected ships and navigation systems, and now with chart enhancements. Ships can now expect a greater range of navigational support from shore, and this is only of benefit to safer sailing.‘