Technical & Training Report 04/07

June 13th, 2007 by JCB
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TECHNICAL & TRAINING

The Committee have not met since Conference, the next meeting will be on the 26^th April 2007.

Since Conference there has been little to report. On the EMPA stage the development of POADS through the Marnis project is presently stalled. This is for two main reasons, both of which are interlinked. The first reason is one of funding. As of yet no funding has been received from the EU. This appears to be due to bureaucracy but inevitably results in delays with the procurement of equipment. The second reason is deciding on the choice of a Kalman filter. It is envisaged that the laptop will derive its position from satellites but it has also been agreed that a second, preferably a terrestrial position fixing system should be incorporated. At present this will be an INS and the two systems require an electronic (Kalamn) filter to be able to work together.

A new intiative for pilot training and operations using azimuthing manoeuvring devices, known as AZIPILOT, is being put together by the School of Marine Science & Technology at Newcastle University. The Committee have been approached to become a partner in this project for which a bid is being made to the EU for funding.

At our October meeting we agreed a revised Element 7 (Working with Tugs) to the National Occupation Standards. The Committee was asked to look at this issue following a number of incidents involving the use of tugs. In this revision we agreed on the development of a standard vocabulary to be used when communicating with tugs. This is an issue which we will be discussing at our next meeting.

The subject of e navigation is gathering pace with recent meetings being held by the MCA and also by IALA, both taking place in Southampton. There is still some confusion over exactly what is e navigation and what is expected of it and of course this also depends on which section of the maritime community you represent. Interestingly at the MCA meeting in February aimed at formulating the UK view on e navigation it was agreed that the end user requirements should be paramount. It was interesting that while manufacturers, Government Agencies, Port Authorities and various professional bodies were well represented there were only two or three practicing seafarers present.