Shortly before Christmas it was announced from Aarhus, Denmark that Terma and the Danish Defence Acquisition and Logistics Organization (DALO) had recently conducted a successful flight test of the Electronic Warfare (EW) equipment carried by the Royal Danish Air Force’s (RDAF) EH-101 TTT helicopters.

Abu Dhabi Ports Company (ADPC), has recently been accredited by the National Transport Authority (NTA) to conduct IALA model courses for Vessel Traffic Services (VTS) operators at its dedicated training centre. By receiving this accreditation, the ADPC Training Centre is claimed to be the first maritime educational institute in the Gulf Region to offer the highest internationally accredited training courses for VTS personnel.

The Nautical Institute is an international representative body for maritime professionals involved in the control of sea-going ships. It provides a wide range of services to enhance the professional standing and knowledge of members who are drawn from all sectors of the maritime world.

Marine Spatial Planning (MSP), and how to plan activities from wind farms and
oil exploration to subsea cabling, is the subject of a new free publication specifically for seafarers from The Nautical Institute and the World Ocean Council produced in association with IALA.

It was announced jointly from respective headquarters in Geneva and Montreal in mid-December that Airports Council International (ACI) and the International Air Transport Association (IATA) have signed a Memorandum of Understanding jointly to develop Smart Security (SmartS).

With the MoU, ACI and IATA can better align their resources and expertise to improve the journey from curb to boarding. Passengers will be able to proceed
through security checkpoints with minimal inconvenience, security resources are allocated based on risk, and airport facilities are optimized.

On 12th December this year the Council of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) unanimously appointed Commissioner Farid Zizi to a one-year term as President of the ICAO Air Navigation Commission (ANC), the UN civil aviation Standards Organization’s main technical body. Zizi was nominated for the appointment by France and his mandate begins on 1st January 2014.

The Arctic is the new and challenging frontier with its opportunities for both general shipping and offshore support vessels servicing the emerging and growing energy sector.

Speakers from Finland, France, Germany, Norway, Russia and the UK at the Institute of Marine Engineering, Science and Technology (IMarEST) 2nd Arctic Shipping Technology Conference to be held in London on 4th and 5th February 2014 will discuss and demonstrate solutions to the technical challenges of operating ships in a safe, environmentally compliant and profitable way in this hostile and highly regulated environment.

IMO’s Assembly meeting for its 28th session in London from 25th November to 4th December 2013 adopted key resolutions and amendments relating to the Organization’s mandatory audit scheme, paving the way for the scheme to come into effect by 2016 once amendments to mandatory instruments have entered into force.

IMO headquarters

It was reported in November that Transas Marine in collaboration with local agent Mecys announced completion of the prestigious simulator complex project for the Korea Coast Guard Academy (KCGA). It is understood that hardware integration and achievement of a level of realism makes this simulator complex unique. Within the project, Transas has developed models for bridge and engine room simulators matching the layout of Korea Coast Guard vessels.

It was announced from Leiden in The Netherlands in mid-November that Terma BV had recently secured a Technical Information Technology support services contract worth € 5.5 million with ESA’s European Space and Technology Centre (ESTEC) situated in Noordwijk in The Netherlands.

Terma BV develops products and systems for defence, non-defence, and security applications, including electronics, software, and services for satellites and space, command and control systems, radar systems, self-protection systems for ships and aircraft, and advanced aerostructures for the international aircraft industry.

On 25th July 2013, an Ariane 5 lifted off from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana carrying Europe’s largest telecom satellite Alphasat.

© ESA/CNES/ARIANESPACE-Optique Photo Video du CSG, P. Baudon, 2013.

The signing ceremony that took place in Stavanger on 14th November showing, from left to right, Egil Aarstad (Managing Director and General Manager at Jeppesen Norway AS), Odd Arne Haueng (Maritime Director at RS) and Evert Flier (Director at the Norwegian Hydrographic Service).

Jeppesen announced in mid-November that it is expanding its support of the Norwegian Society for Sea Rescue (RS) by providing fleetwide Electronic Navigational Charts (ENCs) at no charge, in collaboration with PRIMAR and the Norwegian Hydrographic Service.

Céline Buisson Rosvold (Marketing Manager PRIMAR at the Norwegian Hydrographic Services), Evert Flier (Director at the Norwegian Hydrographic Service), Odd Arne Haueng (Maritime Director at RS), Egil Aarstad (Managing Director and General Manager at Jeppesen Norway AS), Hans Christoffer Lauritzen (Director PRIMAR at the Norwegian Mapping Authority) and Nina Anita Meling (Marketing Manager RS)at the ceremony during which Jeppesen donated ENCs to RS.

On 13th November Transas Marine International of Askim, Sweden, announced that the Arabian Gulf Academy For Maritime Studies, situated in Basra – the biggest Iraqi port and one of the biggest cities of the country – will soon be able to offer its students high-class hands-on training using three simulators from Transas: Engine Room simulator type ERS 5000, GMDSS simulator and Radar/ARPA simulator. These simulators will provide trainees with a wide range of navigational and engineering skills.

Mongla Port is situated on the East Bank of the Pussur River near the confluence of the Pussur and Mongla Nulla at a distance of 71 nautical miles from the Fairway Buoy situated (Lat. 21°26’9″N. long. 89°34’4″E) in the Bay of Bengal.

As an obsolete buoy is lifted out, buoys fitted with Tideland Signal lanterns and satellite remote monitoring (SRM) wait to be deployed as upgrades in the Port of Mongla, Bangladesh.

Tideland Signal Ltd announced on 18th November that it has supplied and commissioned a wide range of aids to navigation (AtoN) for the Port of Mongla,
Bangladesh, where a major development project is currently under way to bring facilities up to current international standards.

The Korea Maritime Institute (KMI) is a research centre developing policies on marine affairs and fisheries and is operated by the Government of the Republic of Korea through its Office of Government Policy Co-ordination.

Established under its current name in 1997 it expanded by way of a research centre created in 1984 and is organised into different research divisions:

• Marine & Coastal Policy Research Department
• Shipping, Port & Logistics Research Department
• Fisheries Policy Research Department
• Marine Territory and Industry Research Department

Britain’s new global shipping port DP World’s London Gateway, on 7th November welcomed its first scheduled vessel, MOL Caledon from South Africa. The ship, pictured alongside the quay, is operated by MOL Liner.

It was announced from Dubai, UAE, on 7th November 2013 that Britain’s new global shipping port had welcomed its first scheduled vessel, MOL Caledon from South Africa.

After more than a decade of planning and construction across three square miles of development, DP World London Gateway deepsea port is now open, providing British exporters and importers with an efficient way to ship globally, at, it is claimed, less cost.

New straddle carriers at DP World London Gateway Port.

ICAO Council President Roberto Kobeh González (second from right), 38th Assembly President Michel Wachenheim of France (third from right) and ICAO Secretary General Raymond Benjamin (top left) are congratulated by wellwishing Delegates and ICAO officials upon the highly successful conclusion of the 38th ICAO Assembly.

Last month (October) the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) concluded a landmark 38th Assembly after receiving endorsement from its Member States on sector-wide strategic planning. This exceeded many expectations when the organization agreed to develop a global market-based measure (MBM) for international aviation.

On 5th/6th November Helsinki saw the launch of the Swedish, Finnish, Estonian project known as WINMOS, co-financed by the European Commission. This is a project that aims to safeguard efficient winter navigation in the European Union’s northernmost fairways by safeguarding icebreaking resources in a medium and long term perspective and to develop the winter navigation system as a whole in the Baltic Sea.

both pictures © Sjöfartsverket; The Swedish Maritime Administration (SMA)

Tideland Signal, an international specialist in aids to navigation and its South
African agent, Marine Data Solutions (Pty) Ltd, announced recently that it had won the contract to supply SeaBeacon 2 System 6 radar beacons (racons) to the South African National Ports Authority, part of Transnet SOC Ltd.

The racons will be deployed in various positions around the coast, including in the country’s six largest ports: Richards Bay, Durban, Saldanha, Cape Town,
Port Elizabeth and East London. They will join other Tideland Signal radar
beacons already installed in South Africa and elsewhere in Africa.

The Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore (MPA) was involved in the hosting of the inaugural Regional Forum on Vessel Traffic Services from 1st to 4th October 2013. This Forum was jointly organised by MPA, the IMO, the Singapore Cooperation
Programme (SCP), and IALA World-Wide Academy (IALA WWA) under the Singapore-IMO Third Country Training Programme.

A first in Asia, the Forum provided a platform for officers from maritime
administrations from around the world to interact and discuss issues related to VTS, safety of navigation, maritime safety, and to identify capacity building needs in VTS for the region to enhance navigational safety.

The preliminary draft of the Strategy Implementation Plan for e-Navigation was endorsed by the Sub-Committee on Safety of Navigation (NAV), when it met for its 59th session held from 2nd to 6th September. The e-Navigation strategy implementation plan aims to integrate existing and new navigational tools, in particular electronic tools, in an all-embracing transparent, user-friendly, costeffective and compatible system that will contribute to enhanced navigational
safety while simultaneously reducing the burden on the navigator.

IMO headquarters

On 24th September the UK Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) reminded holders of ‘national’ pilot licences of the need to convert to a European equivalent by 8th
April 2014 to maintain their current flying privileges.

This deadline affects all commercial and private pilots holding a valid non-JAR licence (sometimes also referred to as a CAA licence), which would have been issued before January 2000.

On 23rd September it was announced from Grece that Transas Hellas has recently agreed with Minerva Marine Inc. to equip its fleet with ECDIS and official charts aiming to shift within a specified timeframe to paperless navigation. In addition to the premium line of Transas ECDIS and Transas Admiralty Data Service TADS (official ENCs), Minerva Marine has decided to deploy additional back up arrangements both for hardware and software, including Transas TX-97 vector charts.

Stena Bulk and South Korean Hyundai Glovis, the Hyundai group’s shipping arm, will begin collaborating with a cargo shipped via the North East Passage. Stena Polaris, a P-MAX tanker with ice class 1A, will leave Ust Luga in the Gulf of Finland on 15th September with a cargo of 37,000 tons of naphtha. The voyage, which will go via the North East Passage, is expected to take 28 days with the tanker arriving in a port in South Korea in mid-October.

So far this year, a total of more than 270 ships have been given permission to sail through the North East Passage, although far from all of them will do so.

On 2nd September it was reported from the European Space Agency that EU Member States have begun their independent testing of the most accurate and secure signal broadcast by the four Galileo navigation satellites in orbit.

Transmitted on two frequency bands with enhanced protection, the Public Regulated Service (PRS) offers a highly accurate positioning and timing service, with access strictly restricted to authorised users.

On 23rd August Evergreen Group held the naming ceremony for its first L-type vessel built by CSBC Corporation in Taiwan, Ever Living. The ceremony held at CSBC’s Kaohsiung shipyard was officiated by Mr S.S. Lin, First Vice Group Chairman of Evergreen Group. The official rope-cutting of the new 8,508-TEU vessel was performed by Dr Jih-Chu Lee, Chairperson of Taiwan Financial Holdings and Bank of Taiwan. The ceremony was attended by dignitaries from Taiwan and abroad.

It was announced on 14th August that NGM Energy, Greece, has selected Thomas Gunn’s Voyager Chart Management Service to manage paper and digital chart updating in all 16 vessels in its fleet. It is also taking advantage of Thomas Gunn’s outfit management service (OMS) for the automated supply of paper charts.

The Voyager Series from Thomas Gunn Navigation Service has earned a reputation for innovation, reliability and responsiveness to customers’ needs, offering the mariner an easy to use, cost effective and high quality database of
navigational data neatly displayed.