Weathernews Inc. and NAVTOR have come together on a mission to enable enhanced simplicity, safety, and efficiency for forward-thinking shipowners and operators worldwide. The newly launched DOSCA DX / NavStation 5.3 marks the start of a voyage into the future of a smarter, more sustainable shipping industry.

“Simplicity is the key,” he states and WNI Executive Officer Hidenori Iwasa follows: “If we can simplify tasks we can help shipowners and operators unlock efficiencies, improve safety (with less potential for human error and non-compliance), save money, and deliver better environmental performance. By digitizing and, where possible, automating processes we can achieve this. And by working with leading partners like WNI we can integrate further expertise and user-relevant services, adding huge value.“ DOSCA DX /NavStation 5.3 is the epitome of that drive.”

Powerful partnership
WNI and NAVTOR started working together in 2018. While NAVTOR serves a global fleet of around 6,000 customers with advanced e-Navigation products and services, WNI provides weather data and route optimization solutions to around 10,000 vessels globally. The attraction, it seems, was instant:
“For collaborations to work each partner has to bring something distinct to the table, something the other party (or parties) can leverage and develop through their own specialisms,” notes NAVTOR CEO Tor Svanes.
“In this case the synergy was clear – we could combine our navigational expertise with their leadership in weather to deliver compelling benefits; helping customers achieve competitive advantage. It was an excellent foundation to begin building on.”

Integrating excellence
NAVTOR launched NavStation in 2014 as the world’s first digital chart table. This unique software platform collects all the information navigators need for optimal decision making and passage planning in one place, at their fingertips.

The latest ENCs sit at the core of the solution, with further data (such as Admiralty Digital Publications (ADP), Admiralty Electronic Nautical Publications (AENP), NavArea warnings, Environmental Regulations, security alerts, regulatory information, vessel traffic, and much more) ‘layered’ over the charts for complete operational awareness.

In the WNI corner, Captain DOSCA debuted to the maritime market over a decade ago and has gone on to build a position as a globally renowned system for Optimal Weather Routing, helping customers enhance safety, save fuel, reduce emissions and cut OPEX.

By working together the two parties have combined their individual offerings, integrating an updated version of Captain DOSCA into the established NavStation platform. The result is the freshly unveiled DOSCA DX, as it will be marketed to WNI customers, or NavStation 5.3, for NAVTOR users.

But this isn’t about branding, it’s about benefits. And plenty of them.

Optimum benefits
Captain DOSCA’s success was, in part, driven by WNI’s Optimum Ship Routing (OSR) Service, whereby users feed planned routes to an onshore function that optimizes them in accordance with the very latest, detailed and trusted weather data. This allows vessels to sail safe, efficient, and economical routes.

By combining those functionalities (amongst many others) onto a single platform, vessels now have a greatly streamlined process with one comprehensive planning station. There is no longer any need to plan on one system and optimize routes on another, transferring data and (with USB sticks as the standard bridge between computers) introducing cybersecurity risk. Everything is integrated, streamlined, and efficient.

Connecting to quality
Both partners agree that the benefits of using just one system, regarding cost and time efficiencies, are huge, but it’s the combined functionality and user-friendliness that are probably the real selling points. DOSCA DX and NavStation 5.3 take the navigators from berth to berth, with no need to piece together routes and collect data from different sources, in one seamless procedure. There’s less room for human errors, one clear process for meeting operational and environmental objectives (saving fuel, costs, and emissions), enhanced quality control, and better security and compliance.

What’s more, having OSR within NavStation’s and NAVTOR’s connected e-Navigation ecosystem allows for greater data sharing between vessels, fleets, and onshore management teams. This means companies can now monitor optimum routes, assess fuel savings, and implement improvements business-wide based on greater data insight.

“It is connected, it is efficient, it is smart.”

Future focus
And that is a critical point for WNI as NAVTOR’s partner. They see smarter data empowered services as the key to unlocking more sustainable shipping for its customer base – maximizing performance while minimizing environmental impact. Hidenori Iwasa says both firms share this vision, as well as the desire to serve their respective (and now combined) customer bases with quality solutions that meet operational needs.
DOSCA DX is the embodiment of that ambition.

He continues: “Without question, DOSCA DX is our most important development to date; a state-of-the-art​ solution tool, combining WNI’s high-quality weather data and best-in-class ship routing visualization and optimization with NAVTOR’s leading e-navigation solutions in a seamless user experience”.“This will help our users meet challenges and achieve business objectives – today, tomorrow, and far into the future. It is, we believe, a game-changing innovation.”

The road ahead
DOSCA DX and NavStation 5.3 launch this month – a culmination of successful collaboration, but only the first step on a greater journey.
“We have developed an excellent mutual understanding and, as respective leaders in our fields, can offer unparalleled experience and expertise to share with one another,” Hjøllo concludes. “That will help us drive new developments and continually improve the service and products we can offer to the world fleet, delivering ever greater advantages.

“Because that’s what smart shipping is really about – finding innovative solutions that provide business and environmental benefits, impacting positively upon all industry stakeholders.”
And that, at the end of the day, sounds like an optimal route forward into the future for everyone…

Source: maritimeprofessionals

YANTAI, China, Aug. 14, 2020 /PRNewswire/ — In China’s coastal areas, there has been a saying that “the best Chinese ocean ranches are in Shandong, while the best Shandong ocean ranches are in Yantai”. Yantai City, located on the coast of Bohai Sea in Shandong Province, is vigorously accelerating its building of ocean ranches, and continuously promoting the transformation and upgrading of ocean ranching. According to the International Ocean Information Center, up to now, Yantai has 30 ocean ranches at or above provincial level, of which 14 are at the national level, accounting for one eighth of the total number in China; with its ocean ranches covering a total area of over 700 km2, the city boasts an industrial chain of ocean ranching with an annual output value of over CNY 50 billion.

Yantai has a sea area of 26,000 km2, nearly one tenth of which is suitable for the construction of high-quality ocean ranches. In the 1970s and 1980s, Yantai, as one of the first pilot areas in China, carried out experiments on artificial reefs and conducted activities of stock enhancement and releasing of Chinese prawns, becoming one of the cities in China that launched the construction of ocean ranches and the city with the largest number of national-level ocean ranches.

In recent years, Yantai has enhanced its level of technological innovation and integrated application of ocean ranching, organized nearly 100 enterprises and scientific research institutions to establish the Yantai Strategic Alliance for Technological Innovation of Ocean Ranching Industry, and set up an investment fund totaling CNY 1 billion for the development of marine industry to help extend the industrial chain of ocean ranching. The fund is mainly used in ocean ranching, marine engineering equipment, marine science and technology, seafood farming, fresh product processing, etc. At the same time, they have been integrating ranch data resources, improving the online monitoring of ocean ecological environment, ocean ranch observation and the monitoring network of marine economic operation, and building a big data platform for comprehensive ocean management, so to achieve the “visual, measurable, controllable and early-warning” management of ocean ranches.

In May last year, the “Changjing No.1” deep ocean intelligent net cage was put into operation in Changdao, Yantai. “Changjing No.1” is the first domestic deep-water sit-on-bottom intelligent net cage, which is researched and developed by Yantai CIMC Raffles. It is 66m long, 66m wide, with an upper ring height of 34m and an effective breeding water body of 64,000 m3, equivalent to 100 ordinary net cages. The net cage is equipped with automatic equipment for baiting, underwater monitoring and net cleaning, as well as a sewage treatment system, a desalination system and a solar power generation system. It is the world’s first deep-water sit-on-bottom aquaculture net cage and the first large cage to achieve automatic net-lifting function.

In July of this year, “Genghai No.1”, China’s first large-scale complex platform of intelligent ocean ranching, was put into operation in Yantai. It has a total diameter of 80m and a total breeding volume of 30,897 m3, equivalent to the water volume of 14 swimming pools of international standard, and is composed of three identical and rotating sub-cages, like three petals blooming at sea. “Genghai No. 1” has made multiple innovations in terms of the movable sit-on-bottom structure, the new material netting, the intelligent equipment, etc., and is expected to produce 150,000 kg of fishes and receive 50,000 tourists annually.

Relying on its ocean ranching platforms, Yantai has begun to explore the building of a new model of recreational fishery development that combines “ocean ranching + marine engineering equipment + tourism” and “leisure sea fishing + yachting”, to promote the deep integration of fishery with tourism and sports industry. Last year, Yantai achieved an output value of CNY 5.1 billion in its recreational fishery industry, with a year-on-year increase of 13.5%.

Zhang Shuping, Secretary of Yantai Municipal Party Committee, said that the city would continue to leverage its building of ocean ranches as the main driver for the transformation and upgrading of marine fishery, and adhere to the development path of scalable, engineering, intelligent and green ocean ranches, in accordance with the principle of “ecology first, land and sea integration, and sustainable use”.

Image Attachments Links:

Link: http://asianetnews.net/view-attachment?attach-id=369252 
Caption: “Changjing No.1” is sitting firmly in the sea area of Daqin Island, Yantai

Link: http://asianetnews.net/view-attachment?attach-id=369256 
Caption: “Genghai No.1” complex of ocean ranching

SOURCE International Ocean Information Center