T&P Notices on ENCs
Concerns with updating ENCs with T&P notices
Questions on T&Ps
1) My main concern involves correcting the ENC. At present T&Ps are available in weekly updates for ARCS charts and do not cause concern, However at present there is only one way of updating ENC with T&Ps and this is for the navigator to manually enter the position of the warning that the T&P concerns and then place a message on the ENC to refer to a printed copy of the T&P. This is apparently due to the way that different countries produce and distribute T&Ps . Not a issue that is widely advertised by producers of ENC charts and I only know about it due to deficiency at an oil major inspection and numerous emails to the supplier of the ENC outfit on this vessel. Obviously receiving the updates is an issue and these are normally forwarded to the vessel as CD’s in the post which can lead to delays just as it used to with corrections for paper charts. However most reputable companies nowadays have the corrections for paper charts forwarded to the vessel by email and there is not an excuse for charts to be out of date. The posting of CD’s rather than by email is purely used as a means to reduce costs to the ship owner.
2) Navigational warnings and T&Ps do not have a recognised/industry compliant method of plotting/warning to the Navigator. We are relying on an inherited paper system to do this important job. Perhaps some method of down loading a file with relevant area T&Ps and Nav Warnings by e mail (?Admiralty e-Nav) on board ship and uploading this temporary file to the ECDIS -which will "pencil in" temporary corrections until permanent correction or removal by further weekly corrections. Also would include a print out of corrections and effected ENC cells for Port State Control purposes.
RESPONSE
Supplied by the UK Hydrographic Office
The important role that T&P Notice to Mariners play in the paper chart world in providing the mariner with navigationally significant information is not yet fully mirrored in the digital world.
One shortcoming of ECDIS is that it does not very effectively draw attention to temporary and preliminary (T&P) updates within ENCs. It is also a fact that not all Hydrographic Offices as yet include T&P information in their ENCs. The IHO has recognised this as an issue and has tasked one of its technical working groups to develop solutions. In addition the IHO has issued a new version of S-65 ‘ENC Production Guidance’; this should help ENC producers standardise the way in which this kind of information is encoded.
At present therefore the only guaranteed source for T&P information is paper Notices to Mariners (NM) bulletins from national Hydrographic Offices providing local information or those, such as the UK (through Admiralty Notices to Mariners), providing a worldwide service.
The UKHO has also recognised that the lack of consistent, worldwide, T&P information is a significant problem for mariners and, as an interim measure, is including all Admiralty T&P NMs in its ‘Admiralty Information Overlay’. This allows the limits of the T&P NMs to be displayed as an overlay to ENCs in the Admiralty Vector Chart Service (AVCS) by compatible display systems. In this way the navigator gains easy access to both the location and content of T&P NMs during the passage planning process.
Navigation Warnings are by nature more short term and urgent than T&P NMs and it is intended that the Mariner’s Information Objects (MIO) capability within ECDIS is used in this case. The MIO can be used to annotate ENCs with NavWarning (radio or NAVTEXT) information and this can be displayed on the ECDIS alongside the planned route. Many ECDIS will allow these objects to be created on a Planning Station and passed forward to the operational ECDIS.
Port State Control and industry audits of vessels will include inspection of ECDIS and the update status of the installed ENCs. This could well be an issue for the industry and there needs to be development in three areas: on the training and knowledge of those involved in the inspection of navigational equipment; on improvements to ECDIS equipment so that they can report their status more effectively; and on the development of third-party solutions, such as Admiralty e-Navigator, which will assist in the management of the ENCs, including their update status, and also provide reports for Port State Control.
The ability to receive ENC updates at sea by remote means is also a significant issue faced by ECDIS users. Whilst ‘online’ update services for ENCs are available (both email and Internet (http)), updating vessels’ complete ENC outfits can often take more bandwidth than they normally have available. Some online update services allow the user to restrict the updating to only those ENCs in active use to minimise download size. However it is important to remember that it is necessary to download new editions when they become available because they will contain important new information; later updates can not be loaded until the New Edition is installed.