NavList:

Most major chart retailers have the big printers and will produce your chart on demand, as long as it is in the database, completely corrected to the latest NTM.  This doesn't relieve the navigator of chart corrections from that point on, but it can certainly help initially if there hasn't been a new edition of that chart in some time.

 

In the Merchant fleet, we call it an "integrated bridge."  Basically the same thing as VMS.  I haven't seen one at sea, but on the simulators they are pretty neat.  Your radar image is overlayed with the GPS fed chart display.  If the two displays overlap, you are all set (2 independent means of fixing at a glance.)  The Navy can get their inertial system as a third system.  For traffic, the AIS is also fed into the system so now you can ID the target as he tracks across the screen, so if you need to call him, there is less confusion.

 

For my end, until there are regulatory requirements for these systems to be installed and integrated, I won't see them.  The guys with the purse strings in most companies are "Port Engineers" with emphasis on the second word.  They come from below and won't spend an extra dime on the bridge.  A good example of this is my ship.  We have all of the components, but none of them really talk to each other.  Since the board for the radar to talk to the AIS costs an extra $500, it didn't happen.  Upgrading our 1990-era radars to integrate with ECDIS isn't going to happen either.  I have to read a range and bearing from the AIS and then find that target on the radar if I want to know who everyone is.  They aren't even near each other.

 

I look forward to the day this stuff is on a ship I sail on, but I'll certainly keep some plotting sheets stashed away for my celnav.

 

Jeremy

 

The US Navy's electronic navigation package is called Voyage Management System (VMS) - Sperry is the major contractor. Navy may be "full up" in 2010. Last plan was for 2009, but you know how that goes.

Think of VMS as the umbrella software for navigation, receiving all the sensor data (radar, GPS, fathometer, etc.), then plotting the position on the built-in vector chart. A fully integrated chart plotter, in other words, and NO paper backup because the chart is vector. The sensors are confirmed by visual methods, say a LOP to a lighthouse. VMS lets you electronically plot the LOP on the electronic chart, so you can see if the sensors are OK. Coast Guard is just starting to integrate VMS - I think their plan is to be "full up" in 2015. Wouldn't surprise me if they quit updating the raster charts and, if you want a paper chart, you'll then go the "Print on Demand" route from a vector chart. Print on Demand is the reality for American (land) maps, so I don't think it will be that big of a deal for mariners, providing your chart retailer buys a printer.

Networked ships are also the reality, at least for the modern ships. First try, to my knowledge, was USS Yorktown (Ticonderoga class cruiser), using Windows NT. Everything was networked - navigation, engineering, supply, weapons, communications. First goof-up was a keypunch error that resulted in a "divide by zero" command. The umbrella software crashed, and that cascaded into a full network failure which caused the other umbrella software packages to crash - and Yorktown went completely cold-iron while at sea. Yorktown had to call the tug several times as they worked the bugs, and the Navy returned to their traditional contractors fairly quickly. Today's networks (and umbrella software packages) are reliable.

The tide swings back and forth, and new words gets invented as people reinvent the wheel. Today it's COTS, which stands for commercial off the shelf. They want to use commercial computer hardware and, in situations like nav radar, commercial sensors but retain the major contractor's network and umbrella software.

Joe

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