The installation of GL Maritime Software’s GL SeaScout 2.0
Reederei Claus-Peter Offen has completed the installation of GL Maritime Software’s GL SeaScout 2.0 navigational decision-making support system on the 14,000 TEU newbuilding MSC SAVONA.
GL SeaScout, formerly known as the Shipboard Routing Assistance System (SRA), is an integrated onboard software that provides ship’s officers with decision-making support, with computations incorporating seaway measurements, wave and weather forecasts, cargo data and other signals.
The software informs a ship’s officers how the ship is responding to current conditions, and displays alarms and warnings for risk of extreme motions, including rolling, slamming and bending moment, and allows the officers to simulate different speeds and courses.
GL says that this will assist officers in then choosing a speed and course that is optimised for the individual ship’s hull, with respect to the prevailing seaway and loading conditions of the ship.
Onboard the MSC SAVONA the software will interface with a radar-based wave measurement system and will have access to weather forecast and navigational data via the ship’s network. A GL SeaScout workstation is built into the bridge console for ease of access.
“Generally GL SeaScout, as a system, works very well, giving good assistance with checking the vessel’s work against heavy sea,” said Captain Piotr Kruszewski, commander of the MSC SAVONA on her last voyage.
“It was found helpful with planning the vessel’s speed in areas of heavy weather. From my side I have to emphasise that the software is simple and user-friendly, which I appreciate very much (we do not need too sophisticated items which require special training, and it is not time consuming in handling). The manual is written in a simple and understandable way.”
This GL SeaScout installation will also contribute to a ‘Springing & Whipping’ Joint Development Project being run by GL and the Korean shipyard DSME, which aims to permanently record environmental conditions.
The objective of this long term measurement campaign is to collect data for GL’s ongoing rule development, with the information also to be used by FutureShip, a GL company, for validation of numerical simulation methods with respect to whipping and springing phenomena.
Source: Digital Ship