The Mariner's Blog

Customers looking to purchase NGA charts in region 8 (the South Pacific Islands) will find a considerably reduced selection of coverage available to be printed on demand. Region 8 is split into three sub-regions: 8-1, 8-2, and 8-3. Charts in subregion 8-1 (shown in green to the right) are still available,...

A number of UKHO distributors met with UKHO representatives in Baltimore this week to prepare for the launch of Admiralty’s e-Navigator. The system integrates route planning, purchasing, and management of publications on board a vessel, and provides facilities for vessel superintendents to better manage their vessels. It is the UKHO’s goal for...

Amendments to MARPOL Annex VI (Prevention of air pollution from ships) have formally established a North American Emission Control Area (ECA), in which emissions of certain air pollutants from ships are subject to more stringent controls than the limits that apply globally. The ECA will take effect on August 1, 2012,...

The 9 hazmat classes are generalized as follows: Class 1—Explosives Class 2—Gases Class 3—Flammable Liquids Class 4—Flammable Solids Class 5—Oxidizers Class 6—Toxins and Poisons Class 7—Radioactive Materials Class 8—Corrosives Class 9—Miscellaneous Describing Class 4 as “Flammable Solids” is actually a misnomer. Each of the three Class 4 Divisions contain liquids...

ECDIS mandation is coming. On a rolling timetable starting in July this year, certain vessels will be required to use ECDIS as the primary means of navigation; all but a few of them will use ENCs as the data that drives the ECDIS hardware. In order to meet SOLAS requirements,...

Your staff are trained, you've installed some expensive hazmat software, and operations are rolling along. Out of the blue, a load that your software told you was valid gets rejected due to invalid segregation. The shipment is put on hold, delays abound, and there is wailing and gnashing of teeth....

Customers looking to purchase NGA charts in regions 3 (UK, Iceland, Greenland, Western Europe in blue) and 4 (Scandinavia, Northern Russia in red) will no longer find them available to be printed on demand. Those charts are now available for military use only, which means the commercial network of printers supplying...

The scale of a nautical chart is a way to convert inches on paper to inches in the real world. Chart scales are expressed as ratios (1:100,000 for example), so the unit of measure does not matter. On a chart whose scale is 1:100,000, one inch on paper represents 100,000...

If you own a fleet of containers, you should have an Approved Continuous Examination Program (ACEP). Compared to a periodic examination program, an ACEP will eliminate the need to update CSC plates following each inspection, reduce exposure to CSC violations, and provide more consistency for examinations that improve the quality...

The General Services Administration (GSA) acts as the federal government’s purchasing agent, connecting federal purchasers with the most cost-effective and high-quality commercial products and services. This is accomplished, in part, by the GSA Schedules program, through which GSA establishes long-term governmentwide contracts with commercial firms to provide access to millions of commercial...