Three photos: ChartWorld print chart Caption: Printing the paper chart onboard ChartWorld load plotter Caption: Loading the Hewlett Packard plotter onto the ship, with a protective wooden case ChartWorld Elizabeth Bolton Caption: The Elizabeth Bolton MAIN HEAD Printing paper charts onboard DECK HEAD Shipping company BuS Shipmanagement of Hamburg, Germany, is running a trial to print its paper charts onboard, so that it does not need to keep a worldwide folio of updated paper charts BODY In the modern maritime environment, where tramp ships do not know where they are going to be from one week to the next, keeping up to date paper charts onboard is a nightmare. Shipping companies have to maintain an updated worldwide folio of paper charts, which is expensive and time consuming, particularly updating them with tracing paper. The alternative is to try to buy paper charts for the next port at the last port of call, or have them delivered by a pilot before entering the waters. BuS Shipmanagement often found itself resorting to an even more ludicrous scenario, cutting a paper chart on shore into A4 pieces and faxing them individually to the ship, where they are stuck together with sellotape, or scanning the pieces, e-mailing them and printing them out. While these methods did not go down too well with the port authorities, it led BuS to think about another method: printing out Admiralty raster charts onboard using an A0 size chart plotter. BuS keeps all 11 CDs with the complete worldwide folio of UKHO raster charts onboard the vessel, and receives the regular update CDs, but it does not buy licenses to use all of them. When it needs to use a new chart, it sends an e-mail to ChartWorld, its chart agent; ChartWorld e-mails back a license code the vessel can use to unlock the chart and use it, and bills the company. This e-mail is around 50 kb. The vessel then opens the chart and updates it automatically from the latest update CD-ROM. The chart can then be printed out and used. SUBHEAD Protecting UKHO The main problem with the system is protecting the UK Hydrographic Office's royalties; UKHO was understandably concerned that if it allowed ChartWorld to make software which enables raster charts to be printed out, then it would stimulate a business in pirated charts around the world which would hit UKHO's revenues, in turn preventing it from being able to maintain its world chart service. ChartWorld persuaded UKHO to allow this, on the basis that each chart printout would have writing on it specifying exactly which vessel the chart can be used on, the date of the latest updates incorporated in the chart. The software counts the number of times that specific chart has been printed out and can prohibit printing above a certain number of copies. The software with functionality to print out charts can only be used onboard specific vessels with UKHO's permission. "The UKHO has an eye on it, they are little bit scared about it but they gave us the allowance to do it," he says. "Everyone is satisfied with this solution." SUBHEAD Acceptance Daniel Schwärzwalder of ChartWorld says that the charts printed onboard have been accepted by all regulatory authorities the ship came across during the first month of the trial. "If you use a good plotter or a good printer with high resolution, a lot of officers, even the German port authority / port state control told us, it looks like the same as the printed chart," he says. "If a mariner comes to us with a printed paper, we aren't able to realise that it is a copy." Mr Schwärzwalder notes that it is very hard for anybody to stop raster charts being printed out, since under European law people are allowed to print out copies of any data they hold onto paper as a security copy. "This is a solution that fits to some shipowners - and specially to the inspectors and the officers and captains," he says. "They say, oh we are lucky, it's much better than what we have done before." "This is a really nice solution - it can help the mariner on sea, even help for safe traffic on sea and on the oceans," he says. SUBHEAD Hardware The vessel is fitted with a Hewlett Packard Designjet 500 Series plotter, which costs around GBP 2000 (Eur 3,000). ChartWorld wrapped the plotter in a wooden case for protection (see photograph). The costs of printing out one chart (paper plus ink) are about GBP 10 (GBP 15), and the cost of a raster chart license is about GBP 15 (Eur 22) so total GBP 25 (Eur 37) - this compares to the cost of buying an up to date paper chart of GBP 15 (Eur 22). There is a risk of course that the plotter will fail, but then there is also a risk that paper charts can be burnt or have coffee spilt on them. The plotter comes with 12 months guarantee, with options for a further 3 years, saying that a technician will fix problems within 24 hours, but whether this guarantee would cover the vibration and dust of sea use is not clear. ChartWorld trialled a number of different plotters for this application. "In the end we opted for HP - because it is really robust," he says. ChartWorld notes that the onboard plotter could also theoretically be used by shipping companies using electronic charts, to comply with the back-up requirement; rather than have a secondary ECDIS system, or have a full folio of paper charts, they could print out raster charts before every voyage they make. This could be a cheaper option than maintaining a world coverage of paper charts.