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 Aug. Bolten of Hamburg, Germany, is running a trial to print its paper charts onboard of one of its vessels, 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. Some shipping companies find themselves 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 ChartWorld to think about another method: printing out Admiralty raster charts onboard using an A0 size chart plotter. The project was initially set up in October 2002 with a software module written by SevenCs and other components were selected at the market. The first trial has been running since early April 2004. When Hamburg shipping company Aug. Bolten heard the first time about it, the company wanted to run a trial direct onboard of one of its vessels, printing out a defined folio of British Admiralty raster charts. SUBHEAD License and update mechanism All 11 CDs with the complete worldwide folio of UKHO raster charts can be carried onboard the vessel, and the vessel receives the normal regular update CDs, but it does not have to buy licenses to use all of them. When it needs to use a new chart, the vessel sends e-mail to ChartWorld. 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 and SevenCs 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 and SevenCs persuaded UKHO to allow a trial however because the service meets customers’ demands, ChartWorld says. Different protection schemes can be integrated such as printing on the print out specifying exactly which vessel the chart can be used on, which ARCS user permit was used, the date of the latest updates incorporated in the chart and so on. To guarantee control for UKHO, the software can count 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. SUBHEAD Acceptance Daniel Schwarzwälder of ChartWorld says that charts printed onboard have been accepted by all different authorities as equivalent to the paper chart when they have seen it. "If you use a good plotter or a good printer with high resolution, a lot of officers, from port state control told us, it looks like the same as the printed chart," he says. "If you show us one of these printed charts, we are only able to realise that it is a copy, because additional annotations are print on to it, like ARCS user permit and others." “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 3000 (Eur 4,500). ChartWorld wrapped the plotter in a wooden case for protection and shock absorption (see photograph). The costs of printing out one chart (paper plus ink) are about GBP 8 (Eur 12), and the cost of a raster chart license is about GBP 15,50 (Eur 23) so total GBP 23,50 (Eur 35) – this compares to the cost of buying an up to date paper chart of GBP 17,20 (Eur 25,70). 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 today. ChartWorld trialed 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 world coverage of paper charts or a second ECDIS with emergency power supply.