As experience has been gained in the use of VDRs, there has been a growing demand from Accident Investigators and a number of ship owners for the harmonisation of playback facilities. The current Performance Standards for VDR/SVDR do not specify a recording format for VDR data with the result that VDR manufacturers have adopted different approaches.
At a recent meeting with senior members of the United Kingdom’s Marine Accident Investigation Branch (MAIB), Chris Winkley – Kelvin Hughes Special Adviser was briefed on some of the difficulties experienced by investigators as a result of these differing standards.
As Capt. Nick Beer, Principal Inspector of Marine Accidents explained, much time was being lost when first arriving on board a vessel, which had suffered an incident, in determining whether downloading or replay was possible. Also with the normal quick turn-around of vessels a rapid replay of downloaded information would provide a valuable guidance to investigators as to who to interview before both vessel and crew member sailed.
"Fast access to the VDR data is important to enable the investigation to be focussed on the most valuable issues," - said Capt. Beer. "Our inspectors cannot realistically carry all the correct equipment to deal with any make or model of VDR".
These concerns were discussed at length at the United Kingdom’s Marine Coastguard Agency’s (MCA) sub-committee on Marine Navigation Equipment (MNE) which combines mariners organisations, legislative bodies and manufacturers, such as Kelvin Hughes..
From these discussions a paper was produced for submission to the IMO for discussion at their sub-committee on Safety of Navigation (NAV 51) session which took place 6th - 10th June 2005. The basis of the paper being that a single standard be considered.
In the event, two papers were submitted, one from Denmark which presented their similar views on the downloading and playback of data from VDRs and SVDRs. The paper made a number of suggestions on the subject and recommended discussion of the points. The second paper from the United Kingdom also proposed a number of suggestions with a recommendation that the sub-committee should prepare a draft Safety of Navigation circular to take into account the conclusions of the harmonisation discussions.
It was noted that harmonisation, from the manufacturer’s perspective, was not an easy task for a variety of technical reasons. Clearly there was a need to establish areas of common ground between manufacturers, prior to the IMO meeting which was successfully achieved by The International Association for Marine Electronics Companies (CIRM). CIRM has observer status at I.M.O. and is encouraged to provide technical and industrial advice during the development of international regulations and standards.
Martin Taylor, Kelvin Hughes – Engineering and Programmes Manager – is the current Rapporteur to CIRM on VDR matters, having taken over from Chris Winkley last year. Martin led a discussion on harmonisation during the recent CIRM technical conference held in Cyprus, with inputs from other key manufacturers.
As a result, CIRM, working with others, including Accident Investigators, were able to propose a workable solution during IMO’s NAV 51 meeting. This delegation was led by the CIRM Secretary-General, Michael Rambaut, who, with CIRM members present, assisted in the drafting of an amendment to both the existing IMO Performance Standards for VDR and SVDR, along with a Safety of Navigation Circular (SN/Circ/246). This advised manufacturers to "ensure that after 1st July 2006, software for the exclusive use of investigators for the download and playback onboard, with any necessary connectors and cables, were available, locked inside the VDR/SVDR".
Chris Winkley noted that Kelvin Hughes NDR 2002 Voyage Data Recorders and MantaDigital SVDRs would already meet the above requirements with the minimum of adaptation and that the simple "common" standard was still to be determined at a later date. This was confirmed during a subsequent conversation, made immediately following the IMO meeting with Kelvin Hughes’ Martin Taylor who was conducting a presentation on SVDR at a Conference held at Nor Shipping.
In summary, IMO/NAV 51 has discussed both the UK and Danish papers that presented views on the downloading and playback of data from VDRs and SVDRs. As a result, a draft Safety of Navigation circular has been prepared which promotes a practical and low cost solution.
Kelvin Hughes have had considerable input on the subject over the past few months and can confirm that their VDR and SVDR products already satisfy these new requirements, which will continue to be monitored at each stage of implementation.
