Standards for approval of navigation equipment on larger ocean-going SOLAS vessels can be inappropriate for leisure, workboat, fishing and river vessels. In particular, it has been suggested that the ECDIS specification is not suitable for implementation on smaller vessels because of its over-prescriptive requirements of large screen size and other input / output characteristics.

Since a standard ECDIS may not suited for use on these smaller vessels, Electronic Chart Systems have been developed - also known as electronic chart plotters. These systems are not approved for navigation and yet are in regular use. Although operators can satisfy the carriage requirements of SOLAS Chapter V by carring a set of paper charts, day to day navigation is frequently carried out using the on-board unapproved ECS.

This situation is clearly undesirable in terms of safety of navigation at sea. In many cases users do not regularly purchase chart updates for their ECS. Also, the operation of ECS, and its display symbology are not standardised, making it difficult for an operator to migrate from one ECS to another.

Our aim is to improve navigational and operational safety. To this end, we wish to encourage the use of approved electronic navigational equipment. Our immediate objective is to develop a set of guidelines which can form the basis for approval of a Mini-ECDIS, which will operate using ENC's only, and which will be primarily designed for use on fishing vessels and workboats.

This project is funded by the UK Treasury via the Invest to Save Budget (ISB) under the project name "Electronic Charting for Fishermen". It is a collaborative project between the Sea Fish Industry Authority, The Maritime and Coastguard Agency and the United Kingdom Hydrographic Office.

Further details are available from:

Kingfisher Information Services

Sea Fish Industry Authority

St. Andrew’s Dock

Hull HU3 4QE

United Kingdom

Tel: 01482 327837