Owners of more than 20,000 ships will reduce fuel costs and gain navigation safety benefits after the collaboration of two leaders in voyage planning and weather routeing.
GNS and StormGeo will begin a strategic partnership to provide situational awareness, route optimisation tools for what represents around a third of the worldwide fleet.
This will combine weather routeing information from StormGeo and GNS’s voyager analytics tools for a single e-navigation solution.
These companies will collaborate to develop other decision support tools to improve situational awareness and voyage efficiency to reduce bunker expenditure for owners, operators, managers and charterers.
Their partnership combines StormGeo's (Bon Voyage) BVS system with GNS’s Voyager Fleet Insight online services. The combined reach of the two companies is more than 20,000 vessels, roughly a third of the global fleet, which is considered to be around 60,000 ships depending on the tonnage cut off.
StormGeo’s information will augment Voyager Fleet Insight to combine weather and ocean data with e-navigation analytics.
Electronic navigational charts (ENCs) will be delivered direct to ship ECDIS and Voyager planning stations with optimised route information.
The new service will automate the distribution and management of ENC updating, reducing the workload of the bridge teams. Routes created using this navigation and weather information will be optimised for fuel efficiency and navigational safety.
Tailored route optimisation services will be provided that can be simultaneously imported, viewed and used ashore and on board to support enhanced voyage operations.
“This relationship with StormGeo will result in a more integrated approach that will be easier for customers to use,” said GNS chief executive Paul Stanley, adding that this partnership will “harness the power of software and analytics”.
StormGeo acquired ENC distributor and GNS voyage planning service rival Nautisk in 2018. “But, we recognise that the global market for navigation is bigger than we could serve alone,” said StormGeo chief executive Per-Olof Schroeder. He expects both companies will “deliver weather insights and the best route- and vessel optimisation solutions to the global maritime community.”
These types of services will be in greater demand as IMO develops its e-navigation strategy and implements rules to instruct shipping and ports to improve electronic communications.
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