Near Miss in New Zealand
The New Zealand Transport Accident Investigation Commission (TAIC) issued a report of the near grounding of the ferry ARATERE on September 29, 2004. The ferry was entering Tory Channel, a restricted waterway, when it failed to make a programmed course alteration while in automatic steering. The master intervened and made a manual alteration of course moments before the ferry would have grounded at full speed. The cause of the problem has not been definitely determined, but it appears that the automatic navigation and track steering system probably defaulted to autopilot mode because it received an erroneous signal from an external input…
Sperry Marine to Supply IBS for Destroyers
a contract to supply integrated bridge systems (IBS) for the next eight U.S. Navy Arleigh Burke (DDG 51)-class destroyers. movement of the ship superimposed on a high-resolution electronic chart display. The contract is valued at $7.9 million. Sperry Marine by Bath Iron Works (BIW), lead shipyard for the DDG 51-class Aegis destroyers. The ships are being built at BIW and Northrop Grumman's Ingalls Operations. The first ship to receive the IBS installation will be the Nitze (DDG 94), scheduled to be commissioned in 2005. The IBS networks the ship's systems and sensors into a single interface, providing a high level of reliability and redundancy of critical equipment thereby minimizing the ship's operating costs while its modular structure easily expands to meet future requirements.
