Ole Berg News

Navico Holding AS, parent company to the Simrad brand of navigational marine electronics, has reached an agreement to acquire MARIS (Maritime Information Systems A/S) from The Grieg Group. MARIS is a supplier of data solutions to the commercial maritime sector related to navigation, voyage optimization and voyage monitoring. With well more than 10,000 navigation systems delivered, MARIS is a supplier of ECDIS systems globally. The MARIS ECDIS, radar/ARPA overlay to ECDIS, and VDR solutions complement Navico’s Simrad product portfolio, the company said.

Primar Stavanger, the international Electronic Navigational Chart (ENC) center operated by the Norwegian Hydrographic Service, has recently signed a cooperation agreement with Estonia. The center now covers more than 80 percent of all ENCs available in Europe, reports marketing manager Rune H. Johnsen at Primar Stavanger. Estonia has already made 31 ENCs available, which indicate that the whole coast of this Baltic state is covered. Of these, nineteen are coastal ENCs, five harbour ENCs and seven berthing ENCs. The increased coverage of ENCs in the Baltic with Primar Stavanger fits well with the declaration from the Helsinki Commission (Helcom) and national commitments. These focus on covering all major shipping routes and every major port in these waters with ENCs by the end of 2002.