Sofar Ocean
Sofar Ocean News
Autonomous Vehicles Solve (and Create) Problems for Ports
Autonomous vehicles are increasingly sophisticated defensive tools for ports wanting to protect against maritime threats - including attacks from other autonomous vehicles.In December 15 last year, the Security Service of Ukraine reported that its underwater drone had struck a Russian submarine in Novorossiysk. The incident highlighted just how sophisticated potential threats have become. Harbor cameras were likely hacked…
Human Judgement Critical to Voyage Planning
Not every risk at sea can be measured, but in shipping a route still has to be chosen.Behind every route recommendation is a human judgement call. While weather and performance can be calculated with precision, other risks exist beyond the reach of data, forcing decisions to be made in an unavoidable grey area.In recent weeks, routing decisions in the Persian Gulf and the Arabian Sea have carried a different kind of weight.
Sofar Ocean Launches Spotter Scout USV
Sofar Ocean, a leading ocean intelligence platform, launched Spotter Scout, a rugged, solar-powered uncrewed surface vehicle (USV) built by Online Oceans, a UK-based marine robotics company, that enables persistent ocean sensing in remote and deep water locations—no moorings, crew, or depth limits.Remote ocean monitoring is typically expensive and complex. Traditional mooring systems are hard to deploy, maintain, and relocate, and often cost more than the sensors they support.
Sofar Ocean Launches Wayfinder Voyage Simulator for Fleet Planning
Sofar Ocean has launched Wayfinder Voyage Simulator, a voyage planning tool that lets operators, commercial teams and chartering desks generate and compare unlimited voyage scenarios in seconds, aiming to improve fleet efficiency and profitability.Part of Sofar’s Wayfinder platform, the simulator incorporates the company’s marine weather forecasts, informed by what Sofar says is the largest private real-time ocean sensor network and ‘outperform traditional models by up to 50%’…
U.S. Navy puts Sofar’s Wayfinder to the Test
The U.S. Navy’s Fleet Weather Centers are piloting Sofar’s Wayfinder platform and data from its global network of ocean sensors to advance the Navy’s capability to ensure safe and efficient ship routing for the U.S. Fleet.Sofar Ocean announced the partnership with the U.S. Naval Meteorology and Oceanography Command’s (CNMOC) Fleet Weather Centers in Norfolk (FWC-N) and San Diego (FWC-SD).FWC-N and FWC-SD…
New Wave Data Underpins Ship Structural Integrity
The loss of the Stellar Daisy in 2017 was a tragic reminder of the importance of wave data to ship design and operation. The vessel sank in the South Atlantic Ocean, with 22 of 24 crewmembers lost. The structural failure of the vessel was attributed to several factors including material fatigue and the forces imposed on the hull as a result of the weather conditions.Survey requirements for some vessel types have since been tightened…
Weather Routing: Sofar Ocean Plots the Course
Sofar Ocean is on a quest to extract and put to use data from the world’s waterways. Co-Founder and CEO Tim Janssen discusses how his team’s hyper-focus on data is helping to improve weather routing via Wayfinder.Tim Janssen and his Sofar Ocean team continue their ‘Epic Ocean Data Quest,’ remaining laser focused on doing its part to help extract and put to use increasing quantities of information from the world’s oceans.
