Autoship Systems Corp News

Canadian firm Autoship Systems Corporation (ASC) in cooperation with its Norwegian reseller, Coastdesign Norway (CDN), has developed an offshore stability software for jack-up vessels called - the Autoload® - Jack Up version and has won a contract to install the solution onboard Seaway 7’s first self-propelled jack-up vessel, VIND 1. Autoload is also installed onboard their entire fleet of vessels which include open deck semi-submersible heavy transportation vessels, cable lay, heavy lift crane installation, and Installation support vessels, Autoship Systems said.

The world's marine insurers collectively lost $3 billion in 1999, Norway's Central Union of Marine Underwriters (CEFOR) said. Cefor's calculation uses the collective experience of marine insurers in Norway - one of the world's major marine insurance markets - and extrapolates the results to the global industry. Cefor's md said that not even in their previous worst case estimates did CEFOR anticipate anything like this. The principal reason for the losses is continuing reduction in insurance premium rates, said Formso. On CEFOR's current estimates, rates in 2000 have dropped to 31 per cent of their 1994 levels. Hvide Marine Inc. Hvide Marine Inc. said last Monday that chairman and CEO Jean Fitzgerald has been hospitalized with a heart condition and was to undergo surgery.

The past decade was a tough one for the Canadian shipbuilding market. It was a decade that produced a decline of both employment and decline of newbuilds, many of which were contracted in the late 1980s still awaiting construction. This unfinished business was concentrated mostly on various military projects that had been thought out but were never actually followed through. It is estimated that by the time the 1990's came to a close that Canadian yards had experienced the worst decade since postwar times with total sales declining by about 50 percent since 1991. In addition, total employment in the industry has broken off by about 50 percent from 12,000 workers in 1990 to today's figure of 5,000.

Autoship Systems Corp. (ASC) has initiated a new 'total system' approach to CAD/CAM software for shipyards, aiming to eliminate what it terms the most expensive CAD/CAM inefficiencies within the design-to-manufacture process: data exchange and interface discontinuities between specialized products (and the additional training and maintenance costs that result). ASC sought to achieve these goals through designed interoperability, with the overall system bringing a shipyard's major design and construction phases into the same data chain, and the interface remains familiar through each stage of the process. Autoship's total solution includes five ASC products and software options from two partnered companies. Autostructure performs internal structural modeling tasks.

Autoship Systems Corporation (ASC) of Vancouver, Canada has been a leader in CADCAM vessel design software for nearly 25 years. Originally conceived for the monohull, ASC software is now used for designing all types of marine vessels – from conventional hull forms to oil rigs. In the early 1980s, PCs were beginning to have respectable computing power at a relatively affordable price. This situation encouraged Grahame Shannon of Vancouver, Canada to develop his idea of designing vessels on the PC-platform. Soon Shannon had many naval architects knocking at his door. His design software, called Autoship, had apparently made the vessel designer’s life a lot easier. Before long Shannon had to hire employees and move his business, Coastdesign Inc., out of his basement. Coastdesign Inc.

Many companies can claim to be global, but Autoship Systems Corporation (ASC) of Vancouver, Canada talks the talk and walks the walk. ASC has been in the business of CAD/CAM software development for nearly 25 years. A core tenant of ASC has been to establish itself as leader in innovation, helping to ensure that as shipbuilding techniques evolved, the industry could rely on its CAD/CAM software to meet new design and construction needs. ASC recently assisted two shipyards to this end: Cantiere Navale Ippolito s.r.l. of Santa Maria di Castellabate, Italy; and Circa Marine and Industrial Ltd of Whangarei, New Zealand. Cantiere Navale Ippolito S.R.L. Cantiere Navale Ippolito s.r.l. is located in the Campania region of Southern Italy.

Autoship Systems Corp. of Vancouver, Canada, along with its partner Coastdesign, Norway have recently signed a contract with Kongsberg Simrad AS for the development of an interface between Autoship's Autoload program and Simrad's Vessel Control System (VCS). Autoload is a DNV type-approved onboard stability and strength monitoring program, while VCS includes dynamic positioning and joystick-control systems, position mooring, thruster control and vessel automation systems. The premiere application of the VCS/Autoload combination will be installed on a drilling rig owned by Sedco Forex Offshore — the offshore contract drilling business owned by Schlumberger.