Cellular Telephone News

Professional captains and pilots in all sectors of the maritime industry confront daunting challenges and hazards every day on every trip. From piloting oceangoing ships into congested harbors and safely docking them, to navigating ferries, tourist vessels and water taxis through harbors and rivers teaming with other commercial vessels and recreational craft and everything in between, U.S Coast Guard licensed deck officers have one of the most difficult, pressure-packed jobs in any industry.

As summer slowly fades to memory and commercial vessels have less frequent encounters with recreational vessels of all sizes, shapes and descriptions on America’s inland waterways, it might be a good time to review a strange, but not completely unusual incident that occurred in Louisiana on a navigable channel in the lower Mississippi River late last May. A workboat was pushing a small barge through a narrow tributary on a job to deliver it to its destination approximately twelve miles away from where the transit originated.

There are a number of computer programs and hardware that promises to make marine vessels more productive and interactive. For example, Maxsea, Marstons Mill, Mass. has a module that connects their chart plotter to the sensors of a dredge to record the vessel's track. The track can be displayed on the chart plotter and the data collected can be directly exported in the ASC II format for use by other data processing software. The seabed outline is displayed "live" in 2-D and 3-D and the data is recorded. Need a tough bulkhead-mounted PC? Comark of Medfield, Mass. has a unit with the enclosure made of marine aluminum with an epoxy powder finish and is rated for a Nema 12 environment.

A Coast Guard helicopter crew from Air Station New Orleans airlifted a lone fisherman off his grounded 18 ft. fishing boat approximately 15 miles East of New Orleans near Bayou Delacroix, La. Richard Chatalain of Chalmette, Louisiana, contacted the Coast Guard my cellular telephone shortly after 3:00 pm Monday to report that his aluminum flat bottom boat was aground. Due to low tides and the remote location of the disabled vessel a 21 foot inflatable hull boat from Coast Guard Station New Orleans was unable to assist the man. It was determined that hoisting of the fisherman by helicopter would be necessary. Once the helicopter crew arrived on scene, they lowered a rescue basket to the grounded vessel and hoisted Mr. Chatalain into the aircraft’s cabin.

The owner of a small inland tug company has no choice but to come in to the office every Saturday morning to update his fleet and load locations for his customers; he can't reliably update his crew with change orders as the tugs frequently travel in rural areas with no cell phone coverage. On the coast, a marine ops center frequently needs to get change orders to its vessels transiting the area. Unfortunately, the center often has to wait until the boats have moved inshore before contact can be made and new orders communicated. In this case, the fastest way between points A to point B often takes an alphabetical detour, costing time and money, negatively impacting the management of valuable marine resources. Common problems? Yes.

Advances in satellite communication product and service technology seem to have outpaced many of the markets they seek to serve. However, despite some jittery times for the big three global satcom providers, it appears that maritime and offshore markets stand to gain real, bottom-line-driven results by adopting the latest communication technology solutions. The maritime industry has traditionally — with its generous mix of large corporate and small independent ownership — taken considerable flak for its collective conservative nature in regards to the integration of advanced technological products and systems onboard vessels, large and small.

Advances in satellite communication product and service technology seem to have outpaced many of the markets they seek to serve. However, despite some jittery times for the big three global satcom providers, it appears that maritime and offshore markets stand to gain real, bottom-line-driven results by adopting the latest communication technology solutions. The maritime industry has traditionally — with its generous mix of large corporate and small independent ownership — taken considerable flak for its collective conservative nature in regards to the integration of advanced technological products and systems onboard vessels, large and small.