Green Light For Pay-As-You Sail ENC Licensing
Dutch chart distributor Datema has announced it has finally managed to secure the necessary permissions from a significant number of countries to roll-out its ENCTrack distribution system for Electronic Navigational Charts (ENCs). The member countries of IC-ENC have approved pay-as-you sail licensing in 2010 under strict conditions. Following test and trials, Datema was granted final approval this March, effective from 1 April.
First introduced at Nor Shipping in 2009, the ground breaking ENCTrack concept by Datema was stopped in its tracks due to disagreement on the terms of licensing. Coverage had been limited until now to the Baltic area. With the approval of IC-ENC, the coverage of the service has now been significantly increased. The re-launch will be supported by attending several international maritime events, the first being Nor Shipping 2011 (24 – 27 May) in Oslo, Norway.
Safety Improvement
Within the ENCTrack service all available electronic charts (ENCs) are made available to the mariners beforehand, and a tracking system is used as method of post payment. The new service provides a massive improvement in safety at sea as all charts are available at all times, eliminating the need for license management and allowing the ship to change plans for emergency and bad weather conditions at any moment. The new service could not have come at a more opportune time, as the IMO has approved the amendments to SOLAS for the use of ECDIS and electronic charts from 2012. As the ENCTrack service addresses many of the existing issues surrounding the licensing of ENCs like inflexibility, pricing, training and license management, mariners’ world wide greeted the new service with great enthusiasm.