Seawork exhibitor supplies PPU to Bristol
Atlantas Marine Ltd of Somerset in the UK will be helping to improve the navigational system at Bristol Port having just supplied them with an E-Sea Fix CAT III’ Portable Pilot Unit (PPU). The company has also just announced it will be exhibiting at Seawork this year on stand D12.
John McCorquodale, Deputy Haven Master for Bristol Port Authority said, ‘This is the first phase in a navigation improvement system that will enable us to dock large ships with improved safety and efficiency. The RTK accuracy of the system is essential for protecting the port’s infrastructure and giving pilots greater confidence in one of the most challenging areas of the world for manoeuvring ships’.
Since 1991 the annual tonnage throughput at Bristol Port has increased from 4m tons to 12m tons and the port is now able to handle ships up to 130,000 tons. This impressive growth has inevitably increased the daily workloads faced by the port’s pilots. With plans in place for a new deep water terminal, it made sense for the Bristol Port Company to take the decision to invest in PPU technology.’
The E-Sea Fix CAT III PPU is manufactured by Danish company Marimatech, and supplied by Atlantas Marine Ltd. The PPU is the pilot’s own navigator, enabling the pilot to plan routes and display the vessel’s current position and essential navigational data on a portable and easy to use computer display. It is designed to decrease the pilot’s workload.
The Chairman of the Bristol Pilots, Paul Chase said, ‘The high accuracy of RTK gives us the ability to manoeuvre ships more safely in the tideway and it will also give us greater confidence in restricted visibility. An added bonus is the ability to record then playback a particular docking or sailing which can then be used to train junior pilots’.
Charlie Foll, MD of Atlantas Marine told MJ, ‘This was a significant sale for Atlantas Marine, which follows on the heels of recent sales to the ports of Milford Haven, Southampton and Harwich. The sale to Bristol Port builds on our successful roll-out of the E-Sea Fix PPU to UK and Irish ports’.
