ENC support for Norwegian Society for Sea Rescue

For the past 11 years, NSSR boats and vessels have used Jeppesen digital charts with regular updates and supplementary data, and have also received information technology support from the company. Although not yet required for the NSSR fleet, international legislation requires larger ships to phase in ENCs, made by or on behalf of hydrographic services, as a primary means of navigation. Against this background, Jeppesen decided to make the donation, which has an annual value of close to $500,000.

“We will not only back the ENCs with online digital updates, but we will also continue to expand our collaboration with the NSSR,” says Egil Aarstad, managing director and general manager at Jeppesen Marine.

Rikke Lind, secretary-general of the Norwegian Society for Sea Rescue, says, “We have an excellent cooperation with Jeppesen. With a fleet involved in some 7,000 operations a year, we really need to have state of the art equipment on board our vessels.”

All 44 NSSR vessels will be equipped with ENCs, as will any additional vessels the service may acquire. The ENCs updates are made available as soon as Jeppesen receives updates from the Norwegian Hydrographic Service (NHS).

The key role of the NHS is to enhance safety at sea by producing and distributing official ENCs to end users. Distribution to end users is conducted through the PRIMAR RENC (Regional ENC Coordination Centre, operated by NHS) via a network of commercial distributors.

Jeppesen, a Boeing company, has a long collaboration with the NHS, having provided the dKart Office software tools the NHS uses to produce paper and digital charts since 2006.

“Even before that, when the NHS resurveyed the whole Norwegian coast to produce new charts, we produced ENCs and paper charts as their sub-contractor for close to 10 years. Through this collaboration, we know the quality of Norwegian navigational charts,” says Aarstad.