ABP Southampton orders berthing aids
The Port of Southampton UK confirmed at last month’ s Seawork Exhibition that it had ordered two portable E-Sea Fix Hybrid pilot systems from Danish developer, Marimatech. They are currently being used by pilots for berthing of container vessels in conjunction with overlays of electronic charts.
The systems, combining encased DGPS and AIS receivers, are part of a new series of portable E-Sea Fix Cat piloting systems designed for virtually any application from en route navigation to berthing or docking of VLCCs, ferries and coasters. Marimatech claims that they are the lightest high precision units of their type, weighing with carrying case just 5kg.
All Cat-type systems are fully compatible with leading brands of ECDIS software and apart from Differential GPS, they can also be configured for use with the Russian Glonass satellite network as well as its forthcoming EU counterpart, Galileo. First UK customers include port authorities at Barrow and Bristol while in France, the Port of Dunkirk has also commissioned a unit.
