Seawork meeting results in contract win
Norcom Technology has won a contract for its AIS package as a direct result of the Seawork commercial marine event in Southampton in June.
Norcom’s new customer is the Kings Lynn Conservancy Board – a small harbour authority on the east coast of England.
SeaTrak by Norcom is a system that runs on any standard PC and reads data from an AIS receiver, either via an RS232 interface or an ethernet connection.
It decodes information and plots AIS targets on to raster charts using NMEA data strings with data from the UK Hydrographic office.
“The user can modify the display to show range rings around the base station, enabling the user to quickly identify how far away the AIS targets are,” said Norcom managing director Phil Harris. “The colour of the AIS Target can be adjusted to show either the type of AIS Target (Class A or Class B etc.) or the type of vessel (cargo vessel, tanker etc).
“The system can be set up to log raw data and also create a log book of data in CSV format. The recorded data can be played back if an incident needs to be investigated.”
Kings Lynn Conservancy Board is too small for the conventional Vessel Traffic Services system used in larger ports, which is also too expensive for what it needs, said captain Paul Bailey, from the Board.
Norcom Technology has been exhibiting at Seawork for years and has already booked for next year, which will be the event’s 25th anniversary.
“We got the order because Paul Bailey the deputy harbour master visited our stand at the show and contacted us shortly afterwards,” said Phil Harris.
