CIRM LATEST NEWS

LRIT

Prominent subject this year has been Long range Identification and Tracking (LRIT) with ad-hoc engineering group meetings in London, (hosted by CIRM) and followed by further meetings in Malta and Hamburg with an Intersessional meeting of the LRIT working group in London.

Much technical work on the standards was completed however the Intersessional meeting came up with a number of policy issues which had to be resolved at MSC 83 in Copenhagen. After a long and strenuous ten days discussion, LRIT was given the green light albeit with no International Data Centre and a Temporary International Data Exchange hosted by the US.

Some Issues of costing and billing were not resolved and were put back to MSC 84 scheduled for May 2008

David Plumer, Frances and Chris Snowdon at MSC 83

COMSAR 11

CIRM Attended COMSAR 11 where apart for some work on LRIT, work continued on the definition and scope of e-Navigation, specifications for AIS SARTS, radio spectrum issues and the replacement for HF telex in GMDSS.

Henk Middelkoop of Radio Holland

Annual Meeting

This year our annual meeting was in Lisbon, at the Pestana Palace Hotel. We heard from James Wood of EMSA on how they operate and their role witin the Marine Equiopment Directive, Johannes Kuehmayer from EMEC/AMEM also spoke about MED and the Class Directive and we were delighted that Nick Cutmore from the International Maritime Pilots Association gave us an overview of their work and an introduction to Portable Pilot Units.

We welcomed new member Michael Card who gave a presentation on Zeni Lite Buoy’s activities in the world of Aids to navigation and we listened with interest to Steve Shipman from the International Hydrographic Office in Monaco who highlighted the role of the IHO in electronic chart standardisation. David Patraiko of the Nautical Institute spoke on S mode – a new idea from mariners for standardising user interfaces within e-Nqavigation.

Work on Radar Installation guidelines and ECDIS performance standards continued in the margins with a clear policy being developed for NAV 53 on the installation guidelines and the start of new work on revision of the IEC ECDIS standards in line with the changed IMO performance standard.

With beautiful weather conditions, a successful afternoon out to Sintra followed by an excellent group dinner meant a positive meeting was had by all.

NAV53

At NAV 53 in July the radar installation guidelines were completed as a Safety of Navigation Circular along with further work on e-Navigation strategy and Carriage requirements for ECDIS however the Sub-Committee decide that it was premature to mandate the carriage of ECDIS.

Other Meetings

The Secretariat also attended the continuing e-navigation meetings that are currently hosted by IALA most recently in the pretty Norwegian Town of Haugesund.

CIRM has been out and about this year – the secretariat were at SASMEX in Brighton, RTCM in the USA, The Hydrographic Conference in Monaco, Norshipping in Oslo and most recently in Vienna where we gave a joint presentation on CIRM and its work to various Austrian equipment manufacturers. Our member company ACR Europe (formerly Nauticast) helped with the day which was organised by Johannes Kuehmayer of AMEC.

The re-launch of Lloyds List gave an opportunity for CIRM to be seen along with other industry members at their bash at the Design Museum London and of course, World Maritime Day on 27th September was an excellent day for all on board HQS Wellington. Member company Selex joined forces with CIRM and had an excellent display which interested invited guests including HRH the Duke of York, The Secretary-General of IMO Efthimios Mitropoulos and Industry VIPs.


Efthimios Mitropoulos IMO, Frances and Kirsty Luxford from Selex	Frances and Michael on the stand at WMD

Office

Finally - A new server is now in place in room 407 Southbank House. Not without its teething troubles, work is now much more secure and the system in place should benefit the working procedures in the office greatly.

The secretariat continues to work closely with members via email and the phone. We are looking forward to seeing our new members at the meeting planned for Dublin in April next year – don’t forget to book please.

Michael Rambaut

Frances Baskerville