TECH FILECEACT Allows Operators to REACT How updated electronic navigation practices improve safety and ef? ciency – and optimize cargo movement – on US inland waterways.It was a cold winter night. Heavy gusts and snow did not helps preventing accidents on the western rivers, but also allow safe navigation and forced the ships on the upper Mis- in coastal waters covered by BSB or S-57 NOAA charts.sissippi to secure alongside the few remaining jetties. Safety Greg and his team identi? ed the requirement to ease is the key issue for all river transport companies but at the chart operations and included a convenient download same time ef? ciency and timely delivery of valuable goods is button within CEACT which allows weekly updating of of utmost importance. It was 1999 and an American naviga- all river charts plus the new USACE buoy overlay at a ? n-tion pioneer – Greg Dunkle – had realized the potential of gertip providing the smallest data volume on the market.electronic chart systems. Tailored to ful? ll the needs of river Today there are many navigation products in the mar-pilots, CEACT was born and for the ? rst time safety and ket which are being used by marine pilots, yachtsmen ef? ciency could be optimized at the same time. and workboats. Some of these products are loaded with Founded in 1999, CEACT stands for Channel ECDIS, hundreds of options which make operation under extreme AIS & Course Trajectory and offers navigation software conditions dif? cult and may lead to errors. For CEACT speci? cally designed for professional towboats and work- and its users, ease of operation and high reliability with boat operations within the con? ned waterways of the US a proven downtime of only 8 hours per year (better than inland river system. The ? rst CEACT system was launched 99.9 percent availability!) are still an industry benchmark.in 2001 after two years of intense development effort. To-day, it is used by domestic barge companies and is addition- CEACT UPDATEDally utilized internationally on inland river systems in Latin The latest CEACT version has just been released and America and South East Asia. Notably, here in the United still helps keeping ships and barges moving; regardless how States, CEACT is today used by an oil major and Southern bad conditions may be. The new version includes a new Towing on their vessels. SevenCs GmbH is a software house interface for enhanced readability in all ambient condi-that develops software for the maritime navigation industry. tions, and more user friendliness in general. This helps the Its key products include portable pilot units and CEACT. river pilot to safely navigate and focus on the most rel-evant data which helps prevent accidents. The advanced O O = S & E chart rendering allows faster loading and display of the PTIMIZING PERATIONS AFETY FFICIENCYReal-time navigation and AIS target display provided respective chart which remarkably optimizes the applica-full situational awareness and allowed to avoid dangerous tion. Users will also bene? t from the fully automatic CPA situations before they occurred. But the main factor for function which includes different types of calculation for more ef? ciency in the daily operation of CEACT was the rivers, channels and offshore. With extended support of innovative approach to consider the combined effects of BSB charts including head-up display CEACT becomes vessel propulsion, rudder, wind and water current – all dis- more powerful in remote areas not yet covered by ENCs.played in one easy to use “course trajectory” display. As an Together with the well-established and widely shared example, avoiding oversteer helps saving up to 10 percent Western River Chart package, weekly updates, and the of fuel consumption and allows for more ef? cient vessel USACE´s buoy overlays, CEACT continues to signi? cant-operations in an increasingly competitive market. ly increase the safety on board.But safety of navigation also depends on accurate charts. www.ceact.comTogether with the USACE, CEACT INC pushed the pro-duction of highly accurate inland vector charts in S-57 for-mat. The US Western River chart package is automatically loaded and updated inside CEACT. Delivered in small package SENC format via the only certi? ed value added reseller, CEACT still is the only inland ECDIS which re-lies on pre-tested of? cial data and not on unsafe RSS feeds. One more reason why CEACT is THE safety tool which 49 www.marinelink.com MN MN MAR14 Layout 32-49.indd 49 MN MAR14 Layout 32-49.indd 49 2/21/2014 3:30:32 PM2/21/2014 3:30:32 PM