The meeting of the sub-committee on Navigation, Communications, Search and Rescue which had been planned for 10 to 19 February 2021was finally conducted online and with a limited agenda. It was chaired by Ringo Lakeman of the Netherlands. This meeting competed his 5 year term as chairman so the vice chair Nigel Clifford of New Zealand will now take over with Alexander Schwarz of Germany as the new vice chair.

The major task of the meeting was to complete the revision of Chapter IV (Radiocommunications) of the International Convention on the Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS) and associated documents, a task that had been ongoing since 2009. A special meeting of the Communications Working Group had been held in the previous two weeks which had prepared complete texts and which in the event were agreed without comment. The texts now go the Maritime Safety Committee at the meeting MSC 104 in October, the next meeting MSC 103 in May being too close to allow the documents to be prepared. The revised Chapter does not greatly change any requirements with the exception of permitting satellite systems in addition to Inmarsat.

A correspondence group reported on Safety measures for non-SOLAS ships operating in polar waters. It was not possible to complete the work at the meeting so the correspondence group will be re-established. It is now intended that the measures will apply to fishing vessels of 24 metres and above, pleasure yachts of 300 gross tonnage and above not engaged in trade, and cargo ships of 300 gross tonnage and above but below 500 gross tonnage.

A further correspondence group reported on Revision of the Guidelines on places of refuge for ships in need of assistance. Again, it was not possible to complete the work at the meeting and again the correspondence group will be re-established.

A new Iridium SafetyCast service manual had been prepared as a replacement for the existing interim manual. However, it was considered that this was incomplete and should be looked at again at the next meeting. Work continues on the arrangements for coordinators to broadcast navigation and weather information to ships fitted with Iridium terminals and the modifications to the Master Plan module of the web based Global Integrated Shipping Information System (GISIS) to include information on the implementation of the Iridium SafetyCast service.

The Japanese satellite navigation system QZSS was agreed to be recognised as part of the worldwide radionavigation system despite concerns from Korea and China. A correspondence group reported on the development of generic performance standards for shipborne satellite navigation system receiver equipment but there was insufficient time to progress this, which will now be referred back to the correspondence group.

Amendments to the performance standards for Voyage Data Recorders were agreed to refer to the new Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacon requirements for use with the float free capsule.

A liaison statement was prepared to send to the International Telecommunications Union concerning the problem of interference from mobile phone systems to Inmarsat terminals on ships. A further issue was reported of interference from mobile phone systems to the Inmarsat land earth station at Burum in the Netherlands. If this cannot be managed then there may be a need for Inmarsat to relocate from Burum.

There were no ship routeing proposals to discuss due to the limited agenda which will result in a back log for the next meeting. To help the work a special meeting of the ship routeing group will be held in advance of the next meeting.

No date was set for the next meeting due to continuing uncertainties in planning around the Covid pandemic. The IMO Council will meet in July to discuss the meeting programme. It is hoped that there will be an eight-day meeting in 2022. It is hoped that new agenda items will be included to revise the electronic chart performance standards to include a transition to the new S-101 chart data format, amendments to the Voyage Data Recorder performance standards to include recording of telephone conversations and a revision of the criteria for the provision of mobile satellite communication services (resolution A.1001(25)).

A meeting of the Maritime Safety Committee (MSC 103) is planned for 5 to 14 May 2021 and a further meeting (MSC 104) for 4 to 8 October 2021. A meeting of the ICAO/IMO Joint Working Group is planned for 6 to 10 September 2021. A meeting of the Joint IMO/ITU Experts Group is planned for 1 to 5 November 2021.