Electronic Navigation Booklet: Recommendations

 

 

After many years in the pipeline, with input from numerous contributors from wide-ranging backgrounds and fields of expertise, and a concerted effort over the last year to bring everything together, the RIN Small Craft Group’s booklet ‘ Electronic Navigation Systems - Guidance for safe use on leisure vessels’ is available as a free download.

Please note that hard copies are currently in production and information on how to purchase one will be made available soon.

During the course of producing the booklet (first published in 2020) it became increasingly apparent that there were a number of areas where improvements to electronic navigation systems could be made by manufacturers and official bodies to assist the safety of leisure vessels through better design or regulation. These recommendations did not sit comfortably in the booklet so can be viewed here.

• Propose minimum standards of functionality expected from electronic leisure charts and display systems;
• Explore and consider if a means by which electronic charts and systems displaying them, which meet these standards, could be recognised by the Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA) for use on Pleasure Vessels;
• and Discuss with electronic chart and display system equipment manufacturers, the most efficient approach to deliver proposed minimum standards and achieve recognition.

The report, a copy of which can be downloaded from the Small Craft Group's webpage, was developed over almost two years and involved phone and video meetings with the main publishers of electronic “leisure” charts and display equipment manufacturers, as well as the UKHO and MCA.

Subsequently, UKSON requested in 2024 that the PVNSWG continue its' work and convert this report into a set of standards (for electronic charts and display systems for “leisure vessels”)and to provide a Gap Analysis between the data small craft need and what is shown on official ENCs, as used on large ships with ECDIS equipment.

This work is nearing completion and a copy of the final document will be available to download, in due course, from the Small Craft Group's webpage.         

Please fill out the quick form below if you have any comments or suggestions about these recommendations.