A Seafarer’s Perception of ECDIS

Capt Anshuman Naik has written an excellent post titled 8 myths about mandatory ECDIS in the group http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ecdis/. He is an experienced seafarer though he prefers to call himself a ‘hapless mariner’. I have reproduced it below adding my comments in italics.
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Now that IMO has approved Ecdis becoming mandatory from 2012 there is a lot of interest among shipping companies. People who had earlier burnt their hands over last minute fittings of AIS and LRIT do not wish to repeat the same mistakes. Unfortunately this has given rise to many myths.

Myth 1 - Ecdis will be mandatory on all ships from 2012 so hurry - time is running out!

Reality - Ecdis becomes manadatory from 2012 only for new ships. The timetable requires existing ships to fit it before the first Seq survey after 2014 (passenger) to 2018 (handy sized cargo). The timetable is (all July)-

New passenger and tankers - 2012
New cargo more than 10,000 GT - 2013
New cargo more than 3,000, old passenger - 2014
old tankers more than 3000 - 2015
old cargo more than 50,00 GT - 2016
old cargo more than 20,000 - 2017
Old cargo more than 10,000 - 2018

What this means is that a 2500 teu brand new container ship built today need not have an ecdis upto 2017 - that's a good 8 years and 2 computers away!

A tanker presently sailing (or for that matter even built next year) need not fit ecdis for the next 5 years! Now in computing, that IS a very long time. Remember 2004? Your 1 GB hard drive was considered state of art... today you cannot even buy a 1 GB flash!! More importantly, try running a large program on a 5 year old computer? (Yes - Ecdis programs are very heavy on memory and need lots of space - just like elephants!)
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True! Any futurist will tell you that 5 to 10 years is a generation away in a fast changing digital world. On top of that the S-57 ENC version 3.1 is frozen since 2000. By the time this version is implemented on SOLAS ships it will be already obsolete.
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Myth 2 - every ship will have ecdis by 2018

Reality - ships which will be scrapped within 2 yrs of the implementation date are exempted (good ole grandfather clause!).

In other words, a 1995 built cargo ship can be scrapped in 2018 without ever having to fit an ecdis.
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True! But then not fitting an ECDIS just because it is not mandatory is not in the right spirit. Ask a mariner who has got used to ECDIS/ECS. He will not like to go back to paper charts.
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Myth 3 - We have raster charts so we have an ecdis. We now comply with the Solas requirement!

Reality - Sorry guys, but IMO believes it is an ecdis only if you have official vector charts (you know - those electronic charts with weird numbers like FR136870) also known as ENC's. Your raster chart is good, but not good enough to be called an Ecdis.
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Myth 4 - Let's fit a Transas (substitute that for any private chart manufacturer of your choice... C-map, furuno, blah) ecdis - that way we get to comply with the IMO requirement.

Reality - Bad news again! Private vector charts are excellent in quality and reliability, but IMO does not believe them worthy of being called an ecdis.

And just for your information, which charting system (Transas Navisailor, Furuno, Maris, Telko) you install hardly matters. You could get any ecdis software and load ENC's on it. The company matters only as far as the operator friendliness of the interface is concerned (Or should that have been "unfriendliness" ?!)
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Due to all the hoopla around it is easy to get confused about ECDIS and the digital charts. For example Transas Navi-sailor is an ECDIS which can use Transas charts whereas C-Map is not an ECDIS. Similarly Furuno do not produce charts – they use different types of charts produced by C-Map, Navionics, ENCs etc.
Otherwise what Anshuman says is true, IMO only recognizes ENCs for ECDIS.
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Myth 5 - let us fit our ecdis now - that way we will be prepared when it becomes mandatory.

Reality - that "state of the art" computer you fit today will be useless 5 years later when ecdis really becomes mandatory for your ship (Moore’s law). It will be terribly slow and outdated. In other words, you anyway would buy a new ecdis.
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Maybe. But just because something will become obsolete five years from now doesn’t mean that you sit tight.
Myth 6 - Train my men in ecdis? Bah! Humbug!

Reality - Much as this reminds me of Scrooge (may Charles Dicken's soul rest in peace), it is well worth the moolah to spend on a good robust computer, a technician who does not leave a web of wires, an electronic charting software, and private vector charts and allow your seafarers to get familiar with all aspects of ecdis. Let them get confidence on it.

This comes only after someone knowledgeable shows them what they can do - something possible only through training (the usual mariner fear psychosis - why try anything new when the present system is running well. The last time the previous 2nd mate tried to change ecdis settings, the damn thing froze....)

After all, mariners will be making multi million dollar decisions based on information they get from the ecdis. What they get depends on where they look for it... If they do!
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Spoken like a true educationist. Good training along with hands-on experience is worth every penny spent.
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Myth 7 - We train our seafarers in ecdis by delivering excellent 40 hours of theory and working on one ecdis set. We are ready!

Reality - There is only one way of learning ecdis - by working on it with one's bare hands. Any training that does not let each seafarer work independently on ecdis (1 to 1 ratio) is money down the drain. Of course, the best way is to train the seafarer on board... But I wonder how many people can afford that

Ecdis's of different manufactures differ too much from each other for a seafarer to easily be able to find common / most useful features on the Ecdis on his own - at least for now, he / she certainly needs guidance.
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With standardization the need for type-specific training is reduced. For example every time you buy a new mobile phone doesn’t mean you have to go through a training course. For that matter the chart plotters are designed for fishermen who may not have had formal schooling.
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Myth 8 - Cannot afford an ecdis to give your seafarers hands on training now? You are doomed...!

Reality - The only way ecdis will prevent groundings is when your mariners are familiar with the uses and limitations of this beautiful piece of equipment, viz. Hands on familiarity. You don't need big bucks for that.

Companies like Furuno (navnet 3d), raymarine, Leica, etc. make robust ecdis units for between 2500 to 4500 us dollars. From a user point of view, they are as useful and dependable as any of the more expensive 10,000 dollar plus units. Plus they either come preloaded with charts or can be purchased real cheap (google earth nautical charting suite combines with noaa raster charts for just 50 usd).

That would be a more sensible way of spending money rather than spending it on ecdis training on an equipment which your seafarer is most probably not going to see on board!
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It is important to understand the pros and cons between various types of charts. Cheaper charts do not permit regular updating. You have to replace them every 6 to 12 months depending on how often the updated versions are brought out. And you have to pay for them every time you update.