DigiTrace

In co-operation with:

• MARINE PRESS OF CANADA
  Distributors of Nautical Books&Charts
  Marine Presse du Canada
  Distributeurs de Cartes&Publications Maritimes

Your system for managing corrections of charts & publications!

Notice to Mariners via E-mail

DigiTrace is an authorized service of digital and paper tracing of chart corrections as published in weekly Notices to Mariners (NTM).The tracings allow the mariner to quickly and efficiently update the chart folio onboard ship. DigiTrace eliminates the time-consuming, laborious and tedious job of searching through each Notice to Mariners for applicable corrections.

The weekly transmission is always done only with customized corrections according to the vessels chart & publication index!

DigiTrace also works as an advanced search engine for the corrections since edition date. The DigiTrace service is supplied as a weekly E-mail with extremely compressed data - encrypted for safety.

Improves Safety	Up-to-date information at sea. - Helps eliminate potential mistakes when transferring English text to nautical charts.
Improves Time Management	DigiTrace reduces chart correction time by shipboard navigators. - Early notice, gives ship personnel extra time to make chart corrections. - Reduced office administration.
Improves Quality	Accuracy of corrections is improved by graphically portraying corrections. - You will know which charts are on board the vessel, when new editions are announced and if you have old charts or publications on boards.
ISM compatible	Assists ship managers to comply with ISM code for verifiable chart correction audit.
Authorisation	Corrections done by authorized cartographers approved by NOAA / BA. - Can completely replace paper NTM in some flag states.
BA compatible	DigiTrace is fully authorized with the British Admiralty Digital NTM and Tracings.

DigiTrace - Full Service (Auto Supply Service)

With the DigiTrace - Full Service your vessel is aware of the availability of a new edition of a chart or publication. The vessel will be supplied with the new editions of charts and publications in advance, thus avoiding navigating with the old editions. With this service, you are assured that during Port State Control inspection your vessel has the latest edition charts and publications.

How it works:

• Charts & Publications Audit list, which is a complete list of all charts and publications with their latest edition date, will be sent on board.
• The ship’s officer records the edition date of the charts & publications in the appropriate column.
• Vessel evaluates which charts & publications are relevant for relevant for the trading pattern. Those not relevant will be marked on the list as “Inactive”.
• Vessel sends the list back to Marine Press of Canada and Marine Press enters the list into its database.
• When we have the full list of charts and publications that are relevant for the trading pattern, we will evaluate which is out-dated.
• We will advise your office the cost for the supply of the new edition charts and publications to replace the old edition board.
• On your office approval, we will supply the new edition charts and publications.
• Your vessel is now on our Folio Management System. This system maintains your vessel’s chart & publication inventory and is updated automatically each time a chart and/or publication is supplied to your vessel.
• New Editions of Charts & Publications will now be supplied automatically to your vessel according to the arrangement made with your office. Vessel does not have to place an order for them.

What we send on Board

Charts & Publications Folio Files

This file we send you is like an inventory list. This lists all the charts & publications with the edition date your vessel currently has on board. The folio is automatically updated by Marine Press. Each time a new edition of a chart or publication is supplied, our system updates the edition date in your folio. If your vessel orders a chart or publication, it will also be entered in our database, keeping your folio complete and up to date. The updated folio report will be sent on board quarterly. The Master discards the old report and replaces it with the new one.

Chart Correction List

This is sent with the Notices to Mariners and Chart Correction Tracings. It assists the ship’s officer in correcting charts. It lists all the charts the vessel has on board that need to be corrected that week. After the chart is corrected, the date of completion is recorded under the title “DATE SHIP EDITION CHECKED & CORRECTION DONE”.

Correction Sheet fot List of Lights & Radio Signals

This is compiled by Marine Press from the Notices to Mariners. So instead of cutting his Notices to Mariners to correct his Lists of Lights & Radio Signals, the ship’s officer uses our Correction Sheet. The Notices to Mariners is thus kept intact for future reference.

Charts & Publications Correction Certificate

This certificate is to be signed by the ship’s officer and counter-signed by the Master to certify that all chart corrections for that week have been completed. All old editions of charts & publications have been remove from the bridge/wheelhouse to avoid being use by mistake or spotted by Port State Control Inspectors.

New Edition Replacement Certificate

A certificate will be issued by MARINE PRESS to certify that your vessel has in place a folio management system from MARINE PRESS that insures that new editions of charts & publications are sent on board and provides a way to insure that corrections are applied to charts & publications and that old editions of any chart or publication are remove from the wheelhouse to avoid being use by mistake. This system complies with the carriage of updated charts & publications required under the ISM regulations.

DigiTrace - US Digital List of Lights

How it works:

In DigiTrace - in the Complete Publication Mode - you will find the Lists of Lights that you subscribe to (we recommend to have a binder for each of the Lists of Lights that you subscribe to).

You will get the updates via CD or via E-mail (depending on your service). Once you have followed the instructions that come with the CD/E-mail, your List(s) of Lights within DigiTrace will be up-to-date!

When you want to use your List of Lights, you should first decide which sections that are affected by your intended voyage.

Using this database is satisfying the carriage requirement according to SOLAS Chapter V, Regulations 2, 9 and 27. However, depending on your company policy or flag-state regulation, you might need to update your binder also for the intended voyage.

Compare the date of the relevant section(s) in the index within DigiTrace with the date printed at the bottom of the page for the same section(s) in your binder.

• If DigiTrace and your printed section have the same week, then this section is up-to-date.
• If DigiTrace has a later week than your printed section, you need to update this section!

NB for the Front Matter, this will be printed and distributed by Marine Press of Canada at the time of any new edition.

Updating a Section: Simply select the section in DigiTrace that you want to update. Then click on the printer-icon to print. (NB You are printing all the pages in this section, since the pages might have shifted in the section depending on the corrections.) Take out all the pages in the corresponding section in your binder and replace them with the pages you just printed.

Repeat step 4-5 for each section that you need to update. - Your List of Light is now Updated!

Comparison DigiTrace vs Competitor

DigiTrace does not need special equipment like ChartCo - and DigiTrace is therefore also more technically reliable. (Not to mention cost of special receiver and cost for approved technician to connect to Inmarsat equipment.) With the constant development of increased capacity and reduced costs for E-mail (hi speed, V-SAT, various new suppliers) we are convinced that DigiTrace is the way to go also for the future.

We have experience in sending customized corrections via E-mail since 1996 and develop our service continously.

There are also quite a few companies around that have tried/contemplated ChartCo and then decided to go with DigiTrace. (For names dropping, some of the companies having implemented DigiTrace fleet-wide are P&O Nedlloyd, HamburgSued, NYK, NOL, CEC, AngloEastern, etc, plus of course practically the whole cruise industry.)

Contents Charts/Pubs

• Competitor has BA tracings and limited US tracings.
• DigiTrace is much more complete with tracings and NTM from BA, US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, France, etc. Most vessels use 95% BA, but many times there are also local charts.
• With DigiTrace you get ONE system to manage all corrections! (Some countries, like Australia, are more & more emphasizing corrections from the issuing NTMs!)
• Furthermore DigiTrace can contain NTM from e.g. Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Brazil, Mexico, etc. These NtMs are part of the price of the subscription!

Contents General

• DigiTrace includes completely customized corrections also for e.g. T&P corrections.
• DigiTrace includes summary of corrections for List of Lights.
• DigiTrace includes digital replacement pages for ALRS. (incl in price of DigiTrace. Loose leaf service can be purchased separately from e.g. Kelvin Hughes/Thomas Gunn for /1-2 USD/week for each volume...)
• DigiTrace includes list of Charts Onboard, but also short list of Old Charts Onboard. The same exists for Publications.

Service/Support

DigiTrace is consistently receiving high marks for support and quick answers. Also, our support is of course included in the price. With DigiTrace all future new versions are supplied free of charge (How about Competitor?)

Office Version

Office version included for DigiTrace at no extra cost. Also, the DigiTrace Office version is completely synchronized with info onboard (not entirely true with Competitor). This is used by e.g. superintendants to keep track of their vessels, with updated views of charts & pubs onboard, outdated editions, etc.

Digital publications

DigiTrace has a completely digital List of Lights as option. This is a completely integrated part of DigiTrace. Approved to replace paper List of Lights (and all the glueing) - to a price comparable with the paper version! (Competitor does not have this - althogh they can probably supply updates to a separate and much more expensive system.)

DigiTrace can also include other digtal publcations as options: eg. NP247, CFR33, etc.

File sizes

When comparing file sizes, it is of course important to compare the contents first. Looking at the weekly price alone, ChartCo has a very high initial price / or a rental of receiver instead of weekly cost for transmission. We believe the systems - incl transmission costs - are comparable in price.

Another difference is that with DigiTrace, the contract is very flexible, with ending and refund for any un-used weeks in case of vessels sold or scrapped for instance.