The renewed take-up of interest in weather routeing is being driven by a combination of related factors - the EU MRV, the 2020 sulfur cap and IMO DCS regulations.
“There is a long standing misconception that weather services can only have a benefit when sailing in blue water and that once ships are in coastal waters or traffic separation schemes that this part of the voyage cannot be optimised,” explained Tidetech founder and managing director, Penny Haire. “We have proven definitively that there are more potential cost savings from optimising against currents in UK coastal and Northern European waters than there are across the whole North Atlantic and customers are already taking advantage of this in speed optimisation and performance analysis.”
As a result, operators can predict ETA more accurately and use vessel speed and power settings to arrive on schedule, even when it changes. Tidetech claims to be the only provider of coastal tides and currents high resolution modelling, including in critical locations, such as the Malacca Strait and English Channel. The company also delivers combined ocean current and tide data on a global basis.