Dole switches from ARCS to C-MAP

Reefership Marine Services, the Dole Food in-house vessel management group, was responsible for the installation of C-MAP charts on Polish-built reefer vessels in 1994. The contract with C-MAP was terminated at the end of 2002 due to the fact that the British Admiralty raster charts, ARCS, were legally accepted as an aid for navigation. At that time it seemed like a good idea to use electronic copies of paper charts.

However, Reefership Marine vessels experienced many problems installing ARCS onboard and, once the installation was complete, encountered problems with the radar overlay. On top of that, many captains approached the management and complained about the unsatisfactory quality of charts. More specifically, the problems lay with the inability of raster charts to allow zooming functions, as well as the removal of unnecessary chart information, thus making them sometimes difficult to read. Vector charts, on the other hand, are made up of layers of nautical information, thus enabling both scaling and customising the chart display.

Following the investigation of complaints, a decision was made to go back to C-MAP at the beginning of 2004 and there are currently 6 vessels using C-MAP vector charts. According to Helge Svendsen, director of the vessel management & marine at Reefership Marine Services, the use of C-MAP charts offers the master more freedom, whether he wants to use a radar overlay on the chart plotter, to compare information, bottom track or take away unnecessary information.