Northrop Grumman gets S-VDR type approval

Northrop Grumman Corporation has been awarded type approval from the German certification authority Bundesamt für Seeschiffahrt & Hydrographie (BSH) for the Sperry Marine VoyageMaster II Simplified Voyage Data Recorder (S-VDR).

The BSH type approval certifies that the Sperry Marine S-VDR meets the International Maritime Organization (IMO) carriage requirements and International Electrotechnical Commission performance standards for “black box” recording devices on ocean-going ships. Similar to the cockpit recorders on aircraft, the S-VDR provides a permanent record of data and voice communications from the ship?s bridge for use in post-accident analysis.

The IMO has adopted new regulations that will require ships of 20,000 gt and upwards constructed before July 1, 2002, to be fitted with an approved S-VDR by the first scheduled dry docking after July 1, 2006. Ships of 3,000 to 20,000 gt must be fitted at the first scheduled dry docking after July 1, 2007. Administrations may exempt ships from this requirement if they are to be taken out of service permanently within two years of the implementation date.

The S-VDR is a simplified version of the Voyage Data Recorder (VDR), which is already required for new ships constructed since 2002. The S-VDR standard was created by the IMO for retrofit on existing ships, many of which were built with older systems and sensors that cannot easily be interfaced to the VDR.