Danelec unveils new VDR

The original International Maritime Organisation (IMO) VDR standard, which came into effect in 2002, means ships of 3,000 gross tonnes or more must carry a VDR to help in accident investigation. Now, the new VDR standard coming into force on 1 July 2014, sees an increase in the number of hours data must be recorded for from 12 to 48 hours. On top of this, data must be recorded in a fixed capsule and a new float free capsule to ensure it can be easily located.

But complying with the standard is not without its problems. The number one issue, according to Danelec’s existing customers, is servicing the system.

“The VDR is a complex piece of equipment to service and there’s an enormous amount of work that goes into configuring this and all the other equipment onboard the vessel. For the servicing engineer who comes onboard to find and fix the problem, he has an extremely short window to do the repair – something like six to eight hours – which is almost humanly impossible,” Hans Ottosen, CEO, Danelec Marine, told MS.

“So, we looked at what we’ve learned over the past 10 years to see if we could find another way of handling this,” he added.

As a result, Danelec told MS it’s taken a new approach to servicing marine electronics. Instead of having a technician come onboard a vessel to find the root of the problem and then solve it, the memory card holding the programme and configuration data can be removed from the Data Acquisition Unit, which is then taken to a repair centre elsewhere.

In addition, Danelec’s new DM100 has been designed using the company’s SoftWare Advanced Protection (SWAP) technology making it easier to replace hardware without having to reinstall the software.

Installing the original memory card into a new Unit means the problem can be solved in less than an hour, leaving ships to continue on their routes with little or no downtime or additional costs.

As with all of Danelec’s products, the new DM 100 also comes with the VDR Explorer playback software, which runs from any PC and can provide real-time monitoring and replay recorded data.

The company says it believes its new VDR will be among the first to comply with the new IMO standard. Its existing VDRs are in use onboard more than 5,500 vessels worldwide, including Maersk Line vessels. Interest in the new product is also growing, and Danelec sees a “substantial retrofit market”.

Production of the new VDR begins in April.