Sofar Ocean joins ABS digital fleet programme

Sofar Ocean operates an ‘ocean intelligence platform’ of metrics, informed by a network of coastal and open ocean drifting IoT sensors, known as spotter buoys, covering all five of the world’s oceans. The company recently announced a US$39 million investment to scale up its business.

“At Sofar we aim to deliver large-scale ocean data to accelerate climate insights,” said Sofar chief executive, Tim Janssen. “Ocean intelligence, powered by our global sensor network, is essential to reduce weather and climate uncertainty. This is especially valuable to the shipping industry, which is currently facing a perfect storm of carbon, climate and Covid.”

ABS My Digital Fleet provides dynamic route guidance, evaluating over 100 million routing options each day based on the latest weather data, charter party requirements and decarbonisation goals.

“With the addition of Sofar Ocean’s capabilities to ABS My Digital Fleet, we are bringing voyage insights that enable the flexibility to optimise for what is most important for each voyage, delivering the optimal route that supports charterers and ship managers in their daily operational decision-making towards meeting decarbonisation goals,” said Smarty Mathew John, ABS vice president, Digital Solutions.