WMTC 2009 brings to fore new technologies

The Institution of Marine Engineers (India) hosted the World Maritime Technology Conference (WMTC) 2009, for the first time in Asia organising it at the National Centre for Performing Arts, Mumbai from January 21 to January 24, 2009. The focus was on ‘Perceptions and Visions’ a theme that was selected keeping in mind, the fact that the maritime industry is going through certain forceful changes.

Held once every three years, this was the third such conference in line - the first having been held in San Francisco (in 2003) and the second in London (2006). It helped to showcase for the benefit of the international marine industry stakeholders the advances in technology, availability of latest products and services and a provision made for establishing a forum for exchange in technology between players both at the national as well as the international level. 48 papers featuring the latest developments in technology came up for discussion. 65 stalls displayed exhibits of international equipment makers, shipyards and service providers drawing a large number of visitors through all the four days.

Opening with the keynote address, Mr Oho Kong-Gyun observed that 80% of ship building activity was based in Asia, as was also the largest number of technical papers presented. He set the conference in motion extolling South Asian countries especially India for technological advances made in shipping in general and in the port sector in particular.

The first paper was presented by Mr US Kalghatgi, chief surveyor of the Indian Register of Shipping (IRS), who projected the scheme of a ‘Clean Ship - A Technical Challenge to the Maritime Industry’. He envisioned the clean ship to have a visionary approach aiming to develop the concept of vessels designed, constructed and operated in an integrated manner to eliminate harmful discharges and emissions throughout their working life.

Having a well-trained manpower on board the ship was an issue that took centre stage that day. In this regard, speaking on computer based training (CBT) Mr Uday Ranadive, chief surveyor & sr. vice president of IRS in his presentation stated that the trainee is better prepared to learn through on-the-job training since CBT is a rich, multi-sensory delivery system facilitating greater retention of knowledge. Besides being cost effective, self paced and flexible it gives increased control to the trainers to improve job performance.

Prof (Dr) S. Selvaraju, professor & head – dept. of marine engg, of Sri Venkateswara College of Engineering, Chennai stated, “During the period of service, ships have to perform according to specific requirements. Any aberration in this performance needs to be identified, isolated, and some methods are needed to be found to rectify it. The NLP technique was found useful for correcting it.”

With an increase in automation and work overload, Claus Walther Jensen, senior lecturer at SIMAC (Svendborg International Maritime Academy) and Head of the SIMAC Laboratories, Denmark advocated use of IT technology onboard when presenting his paper on ‘Automation is the new challenge for education of ship officers’. He detailed the work undertaken at SIMAC to meet the pedagogical challenge of training the students in automation and technical IT systems. Swapan Das Sarma, Director, Teledata Marine Solutions, New York, USA on the other hand contended that to maintain a supply of knowledge workers to the maritime industry a progressive, yet revolutionary change using information technology and networked learning was recommended.

Electromagnetic radiation has also been identifies as a source of problems caused on board vessels and was also responsible for major injuries caused to internal organs of humans. Equipment such as converters, power panels, microprocessors, radar antennae etc., installed within the proximity of an area where seafarers operated caused phantom emissions both in the narrow and broad bands of the electromagnetic spectrum. A software programme has been devised to deal with such hazardous situations.

Also speaking on the need for increasing the number of seafarers, Douglas B. Stevenson, director of the Centre for Seafarers’ Rights, Seamen’s Church Institute of New York & New Jersey brought into focus the issues relating to ‘Recruiting and Retraining Seafarers – Security restrictions Criminal Prosecution and Abandonment’. Mark Williams, director of West of England (P & I Club) on the other hand highlighted some of the MARPOL violations in the USA.

With regard to protection of the environment, shipping is expected to bear its share of the burden and contribute to overall Green House Gas emission (GHG) reduction. This was brought in the paper of Ms. (Dr) Gillian L. Reynolds, Principal Environment and Sustainability Adviser of Lloyd’s Register (which was read by Andrew Easdown, the company’s Sr. Vice President - South Asia Marine). “Control of GHG emissions need to be undertaken on a global footing if they are to be effective,” he stated. “The IMO is striving to obtain an agreement on mechanisms to control CO2 emissions from shipping and should be supported in this undertaking.”

For enhanced prevention of oil leakages Mo Husain, president, MH Systems, USA had a better alternative to double hull tanker. He suggested ‘Double Side Hull on Single Bottom Tanker with under pressure system’. This was because double hulls are structurally complex and expensive, and appear to be developing operational disadvantages as well.
Taking a brief look at the maritime scenario Capt S. Bharadwaj, Vice Chancellor of AMET University, explained in detail about the dual competent ships’ crew complement and how viable it was and how much value addition it provided. Sudhir S. Rangnekar, md & group ceo of, Sical Logistics on the other hand gave a mundane version about the ‘Indian Port sector’. He maintained that as more seaports and terminals – both public and private ones joined the market race for their share of the ocean cargo pie in India, a key differentiator of their service quality could be compiled depending on how well they were geared to providing a better turnaround time for ships – by eliminating berthing delays and ensuring more efficient handling of cargo by reducing the cargo dwell time at the port and along the logistics chain.
Several other papers highlighted other aspects such as Energy efficient ships, environment and safety management in shipping, navigation, electronic and IT for ships, hull and machinery drew a lot of interest from the large number of participants who attended the conference.