Turns the weather to your advantage

WeatherNav combines Jeppesen Marine electronic charts with updated accurate meteorological data in the C-Map OceanView software and in compatible bridge systems to create an integrated route planning tool. Regular updates and full decision-making support with worldwide weather and sea forecasts, combined with authorised digital charts, ensure that officers are as aware as possible of the ship's situation and route.
Said Seatrans' Safety & QA manager Karl Johan Kleppe, "Feedback from masters on our ships using this solution on a trial basis was very positive. They found the forecasts and route planning very useful and accurate. As a result, we chose to install this on all of our vessels across the fleet. It is now our company standard."
Kleppe explains that the system sold itself among officers, as vessels without WeatherNav regularly contacted masters with the system to get weather forecasts for their area. Now that Seatrans has opted to expand WeatherNav use across the fleet, Kleppe is focusing on implementation and training. "We will offer orientation at safety seminars, but it is so intuitive and the interest is so great that I expect many officers will simply teach themselves," said Kleppe.
Jeppesen Marine WeatherNav
gathers the industry's most reliable data. Its forecasts originate from the ECMWF (European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts), and its cyclone warnings from the World Meteorological Organisation – a UN body. Onboard updates come in either HTML (Internet) or a number of email formats, and require only rapid review and approval by the master.
A number of users have used the WeatherNav service on a trial basis, and given feedback that attests to the integrated product's accuracy and value. Among them:
"We have now been using WeatherNav in day-to-day operations in the field for a year. We have gotten hooked on the exact and detailed weather warnings we download, in order to study and exploit local variations in weather even far out at sea." – Tord Hjellestad, Skipper, Havdrøn.
"We saw great benefits from the forecasts. The weather warnings matched surprisingly well, considering the scarcity of weather monitors in the area [Antarctica]." – Asgeir Stensland, Technical Supervisor, G.O. Sars Research Vessel.
"Most of our competitors get weather information conventionally. By using WeatherNav, we have regularly arrived to work in our fishing fields before everyone else, and meet the rest of the fleet on the way out as we steam home with full holds. This system has earned its spot onboard many times over." – Skipper, M/S Rødholmen Trond Vollen.
"In connection with a three-week job for a rig in the Norwegian Sea, we experienced that information we downloaded suited conditions amazingly well, both in terms of the time and the strength of wind and wave-heights." – Olav Knutsen, Captain, BB Worker.
About Jeppesen Marine
Jeppesen Marine is a market-leading provider of vessel operations services and digital navigation solutions, based on worldwide vector chart data type approved to ISO19879, meteorological information and transmission technologies. With C-Map and Vessel Voyage and Optimization Services, Jeppesen Marine offers a wide range of navigation and operations products and services to serve markets from inland and coastal navigation to today's safety-conscious commercial shipping industry. Jeppesen Marine is chartered with the same underlying values that launched Jeppesen in 1934 – improving safety and efficiency through innovative navigation solutions.
For more than 70 years Jeppesen has made it possible for pilots and their passengers to safely and efficiently reach their destinations. Today this pioneering spirit continues as Jeppesen delivers essential information and optimization solutions to improve the efficiency of air, sea and rail operations around the globe. Jeppesen is a subsidiary of Boeing Commercial Aviation Services, a unit of Boeing Commercial Airplanes.