Regulations are changing and in many jurisdictions: commercial tugs, workboats, pilot vessels, super-yachts and fishing vessels are now required to have an approved electronic chart system (SV-ECS) installed rather than rely on recreational MFDs for navigation.

An approved SV-ECS is similar to a commercial ship ECDIS system and utilises approved electronic charts that can be weekly updated to provide safer and more secure navigation.

ECS systems allow for the best voyage planning, real time navigation and present charting displays to navigators in a consistent format to allow for better crew familiarity and operation.

To meet regulations, a full function traditional ECDIS could be installed but these systems are complex, expensive and cumbersome. Some manufacturers have produced ECDIS “lite” solutions based on proprietary hardware. However, the Digital DeepSea solution offers much better value, performance, flexibility and future proofing based on an approved PC hardware platform with high performance ECS software that forms the basis of the ECS1000 system.