On December 2&3 MARIN hosted the 4th Vessel Operator Forum (VOF) where more than 50 representatives of ship owners, operators, yards, suppliers, class, authorities and R&D work together to improve and develop technology for the shipping industry. The VOF accommodates joint industry project meeting of SPA (fuel consumption reduction in operation), Lashing@Sea (cargo securing) and STA (industry standard for speed trials). The Lashing@Sea final meeting discussed the results and conclusions from their 3 year project which included monitoring campaigns on 5 ships. In the SPA-meeting the first phase was completed and the second phase called “SPA-Too” was kicked-off. The STA-Group had their annual assembly to release a new version of the Speed Trial Analysis Software and to discuss the forward plan for development and to provide access to the STA results for non-members. During the VOF meeting four new project initiatives were launched; ROPES (effect of passing ships on moored vessels), REFIT2Save (fuel saving by refits of hull appendages & propellers), TALLSHIP (Routing, loads and structural response of large container vessels) and TRUST (Thruster interactions & operational efficiency). Further information on VOF and the Joint industry projects can be found on www.vesseloperatorforum.com.
December 22, 2009