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Finnlines

Black Box technology at the new Finnlines Liners


FinnlinesFinnlines is one of the largest European shipping companies specializing in liner cargo services. Black Box Finland is delivering Octet systems for five new RoPax ships for centralizing at the bridge and other necessary places the user interfaces of computers handling weather information, technical matters of the ships and other things.


"The ship is at Sompasaari - drive right on board and to the seventh deck, there is a garage." This was the driving instruction as we left with Mr. Tornroos of Black Box Finland for an excursion to the ship Finnstar to see the Black Box system installed on board. All of Sompasaari is a closed harbor area so getting in the area was first about to bring entanglement. With the help of the friendly guards we how ever found the ship easily: "Drive straight on and the third street to the right, there it is."


Thanks to her large size the Finnstar was easy to locate even though there were several other vessels at the quays. Then up a ramp - like a four lane freeway - to the ship and on board up another ramp to the seventh deck. There was space to drive around like at a large parking place.


A carefully designed entirety


The Finnstar is one of five new - and the worlds largest - RoPax vessels that Finnlines has ordered from an Italian shipyard Fincantieri. RoPax stands for a vessel that is a ro-ro cargo ship but also takes passengers - these ships all 500 of them. The Finnstar and The Finnmaid have been taken in traffic in autumn 2006 and the remaining three vessels will be ready in 2007.


The dimensions of the vessels can be described with the total length of 219 meters (718 feet) and breadth of 30.5 meters (100 feet). The wings of the bridge reach a breadth of 35 meters (115 feet). For cargo there is 4,200 meters (more than 2.6 miles) of ro-ro lanes. The service speed is 25 knots at which the journey between Helsinki and Travemünde takes 27 hours, driven by main engines of total 42 megawatts.


- Designing a new ship starts years before the contract of building the ship is signed with the shipyard, says Mr. Henrik Lindroos, Project Manager, Navigation and Automation, Newbuilding & Projects of Finnlines Plc. - The design of the bridge and the equipment there is a small but important part of the entirety.


A large group of captains and helmsmen advanced their wishes of where each piece of equipment should be placed and this was taken into account in the design. At that time nobody even knew what specific equipment and from which suppliers there would be used.


Mr. Lindroos explains that the bridge is divided in three parts in principle, i.e. the navigation equipment, the equipment for manouvring in the harbor, placed at the wings, and security and communication equipment, placed at the rear of the bridge. All the equipment for navigation is doubled. In the middle of the bridge there are two comfortable looking chairs for the helmsmen and in front and around them is all the equipment needed for navigating and steering the ship in the open sea - all doubled.


Finnlines

More displays are always needed


In the computer era also the bridge of a ship gets crowded with displays. Nautical charts with the information of the location of the vessel, radar images, weather charts and many other things are shown on large computer Black Box "Multifunction Workstations" are located at both sides of the navigation table. The display, keyboard and mouse can take also rough handling and humidity. 54 BB Ref displays - and all doubled, as said before. At the bridge there is still also a map table and even nautical charts of paper, but they are not needed very often. Likewise the rudder, which also can still be found at the bridge - or a small steering wheel the size a dinner plate representing the rudder.


- I knew already beforehand that in spite of very careful design there would always be wanted more computers and displays for them, says Mr. Lindroos. - Black Box recommended us the Octet system, to which we connected the two consoles of the navigation table, one console of the communication table and one more console of a separate office. With all these consoles we can control in principle as many computers as we wish. The other alternative would be to bring all the time new screens and keyboards to the bridge and it would never be good.


At the beginning there was only three operations connected to the Octet system; the weather information, cargo information and trim/draught information. The latter system indicates the draught at various places and the tortion of the hull. The cargo computer has real time information of the position and weight of every cargo unit, which is used for trimming the vessel all the time so for instance the ramps will stay in place. The weather computer gets the weather information from the meteorological institute at regular intervals.


At the next stage to the Octet system there will be connected a power control system for optimizing the speed of the ship in various situations; a maintenance computer which has the information of all the technical equipment on board, the utilization time of engines etc.; and the passenger information system which through the internal TV system of the ship is visible in all the cabins. It has information about the weather conditions, the place of the ship on a map and of course information of different services and entertainment on board.


The whole Octet system is called the Multifunction Workstation. The name Black Box was not used to avoid confusion, as there is already a black box on board - the part of the security system that constantly records all the essential things on board - like in airplanes. (And the black box is usually painted red so it would be easier to find after a possible accident.)


The easy-to-use Black Box


The computer and communication systems of a modern ship are very advanced. At the bridge the radio station has diminished very small but the communication capabilities of the ship developed the more effective. In the harbor the ship is connected ashore through a WLAN connection and at sea the VSAT system takes care of data and telephone communication.


In all the cabins of the ship there is the Internet and telephone and all the telephones of the ship - even portable ones - function in the internal telephone network of Finnlines. Regarding the Octet system Finnlines contacted Black Box in spring 2004, right after ordering the vessels. According to Mr. Lindroos there was no need to examine many other alternatives, as the Octet system was so excellent for the purpose. The installation was carried out very independently by the IT department of Finnlines, they did not need much support.


- The main purpose of the Black Box system is to reduce the number of displays and keyboards at the deck, as there simply is no room for them. Additional benefit is that two people can watch at the same time the display information of the same computer on their own screens. Operating the system is so easy that there has been no need to arrange any training - it is completely self-evident how the system is operated, crystallizes Mr. Lindroos.