HOW TO MAKE PASSAGE PLAN IN ECDIS

FIRST SAY ALL 4 STAGES OF PASSAGE PLAN.

1) APPRAISAL

2) PLANNING

3) EXECUTION

4) MONITORING

ARRAISAL
SAME AS WE USE TO DO DURING PAPER CHART.MAKE FULL APPRAISAL OF PASSAGE WHAT ALL THINGS
WE IN HAND FOR PASSAGE PLAN.LIKE WHICH PUBLICATION , CHARTS( IN ECDIS ENC’S – VECTOR OR
RASTER CHARTS).LOCATION OF BERTH,PBG,REPORTING POINT,LOCAL PORT REGULATION, WEATHER
CONDITION, TNPS AND CORRECTIONS ETC.

ONLY DIFFERENCE IS THAT WE NEED ELECTRONIC CHARTS IN ECDIS ELSE ALL SAME

PLANNING
THIS SECTION IS TOTALLY DIFFERENT FROM PAPER CHART AS WE DON’T NEED TO PLOT COURSE IN
PAPER ALL DONE ELECTRONICALLY.

And when it comes to choosing the route, there is nothing different from what we do even when
were using paper charts.We need to find the information from all the publications available.

And once we have all the information, we need to use that to decide the route.

The route that we decide must follow all the company requirements and must be in accordance
with the industry guidelines.

For planning route in Ecdis just to route planning menu in Ecdis

Then it is just like drawing a route on the paper chart. Just take the cursor on the starting point
and keep on clicking wherever you wish to create a waypoint.

When doing that, it would be easier to zoom out and choose a little smaller scale to get the idea
of where we need to head to.

And then you can keep on zooming in and out as and when required while creating the
route.Once you have created the complete route, you can save the route.
Next step after route planning is Route check(Most effective tool of Ecdis)

We now need to make sure that the route that we have drawn is not passing through any dangers.

But before we do that, we need to set the safety settings on ECDIS according to our draft for the
next voyage. These safety setting help us to safely navigate without any grounding and that’s
what the main key role of Ecdis-“ANTI-GROUNDING SYSTEM”

Safety setting are as follow

Shallow contour - Below this depth the ship will aground. Shallow contour = Statis Draught of
vessel. If vessel having 9 meter draft, shallow contour will always be taken as the bigger value or
equal to that.

Safety contour - It is a dividing line between safe waters & unsafe waters.It is the depth value
that satisfies the companies UKC policy. Whatever the safety contour values we will input the
ECDIS will show the safety contour at a value equal to that or more than that, for example if we
input safety contour as 13 meter then ECDIS will show safety contour value as 15 meters. So
the navigable water inside safety contour region will be from 15 meters to 13 meters after that
there will be NO GO AREA. The Safety Contour value is equal to or more then the Safety depth
value.

Safety depth – It is the depth upon which the vessel can safely navigate, Safety depth setting is
mainly done to identify the SPOT SOUNDINGS

Safety depth = Draft + Squat + Minimum UKC – Ht. of tide

Deep Contour - The value of deep contour is anything more than our safety contour values,
generally we take safer values more than 50 meters.We can enter any particular value which we
feel deep water, it is generally for various purposes such as if we are doing ballast exchange we
can keep deep contour as 200 meter so ECDIS will show all the depth 200 meter or above in
white background.

Safety Settings can be done in two formats, one is 2 shade (Blue, White) other is 4 shade
(Blue, Light Blue, Grey, White)

Lets come back to Route checking option.

Now to check the route, each ECDIS has a function called “Route check” or “Safety Check”.

Go to the Route -> Route Planning -> Table editor and open the route that you have created for
the present voyage.
In the editor, enter the value of the cross track error that you wish to have or that your company
or master allows.

The route check function will check if the route (along with the cross track distance) is not
passing through any dangers to navigation.

When we have entered the cross track distances for each leg, click on the “Safety Check”.

The ECDIS will check the route and display all the errors that user need to check physically for.

We need to check these error by going to that area of the passage plan on ECDIS.

To do that just select the error and click on Jump.

After route check is done we can mark more safety walls on our Ecdis for making route more safe like-

1) PARALLEL INDEXING
2) NO G0 AREA
3) WHEEL OVER POSITION - Whenever there is a large alteration of the course, we need to mark a
wheel over position.This is the position on our initial course at which we need to start altering
the course at a pre-planned rate of turn to arrive at the next desired course without running
into the danger.
4) ABORT POINT AND POINT OF NO RETURN-
Abort point is the point after which there is no sea room to turn the vessel and return back.
We need to mark abort point only when approaching a port, canal or such restricted areas. To
Mark a abort point there are two things we need to know. the maximum “Head reach” and
maximum “side reach” of the vessel in a full turn.

Point of no return- there is huge difference between abort point and point of no return-
After you cross abort point, you still can turn around. There are number of resources to help you
with that. For example you can use astern movement, bow thruster or even tugs if you have
those made fast. But after you cross “point of no return” you cannot return back even if you use
all these resources. for example you wrongly marked the falling tide timing and you run into
falling tide and now you can not return back because you don’t have sufficient sea water.
5) POSITION PLOTTING INTERVEL.
6) Watch levels
7) Contingency anchorages
8) Security levels and hardening measures
9) Reporting requirements
10) Calling the master
11) The point at which notice to be given to Engine room

OUR ROUTE PLANNING IS COMPLETED. NOW LETS GO TO NEXT STAGEs OF PASSAGE PLANING
3) EXECUTION
In this stage, the navigating officers execute the plan that has been prepared. After departure, the
speed is adjusted based on the ETA and the expected weather and oceanographic conditions. The
speed should be adjusted such that the ship is not either too early or late at its port of destination.

Master should check the passage plan and should review it and can make any changes to it before
ship crew practically execute it .

4) MONITORING
This phase is where the bridge team use their experience, personal judgement, and good
seamanship to monitor the safe passage. Monitoring is checking the position of the vessel
by allavailable means, to ensure it remains within safe distance from any hazardous areas.
methods including dead reckoning, celestial navigation, pilotage and electronic navigation. Parallel
Index is also a useful tool to prevent the vessel from bumping into navigation hazards.

IN ECDIS TO PUT OUR PLANNED ROUTE IN MONITORING MODE JUST GO TO MENU> ROUTE
MONITORING>AND SELECT LATEST PLANNED ROUTE FOR VOYAGE AND IT WILL START MONITORING
THE ROUTE.

ECDIS WILL START MONITORING THE ROUTE IT WILL AUTOMATICALLY START PLOTTING THE SHIP
POSTION AT CERTAIN INTERVALL(BASICALLY ECDIS USES THE GPS FIX FOR PLOTTING POSTION OF
SHIP WE SHOULD USE OTHER MEANS ALSO), ALARM WILL BE ACTIVATED IF IN ANY DANGER ARRIVE

AND THAT’S HOW ECDIS HELP TO MONITOR OUR PLANNED PASSAGE SAFELY THAT IS TOTTALY
DIFFERENT FROM PAPER CHART MONITORING.AS ITS ALL IS DONE ELECTRONICALLY.