StormGeo Winter Webinar
Winter is Coming; 5 Tips to Ensure Safe and Efficient Routes this Winter
If you missed it earlier this month, StormGeo hosted its first webinar: "Winter is Coming; 5 Tips to Ensure Safe and Efficient routes this Winter." For those who may be unaware, a webinar is a live seminar conducted over the Internet in which the moderators interact with the audience. Our first webinar was broadcast at three different times spanning time zones across the Americas, Asia, and Europe. The goal of our November webinar was to help educate operators on the importance of proper route selection, and how to efficiently communicate with one of our 24/7/365 global operations centers.
The five topics that were discussed included:
• Awareness of ice
• Aleutian, Icelandic and Hatteras Lows
• Understanding weather windows
• Summer zone routes
• End of voyage analysis
To access the complete webinar, please fill out the form found here.
In this newsletter we will briefly talk about some highlights from our webinar.
As the assistant manager of the bulk team, I cannot stress enough the importance of proactive, and effective communication which in turn helps to get your vessel to its destination as safely and efficiently as possible. Good communication between our operations centers and your office help set the vessel up for success on its journey. Whenever you may be in doubt, we welcome your questions or concerns regarding route selection as we are staffed 24/7-365 days/year. At StormGeo, we can compare different route selections for your perusal. In the example below discussed in our webinar, a StormGeo pre-plan can be used to compare a route via North of Honshu and South of Kyushu. Along with meteorological routing guidance from our route analysts, the operator would be able to make an informed decision on the optimum route for their vessel.
Image 1 compares a route via North of Honshu in red, with a route via South of Kyushu in purple.
Another example below, shows how StormGeo suggested that a vessel drift outside of the ECA zone after departing from Columbia River pilot. This drifting strategy allowed the vessel to avoid a powerful North Pacific storm and remain to the east of 8.0 to 10.0+ meter significant waves with no additional fuel consumption.
Image 2 shows the location of the vessel in red, drifting to the east of heavy weather.
Once the heaviest conditions passed, StormGeo recommended a northern route across the Bering Sea, see below, enabled the vessel to sail north of another surge of 10+ meter significant waves. Clear and responsive communication between the client and our operations center ensured that the vessel was in the best possible location to avoid the heaviest conditions and was able to resume her voyage at the earliest available time.
Image 3 shows the vessel passing north of the main low track across the central North Pacific.
Situations like the two mentioned above, and many more were discussed in our November webinar. The objective of our webinar series is that they will help our customers understand the importance of weather routing, and why StormGeo recommends certain routes. With this additional insight, the operator will be more informed and understand the methodology that goes into recommending safe and efficient routes.
If you have any suggestions on topics that StormGeo Shipping should consider for a webinar series, please contact us, we would like to hear from you!
More on Ship Routing found here