Prominent persons from the international maritime industry were gathered at the spectacular Banqueting House in London to celebrate the 18th ”Seatrade Award Ceremony Dinner”- the business’ tribute to innovative measures in the maritime world. Denmark’s FORCE Technology was invited to participate in the celebrations and won a distinguished award.

SeaSense wins category of "Innovation in Ship Operations"
Expectations were high during the prestigious award ceremony and Mr. Peter Justesen, manager of FORCE Technology’s Department for Simulation and Information Technologies in the Division for Maritime Industry in Lyngby, Denmark and representative at the ceremony was extremely pleased, when the fruition of his and many others’ hard work, i.e. the new and intelligent sensor based hard weather decision support system SeaSense, won the category ”Innovation in Ship Operations”.

”We were well aware that we had developed a fantastic product for the benefit of the entire international shipping industry. However, it is nice to get this confirmed by the industry itself”, says Peter Justesen happily. 

SeaSense – an extra sense
The system is based on newly developed sensors for measuring the ships and the sea’s condition and has been developed to increase operating safety at sea. It might be difficult for an officer and his crew to steer the vessels around the great oceans of the world. Hard weather, poor visibility and large waves often complicate sailing for the marathon-sized and heavily loaded container vessels. The officer might have difficulties in assessing how heavily the ship is actually loaded in hard weather with large waves, however, SeaSense has now provided him with an extra sense.

SeaSense is a totally new intelligent product of its kind. The sensors register ship movements, relative wave heights, water on deck and the structural load on the hull girder. All signals - together with information from conventional sensors - are used to provide the central decision support organised in a polar diagram, according to which the officer may navigate. Thus SeaSense improves the crews’ ability to navigate the ship appropriately in hard weather and simultaneously minimises the load on the ship.

Large potential
Senior Project Manager with FORCE Technology and promoter for the SeaSense development, Mr. John Koch Nielsen, hopes that the extensive publicity and recognition that the award has brought about will further draw the attention to the many advantages that are a consequence and result of applying the intelligent decision support system.

”A key feature in SeaSense is the system’s ability to predict the wave-induced structural loads, which the vessels encounter at sea. The officer will get precise recommendation for navigable combinations of course and speed, and he can thus navigate the vessel safely and prevent expensive damages to hull and cargo.”

But according to Mr. John Koch Nielsen, SeaSense has potential for more than just saving the customers their expenses for unforeseen damages to cargo and vessel. ”Actually, all sorts of sea-keeping criteria may be handled by the system right from criteria related to passenger comfort to sea-keeping criteria for helicopter operations. The possibilities are numerous.”

Further information
SeaSense has been developed in co-operation between FORCE Technology, Lyngsø Marine A/S and DTU. For further information please contact Mr. John Koch Nielsen by Tel. + 45 72 15 77 00.