At the recent UKHO technical and distributor meetings in Singapore, major players in the maritime industry assembled to discuss several topics, but one of them had the focus of everyone’s attention: S-100.
In 2026 we will start to see ECDIS systems being Type Approved with S-100 support. From 2029 it won’t be possible to buy and ECDIS without S-100. Between now and then, planning stations such as the NAVTOR NavStation will use S-100 data to allow mariners to make more informed decisions about their planned voyages, and to help them safely carry them out.
At the conference in Singapore, we discussed how we could make the transition to S-100 much easier for our customers by finding new and innovative ways to distribute the large amounts of data that will be produced by multiple sources. We need to look very closely at how we can distribute S-100 in the best possible ways for the end users, because that has always been the focus at NAVTOR. The IHO, Hydrographic Offices and RENCs should not rule out any type of distribution methods until we have the full picture of what it entails.
Apart from the obvious advantages of rich S-100 datasets to help them plan and monitor voyages, we also discussed how we need to make it financially attractive for users to change, so that we can bring the S-57 ENC era to an end as soon as we can. That may also need to involve an end date for S-57 production, because we need the Hydrographic Offices to make the transit
ion to S-100 as soon as possible. Production and Price is the key to S-100 success.
Navtor recently had the pleasure to install a NavStation in the foyer of the United Kingdom Hydrographic Office in Taunton to display all types of maritime data including ENC charts and publications. Also running on the system is our new s-100 viewer that displays S-102 Bathymetric layer and S-111 surface currents. As we gain access to more S-100 data, the viewer will be upgraded to display them. We will also be demonstrating many S-100 datasets in the NAVTOR NavStation at the SMM exhibition in Hamburg next September.
