Unicom Management Uses BVS

Applied Weather Technology, Inc. (AWT) announced that Unicom Management Services (Cyprus) Ltd has now been using its BonVoyage software (BVS) for 10 years to help its ship Captains steer clear of heavy weather in order to avoid vessel damage and prevent crew injury.

After first adopting BVS in 1999 as part of a trial on three ships, SCF Unicom observed that the onboard software was helping its Captains to reduce heavy weather damage to those ships. The company then quickly expanded use of BVS to approximately 17 ships within its managed fleet, and after positive feedback from Captains, now routinely deploys BVS to all new vessels. BVS is now deployed on more than 70 Unicom vessels.

According to SCF Unicom, BVS helps the company reduce costs and delays spent in dry dock for repairs from heavy weather damage. BVS also saves the company money by preventing the occurrence of heavy weather vessel damage, which has in the past cost around $100k per incident and taken ships out of commission, causing them to lose valuable time at sea and revenue. Since 2001 Unicom has not suffered any serious structural damages due to heavy weather encounters. Damages have been mostly limited to minor fittings and fixtures. 

SCF Unicom said that in addition to using BVS to avoid dangerous weather conditions, its ship Captains also use BVS to examine ways to minimize fuel consumption and therefore carbon emissions, and to select the most time- and fuel-efficient routes to their destinations. Also, when there are weather systems that cause concern for their Captains and operations teams, they take advantage of AWT’s weather routing services to ensure crew, vessel and cargo safety.

More than 3000 vessels from numerous companies use BVS to help identify the safest, most time-efficient or fuel-efficient routes. BVS is an icon-driven graphical marine voyage optimization system that provides ship Captains with onboard and around-the-clock weather-routing information.

(www.awtworldwide.com)