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…For safety of lives on sea

Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA), has directed all passenger ships operating on Nigerian waters to ensure they carry a fully functional Automated Identification System (AIS) aboard their vessels.
The directive is in line with the International Maritime Administration (IMO), Safety of Lives at Sea (SOLAS) Convention of 1974 which requires mandatory carriage of AIS system on board all vessels.
Also affected by the NIMASA directive, are all cargo ships of 500 Gross Tonnage or more, which are not engaged in international voyage and all vessels with Gross Tonnage of 300 or more engaged in international voyage.
According to the Agency, the directive was given because tracking vessels on Nigerian waters had been done with much difficulty as the NIMASA had consistently encountered AIS units that either do not transmit at all or transmit distorted dynamic data in terms of position, course and speed of vessels.
A statement by the assistant director, public relations of the NIMASA, Nwakego Nwokocha, stated that “The organisation wants to ensure that all vessels on Nigerian waters comply”, stressing that, it would sanction any vessel that does not comply with the specified standard beginning from October 1, 2009.
Automatic Identification Systems are designed to be capable of providing information about a vessel to other ships and to coastal authorities automatically. It also ensures that NIMASA gets accurate voyage information relating to navigation status, static draft and destination of all vessels on Nigerian waters.
The NIMASA PRO stressed that the AIS were also part of the Long-Range Identification and Tracking (LRIT) system which provides for the global identification and tracking of ships.
“The obligations of ships to transmit LRIT information and the rights and obligations of contracting governments and of search and rescue services to receive LRIT information are established in Regulation V of the 1974 SOLAS Convention,” Nwokocha stated.
Long Range Identification tracking information system is provided to contracting governments to the 1974 SOLAS Convention and Search and Rescue services entitled to receive the information, upon request, through a system of national, regional, cooperative and international data centers, using the International LRIT Data Exchange.