News in Brief from the DP Committee

1 Information Notes

• IMCA Information Note 1633 Combined Heading/Motion and Gyro Sensor Concerns
• IMCA Information Note 1634 Increasing Solar Activity and the Effect on GNSS Positioning

2 Codes & Recommended Practice

• M190 & M191 will be published July 2023.
• M117 published June 2023.

3 Station Keeping Events STATS:

The information below is a snapshot of the DP Station Keeping events to date for 2023. 

The percentage of DP incidents reported per year has increased since 2019, a year before the pandemic, which is a concerning trend. The 2022 figures showed that the percentage of incidents has decreased and this was encouraging. However, so far this year we are seeing a sharp increase to date. See the graph below;

Dynamic Positioning Station Keeping Review – Incidents and Events Reported for 2021 can be downloaded here. The 2022 review will be available shortly.

If you are employed by an IMCA member company, you can register on the website using your company domain email address.  Once registered, you will be given direct access to the members area including all guidance and publications.  This also applies to Bridge, ECR or Rank email addresses onboard vessels.

The IMCA DP reporting form is available here.  You may want to consider using this form for your vessels.   Please forward reports to [email protected]

4 Continuous Professional Development (CPD)

Following the announcement from the Nautical Institute (NI) about the new requirements for revalidating the DPOs Certificate, a Key DP Personnel continuing professional development (CPD) learning programme has been developed by IMCA and the Nautical Institute to provide valuable CPD learning to DPOs who perform a safety critical role onboard offshore DP vessels.

The learning programme is accessible to all Key DP Personnel to ensure that their technical knowledge of the latest industry practices is up to date and measured though questions delivered through an application available on desktop and on mobile devices.  This will ensure professional currency with the latest IMCA / industry guidance, DP safety bulletins, DP exercise and training drills, and help prevent knowledge and skill fade in the various DP related roles on vessels,

The content has been designed for use on mobile devices.  The delivery of the content is through the EdApp application software which is a mobile device learning management software.  The application is available across a wide range of operating systems, for example, iOS and Android, and the app functionality provides offline capability meaning the content remains available without internet connection, an important factor for seagoing personnel.

Registration and payment for the app is undertaken via the NI Alexis Platform which is accessible by all Key DP Personnel who wish to purchase the CPD programme.

Find out more @ https://www.imca-int.com/certification/dp/cpd/