IMO Model Course 1.27: ECDIS Training Explained
Generic ECDIS training has a name, and a catch. What IMO Model Course 1.27 covers, how it meets STCW, and why on its own it does not qualify you on your ship’s ECDIS.
navigation
Position Fixing Methods: How a Ship Knows Where It Is
A fix is only as good as the method that confirms it. The ways a ship fixes its position, from visual bearings to GNSS and the stars, and why you never trust one alone.
Great Circle vs Rhumb Line: Which Route Is Shorter?
The straight line on your chart is rarely the shortest way there. Why the great circle beats the rhumb line over long distances, why it looks like a detour, and when to use each.
Voyage Planning Checklist: The Four Stages, Berth to Berth
A voyage plan is the thinking you do before the ship moves. A practical, berth-to-berth checklist across the four stages, so nothing on the passage becomes a surprise.
ECDIS Chart Updating: Keeping ENCs Current
Electronic charts correct themselves from weekly data, which makes the lapses quiet and dangerous. How ENC updating really works, where it falls short, and what you must still do by hand.
ECDIS Carriage Requirements: SOLAS Rules Explained
Having an ECDIS on the bridge is not the same as being compliant. The SOLAS fitting timetable, the backup options, the training, and what makes it your legal charts.
ECDIS Route Monitoring and Alarms
An ECDIS alarm is only as good as the settings behind it. How the safety contour, the look-ahead cone, and cross-track limits keep the watch off the ground.
Passage Planning: The Four Stages
A voyage that ends badly rarely goes wrong at sea. It goes wrong days earlier, in a plan never properly made. Here are the four stages that turn a passage into decisions already taken.
ECDIS Route Planning Step by Step
A good route plan is thinking done in advance, so it does not have to be done at the wheel-over in the dark. Here is how to plan a passage on ECDIS — and run a route check that is actually honest.
ECDIS Safety Settings: Contour, Depth, and Height
ECDIS does not know what “safe” means for your ship until you tell it — and its default guess is dangerous. Here is how the safety contour, depth, and height settings really behave.