Commercial Shipping FAQs

Todd Chart Agency Ltd has been providing Navigational Charts and Publications to ship owners for many years. We are an International Admiralty Chart Agent, as appointed by the UK Hydrographic Office, Taunt on, England. Our service is continuously evolving and is now fully computerised, producing the reports and paper work which meet the requirements of the ISM Code.

Our business is flexible in order to fulfil your demands, from changing trading patterns, to the needs of specialised vessels. All of our staff are well trained and experienced; some have navigating experience in the Royal or Merchant Navies. This ensures that we understand our customers' requirements. Todd Chart Agency Ltd is an IS9002 Quality Assured Firm with SGS Yarsley International Certification Services Ltd.

The primary role of our CHART AND PUBLICATIONS MANAGEMENT SERVICE is to ensure that ships always have on board the most up-t- date charts and publications for the area in which they are operating, and are provided with the latest corrections and supplements.

Sailing without properly corrected or outdated charts and publications can lead to loss of life, severe and very expensive oil pollution, and present the owners with huge claims and delays. Let us manage your charts and publications onboard - we are continuously focused on quality control.

There is an additional cost for the basic Chart and Publications Management Service*. We charge only for the charts, books, tracings and delivery service provided.

More sophisticated services include the transmission of Notices to Mariners and chart correction tracings to vessels by E-mail (Chart-Track) and by Inmarsat Satellite broadcast (ChartC).

Please read on for more detailed explanation of our Chart & Publications Management Service and the Chart-Track system. Details of the ChartCproduct can be found in a separate brochure.

CHART & PUBLICATION MANAGEMENT SERVICE
Q. What is the Folio Management system?

Folio Management is intended to simplify the mariner's work by automating the supply of new editions and publications thereby ensuring that vessels will always carry the latest important information on board.

Q. How will it simplify my work?

Shipside, new editions of charts and publications in actual usage on board will automatically be sent to the vessel at regular intervals. If requested, shipments may be grouped to the ship management office for onward postage with the ship's mail.
Shoreside, ship management staff will be relieved of the duty of checking the vessel's requisition against the announcements published in Notices to Mariners. They can assured that the vessel is unlikely to be detained through a lack of up-t-date charts or publications.

Q. What will it cost?

The standard Folio Management System is free of charge. You pay only for the charts and publications you require and postage charges are added at cost. Our staff are experts at shipping goods according to the most cost-effective means.

Q. What about Notices to Mariners and tracings?

Notices to Mariners are automatically sent on pre-arranged intervals (usually every two weeks), either directly to the vessel's next port of call or to the ship manager's office.
We recommend that a vessel subscribes to chart tracings (see section 2a) or the
CHART-TRACK system of digital notices to mariners and tracings (see section 2b).
A charge is levied for this service.

Q. What other benefits are there?

As a shipmaster, your ship will always be carrying the latest charts and publications, essential to safe navigation and in accordance with IMregulations. Your time will be better spent looking after your many duties on board other than having to verify the inventory of charts and publications.
As a ship manager, you can rest secure in the knowledge that a well-established system is in place to relieve you of time consuming (and unproductive) administrative tasks.

Tell me more �..

Advantages of the Folio Management System

Vessels are always assured of carrying the latest up-t-date charts & publications on board
Administration is reduced through automation of inventory management
Vessel safety is greatly increased
System fits into existing quality management systems ( ISM)
Time saved on board in applying corrections
Increased accuracy when applying corrections
System is offered free of charge
Purchases of charts and publications are at competitive and agreed prices, from a
reputable supplier capable of offering same-day despatch tall parts of the world.

Added advantages of the CHART-TRACK system

Vessel receives important correctional information within hours of its release
Vessel receives an inventory management programme as part of its subscription price
Vessel can activate and de-activate charts, add new charts and make other changes to inventory which are automatically updated to the central CHART-TRACK server.
Data is pre-sorted according to charts and publications in each vessel's own inventory
Vessel can place orders via E-mail to Todd Chart Agency Ltd and a validation request is automatically sent to the ship manager.
Vessel's database is continuously updated, so the vessel always has the latest information regarding the publication of new editions.
The Chart-Track includes various useful reporting facilities.
Ship managers have access to their vessels databases via the Internet.

Operations

There are two forms of service provided:

A. The Standard Chart Folio Management System:

In this case, your inventory is input & managed in our computer and any changes made by you on board must be informed to us by mail, fax or E-mail.

Paper tracings and notices to mariners are sent by post at pre-arranged intervals, together with any new editions affecting the vessel's inventory, either directly to your vessel or to the management office for redistribution.

B. The CHART-TRACK Folio Management System:

In this case, your inventory is managed electronically via Inmarsat. Tracings and Notices to Mariners are transmitted by E-mail via satellite and considerable time savings can be achieved. A detailed explanation of the utilities in CHART-TRACK is explained later on. New editions affecting the vessel's inventory are sent either directly to the vessel's next port of call or to the ship manager's office.

2A. The Standard Chart Folio Management System

The Standard Chart Folio Management System assumes that you will not be using a computerised inventory management system on board. Changes that you make to your inventory must be notified to us by mail, fax or E-mail so that we can manually update our records.

Tracings and notices to mariners are sent by mail, on pre-arranged intervals (weekly, monthly or other) directly to the vessel's next port of call or to the management office for redistribution.

Together with your Notices and Tracings, a personalised listing showing all charts in your inventory affected by the corrections that week, will be included. This will also save you time in searching for the charts that need correcting.

Every twelve (or on demand) months, a complete listing will be sent showing all corrections relating to your shipboard inventory. This list is a useful way for the master to check that corrections have been carried out. It is also useful for the Port State Control inspector to make spot checks of the chart & publications inventory.

Each vessel subscribing to the Folio Management System, receives a certificate. This is useful to show inspectors as proof that you operate an automated system of updating charts & publications.

An added facility is our Selective Folio Management.
This facility allows us tide-activate certain charts, publications or complete folios for areas where a vessel may not be trading for a period of time. These charts and publications will not be automatically replaced, thereby saving unnecessary costs. If however, the trading pattern changes, we can easily re-activate these folios and update them.

The keyword of our Folio Management System is flexibility. We endeavour to constantly adapt and improve the system to meet the growing needs of our customers. We offer a cost-conscious service, which increases safety on board vessels whilst decreasing the amount of time and money spent on tedious administrative duties.

Folio Management is a tailor-made solution today's requirements of cutting overheads whilst maintaining a high degree of safety on board ship.

2B. CHART-TRACK Folio Management System

CHART-TRACK is an advanced system of inventory management that enables vessels to receive the tracings and Notices to Mariners by Inmarsat. This effectively means that vessels will have this important navigational data much sooner than if sent by post. CHART-TRACK is supplied on a subscription basis, the cost of which is greatly recovered by the saving in time and the increase in safety.

All correctional data distributed through the CHART-TRACK server is original UKHO data on which a royalty is paid. This royalty is included in your subscription price.

CHART-TRACK is fully integrated within the Folio Management system and includes on-board software to make the management of your chart & publication inventory much simpler. Using a synchronized database, the vessel's information is updated on the CHART-TRACK server, each time the vessel makes an update request.

With CHART-TRACK, you can easily select those charts and publications which are presently 'active' i.e. in current usage. This means that the corrections you will receive by Inmarsat will be specific to your 'active' charts only, cutting out the need to sort through the Notice to Mariners in order to find applicable corrections for your charts. The data is also compressed to reduce transmission times.

CHART-TRACK enables the user to generate reports such as inventory lists, picking lists, order forms and more.

An added functionality enables vessels to send orders directly to their chart supplier and if required this order is automatically E-mailed to the ship manager for validation. These orders can also be tracked for status.

CHART-TRACK represents a major breakthrough in increased safety on board. It has been designed to be very easy to use, requiring the minimum of training but providing the maximum of benefits.

CHART-TRACK Manager

CHART-TRACK Manager is an additional feature that is made available to ship owners/ managers for use onshore.

CHART-TRACK Manager allows access tall information regarding each vessel in a particular fleet, via the Internet to the CHART-TRACK website.

Managers can track all activities that have occurred on their ships with regard to update requests, print-offs, changes in inventory, order confirmations, orders in progress.

If so desired, the manager can be the one responsible for activating and de-activating charts on a particular vessel.

CHART-TRACK & the ISM code

The CHART-TRACK Folio Management System is intended to form a part of your ISM procedures on board the vessel. The ability to produce reports of all activities surrounding the inventory and updating of your charts and publications provides a documented record for ISM purposes.

CHART-TRACK reports will provide the shipmaster, the ship manager and Port State control with a convenient means to operate spot checks on the work carried out by the officer responsible.

At all times, the vessel will have the means to keep its charts and publications fully
up-t-date, thereby greatly increasing safe navigation.

OTHER SERVICES

NAVIGATIONAL PUBLICATIONS

Besides supplying large quantities of British Admiralty publications, we stock books published by:

IMICS ITU LLP Ltd OCIMF Stationery Office Books Witherby The Nautical Institute Fairplay Brown, Son & Ferguson Shipping Guides Ltd. etc.

If required, new editions of any book can be supplied automatically under our New Editions Service

ELECTRONIC CHARTS

We are a distributor of ARCS charts and ENCs (Electronic Navigation Charts) and a supplier of software for electronic charts.

The IMO's decision to allow the use of ARCS charts (raster) in ECDIS equipment where ENCs (vector) are not currently available will, we are convinced, enhance the demand for electronic charts.

Correctional data for electronic charts will alsbecome available through the Chart-Track and ChartCsystem. Ships will be able to download and manage the corrections via Inamorata, thereby greatly increasing the safety of navigation.

NAVIGATION EQUIPMENT

We can supply you with a wide range of navigation equipment including:

Parallel rules dividers pencil compasses chart correcting pens sextants binoculars clocks barometers navtex & weatherfax paper flags

ICELANDIC HYDROGRAPHIC SERVICE

We are the United Kingdom agent for the Icelandic Hydrographic Service (Sjomaelingar Islands, Reykjavik). We stock most standard Icelandic navigational charts.

*A small charge may be made for the provision of the Inventory binder, supply certificate, etc. Charges will be made for repeat chart and publications inventories.