Sperry Marine to provide ship systems

Northrop Grumman Corporation has received orders from SRH Marine Electronics of Piraeus, Greece, to supply more than 60 simplified voyage data recorders (S-VDRs). The equipment will help Greek ship owners meet International Maritime Organization (IMO) regulations requiring S-VDRs on existing merchant ships by July 1, 2007.

Northrop Grumman’s Sperry Marine business unit will supply the S-VDR systems and will assist SRH Marine to oversee installation, integration, commissioning and annual performance testing of the systems.

The S-VDR orders include 23 ships owned by a Greek container ship operator, with the remainder distributed among a number of other Greek ship owners.

Similar to an aircraft’s “black box” cockpit recorder, the S-VDR downloads data from the ship’s navigation instruments and voice recordings from the bridge and radio communications, which can be retrieved and analysed following an accident at sea.

According to Northrop Grumman, the Sperry Marine S-VDR system has been type-approved by major classification societies and national authorities to comply with IMO and International Electrotechnical Commission specifications. The IMO carriage requirements state that all existing ocean-going ships over 3,000 gross tonnage must be fitted with an approved S-VDR at the first scheduled dry-docking after July 1, 2007, but no later than July 1, 2010.