2016 Theme Shipping: indispensable to the world
My soul is full of longing
for the secret of the sea,
and the heart of the great ocean
sends a thrilling pulse through me.
– Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
In 1948, the United Nations adopted a convention to establish the International Maritime Organization (IMO) to develop and maintain a comprehensive regulatory framework for shipping. As a part of this framework, the IMO established World Maritime Day, celebrated yearly to focus on one aspect of the maritime industry.
World Maritime Day will be celebrated on Thursday, September 29th, 2016. This year’s theme is Shipping: Indispensable to the World in recognition of the critical link between shipping and global society.
According to the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), roughly 80% of global trade by volume and over 70% of global trade by value are carried by sea and are handled by ports worldwide. Annually, 50,000 merchant ships from more than 160 nations, employing more than a million seafarers, transport every kind of cargo you could possibly imagine.
World Maritime Day draws together people from around the world to help them understand how the maritime industry impacts global and economic development throughout history and how vital it is to world trade. World Maritime Day also draws attention to the marine environment, shipping safety, and maritime security.
At Dynamic Systems Analysis, we understand the importance of the marine industry and the safety standards put forth by international organisations such as the International Maritime Organization. In our blog post “Setting the Standard,” we explored the importance of international standards and why they are developed.
The shipping industry is an excellent example of how the global community has adopted a set of international standards for safety and reliability. The offshore oil and gas industry also has strict standards and many other marine industries are following that example. Norway, for example, has created a standard for aquaculture which has the potential to be adopted by other countries.
Daily, DSA’s engineers and software users work to create, optimise, and analyse virtual prototypes of equipment from moored barges to complex tidal turbine systems. While these two projects differ in many aspects, fundamentally the reason for performing the analysis is the same: reduce risk and uncertainty.
Virtual prototypes show the dynamic response caused by the effect of the wind, waves, and ocean currents. DSA’s easy to use software tools allows for quicker analysis, design iteration, and optimisation, providing an accurate assessment of equipment and vessel behaviour under a variety of marine environmental conditions. The analysis reduces the need for physical prototypes and testing, saving money and time.
The work undertaken by the International Maritime Organization and other governing bodies will help all maritime industries reduce risk and help to ensure success. Please join with DSA in celebrating World Maritime Day 2016!