Shipping companies can now save significant fuel on their ships, thanks to a new product unveiled by the Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services (INCOIS).
The institute has launched a customised service for the shipping industry in the form of daily bulletins on Ocean State Forecast along standard shipping routes. The bulletins will cover information and forecast on winds, swell waves, sea currents, high waves and rainfall for the next two days.
This will help ships to make changes in their routes to avoid sea and weather turbulence.
A K Gupta, CMD of Shipping Corporation of India, said weather routing of ships play an important role in fuel savings.
Wind speeds, swell waves and other ocean conditions make an impact on the speed of the ship and fuel consumption. The bulletins will cover standard sea lanes in the Arabian Sea and Bay of Bengal.
"With these bulletins, we can now steer our ships through better weather routes, which will help in lowering our fuel consumption," Gupta said, after launching the product.
INCOIS also launched other new products, including an atlas of potential fishing zones, an Android-based app for ocean information services for the benefit of fishermen. There are plans to make available the app on Google play store and on INCOIS Web site.
The institute organised its fifth user interaction workshop here today.