Hong Kong is making more efforts to improve ship navigation safety in its crowded waters, with plans to add eight more speed limit areas.
During a maritime safety seminar held by Hong Kong Marine Department yesterday, the department proposed to set up four ship speed limit areas each at Tai Po and Sai Kung, adding to 21 existing speed limit areas.
In the meantime, the marine department has released a mobile app, eSeaGo, this month to help ships navigate in Hong Kong waters more safely.
According to the department, there were a total of 122 ship collision incidents in Hong Kong waters last year.
At the end of December, CMA CGM’s containership CMA CGM Norma collided with general cargo ship Yusheng366 near Hong Kong waters, which led to the sinking of the latter.
Last week, product tanker Aulac Fortune caught fire following a massive exploison onboard near Hong Kong’s Lamma Island, resulting in the death of three crew.
eSeaGo app is indeed a great initiative by HKMarDep but there are rooms for improvement although it is very clear that bridge team should not rely on mobile devices.
Such data should also be provided by APIs (Application Programming Interface) to set standard communication protocol with other equipments onboard which will absolutely provide more convenience (and safety) for navigation instead solely limiting with a single app.
eSeaGo is now available only at Google Play Store for Android devices which is not accessible by Chinese users.
However, I sincerely congratulate all for taking a very great step towards Safety of Navigation in HK waters. A great example!