Successful start for GOFREP system in
the Gulf of Finland
Since summer 2004 vessels of 300 gross
tonnage and upwards are obliged to
report to Helsinki, St. Petersburg or
Tallinn Traffic when sailing in the Gulf of
Finland.
he breaking in of the system was
highly successful. As a matter of
fact, vessels started to report several hours before the system was implemented. By the end of September as many
as 35,000 reports had been received. One
and the same vessel may, however, send
several reports as a report has to be renewed for instance if the vessel’s port of
destination is changed.
GOFREP operators receive arrival
and departure reports from vessels and
monitor the adherence to the system by
means of a VTS traffic image. Special atten-
T
16 SEATEC 2005
tion is paid to contravention of traffic separation regulations and rules of the road
at sea. The importance of the job is confirmed by risk analyses, which show that
reporting systems reduce the risk of collision by as much as 80%.
Increased interaction between vessels
and authorities has also brought about some
unexpected advantages. Thus vessels are
now more active in reporting observed oil
slicks to the Finnish Maritime Administration, which forwards the information to the
Finnish Environment Agency.
If a shipmaster does not follow the
rules of the road, this is pointed out to
him by th H