Oil majors are going beyond safety requirements and seeking oil tankers equipped with more expensive, high-end voyage data recorders in an effort to boost maritime safety and track accidents, Sten Warnfeldt, area manager at Rutter Technologies said.

According to International Maritime Organisation’s regulations, all ships will be required to be retrofitted with a voyage data recorder, similar to a blackbox on an aircraft, between 2007 and 2011, he said.
A recorder will record all activities and commands, and navigational and radar data on the bridge of a ship during a voyage.
But some oil companies seek ships equipped with a order-and-response feature in their recorders, which will help trace the cause in a ship accident, Warnfeldt said.
“Oil majors are not taking any chances. They are going beyond the industry requirements,” he said. Rutter is a voyage date recorder developer and manufacturer.
Besides increasing maritime safety, the recorders will also help to protect the ship crew of any allegations of improper protocols.
The order-and-response feature will track the given order to the execution of the order and the response from the ship equipment.
He pointed out that a ship captain was arrested during a recent tanker accident.
“The tanker broke into half in the ocean, but the ship captain did what he was supposed to do,” Warnfeldt said, adding the order-and-response feature could help protect ship crew from wrongful allegations.