The cement carrier used by the Golden Bay Cement Company, NZ, is the M.V. Golden Bay - capacity 4,500 tonne. A ship of this size and weight takes some time to change direction and slow down.

“One of the biggest dangers is that we may not see very small craft when entering harbours,” says Captain Peter Robinson. “Hitting one of these sports boats might not damage our ship, but the crew of the other boat could be killed. Avoiding collisions is already hard in daytime but becomes more difficult in total darkness.”

“To avoid this type of accident we rely on radar - an indispensable tool but it cannot pick everything up. Very small boats are sometimes missed by radar. At nightime we rely on the navigation beacons of other vessels. We wanted a solution that could help us to detect small boats and objects that are not detected by radar. The answer - thermal imaging.”

Distributor of FLIR maritime products – Absolute Marine – supplied a Navigator Pan/Tilt thermal imaging camera installed above the bridge, giving an uninterrupted perspective. The FLIR camera sits 15 metres above sea level and a distance over 70 metres to the bow of the ship. Its thermal images are projected on a 20” overhead LCD boat screen installed on the bridge.

At night the ships’ progress is monitored by operating the camera joystick control unit turning the Navigator Pan/Tilt in the desired direction – a great tool that produces a crisp image. A small vessel is easily detected at a range of nearly 1000 metres allowing enough time to change the ship’s course if necessary. Thanks to its ability to pan 360° horizontally and tilt +/- 60° vertically, the crew greatly improve their situational awareness.