The Coast Guard unit at Station Oregon Inlet, at Cape Hatteras, NC, has won a Coast Guard award for their use of Memory-Map Navigator in small boat search and rescue operations. The award was established to reward individual members or teams who find new ways to improve Coast Guard operational practices.
When the Coast Guard receives a rescue alert, Search and
Rescue Mission Coordinators create search patterns on computers. Under
the existing procedure, they have to verbally pass the numerous coordinates
to the rescue vessel over VHF radio or cellular phone. The crew members
on the vessel would then have to manually enter the coordinates into the
boats GPS and plot them on a paper chart. On a small boat, his process
is extremely difficult and error prone, especially during the weather
conditions often associated with search and rescue.
But with Memory-Map Navigator running on a rugged TDS
Recon Pocket PC, and a satellite phone, the mission controller can email
the search pattern directly to the boat, where it is automatically displayed
on the handheld device. The "Follow Route" function is selected,
and it is then a simple matter for the helmsman to steer the pattern,
with reference to the chart, direction arrow and cross-track indicator.
Using Maptech's Chartkit Professional, the charts displayed on the Pocket PC are updated with Notices to Mariners on a weekly basis, which fulfills the Coast Guard's mandate to use the most up-to-date available charts. With this system, there is no requirement to plot the search pattern on the paper chart.
"Some boat crews use as many as 3 people just for navigation and piloting during the execution of a search pattern," said Master Chief Stephen Bielman, "A helmsman, who is busy watching the compass; the coxswain, who is navigating with radar, GPS, monitoring fathometer and watching other crew members; another crewman with a stopwatch to time each leg, etc. With a four person crew, that leaves only one person who is actually looking for the search target. This tool does away with all that, allowing more sets of eyes to actively search."
"We are consistently impressed at the imaginative and different ways users are applying the Recon's versatile capabilities," said Dale Kyle, TDS rugged handhelds product manager. "In this case, it is gratifying to know that the Recon may have a hand in saving lives".
Station Oregon Inlet is continuing to work as a test site for the new procedure. Based on these results, the Coast Guard plans to use the system on a much wider scale.
