DFANS (Digital Folio And Notices Service) - Nauticis provides a computer program which greatly facilitates the management of the shipboard charts and publication outfits. The program is developed in close cooperation with Shell Tankers BV and Shell International Trading and Shipping Company Ltd., and is operational since the middle of 1994.
Users of this program are updated on a weekly basis from our own chart management system, preferably by modern ways of datacommunication. This way charts and publication outfits on board of your vessels are always kept up-to-date and equipped with all relevant Notices to Mariners via one of the fastest ways possible !
The program is fully menu driven, and is easy to operate. No specific training is needed, a basic knowledge of operating a PC suffices to master the program.
Basically, the program comprises an advanced database system containing all relevant data on all charts and books kept on board, including the digitized contents of all applicable British Admiralty Notices to Mariners from 2 July 1994 onwards. On specific request, we can also supply the Dutch 'Berichten aan Zeevarenden' in a digital format.
Charts and publications in the system may be listed and/or printed either sorted on chart- and publication number, or on a user defined folio and sequence number.
The user can optionally define and store subsets of charts and publications within the system, e.g. for individual vessels (fleet management), for specific areas, or even for a single voyage.
All weekly updates processed by the system are automatically logged for verification purposes. Updates do not have to be processed in consecutive order.
The Digital British Admiralty Notices to Mariners as supplied with DFANS differ from the British Admiralty Digital Notices to Mariners & Tracings in the Acrobat(tm) Portable Document Format as described within our Chart management services, as the format used within DFANS does not maintain the original layout of the regular paper publications.
It contains the text as supplied by the British Admiralty, including all graphical chart symbols, but does not contain any fancy font data. This reduces the weekly amount of data to 20-30 Kbyte/week, which makes it suitable for distribution by modern ways of datacommunication.
The Digital Notices to Mariners as supplied with DFANS are generated from the original British Admiralty Hydrographic Office database files. In this process no information is lost.
For this reason, our Digital Notices to Mariners have the approval of the British Admiralty Hydrographic Office.
Our Digital Notices to Mariners as supplied with DFANS are also available on our website.
DFANS is the ultimate quality control tool for managing sizeable chart outfits, contributing to ISM-code requirements.
