국제해상충돌예방규칙에서 좁은 수로1)의 의미를 따로 정의하고 있지 않아 특정 수로 안에서 발생한 선박간의 충돌사고에서 사고 수역이 좁은 수로(narrow channel)에 해당하는지 여부는 논란의 대상이 되어 왔다. 좁은 수로를 수로의 폭 등으로 명확하게 정의를 내리는 것은 오히려 문제의 소지가 될 수 있지만 포괄적인 판단기준을 마련하는 것은 필요하다. 중앙해양안전심판원은 2013년의 재결에서 해당 수역이 좁은 수로인지 여부는 지리적 조건이나 선박통항량, 통항하는 선박의 종류 및 크기, 항해자들의 항행관습 등을 종합하여 판단하는 것이 적절하다고 판시하였다. 그러나 당시 중앙해양안전심판원은 사고 선박의 크기에 따라 좁은 수로 여부가 결정된다면 항해사들이 항법을 적용함에 있어서 혼란을 느끼게 되고 법적 안정성을 해치게 될 것이라는 판단에서 이 수역을 통항하는 선박들의 크기를 종합적으로 분석하였을 뿐, 사고 선박 자체의 크기를 판단기준으로 하지는 않았다. 그러나 여러 가지 상황을 고려할 때 해당 수역이 좁은 수로인지 여부는 선박의 특성(길이, 폭 혹은 흘수)에 따라 변할 수밖에 없다는 주장이 설득력을 가진다. 그러한 이유로 중앙해심이 2013년에 설정한 판단기준에 보완을 할 필요성이 제기되었고 이후 중앙해심 제2016-003호 재결과 인천해심 제2016-038호 재결 등에서는 중앙해심의 2013년의 판단기준 중 가장 기본이 되는 좁은 수로의 지리적 조건은 통상적으로 가항수역에서의 수로의 폭이 통항하는 선박 길이(L)의 16배(16L) 이내일 때 충족된다고 판시하였다. 사고 수역이 좁은 수로로 판단되면 좁은 수로 항법이 적용된다. 그러나 좁은 수로에서의 항법 적용에도 몇 가지 논란이 제기되고 있으며, 이 중 하나에 대한 중요한 판단기준이 최근에 정립되었다. 2017년 3월 13일 영국 해사법원은 유조선 “알렉산드라 1(ALEXANDRA 1)”과 컨테이너선 “에버 스마트(EVER SMART)”호 사이의 충돌사건2) 판결에서 좁은 수로의 입구에서는 횡단 항법이 적용되지 않으며 좁은 수로 항법이 적용된다고 판시하였고 대부분의 관련 단체들이 이에 동의하였다. 따라서 좁은 수로 입구에서의 좁은 수로 항법 적용여부 문제는 해사법률의 국제적 통일성3)을 위하여 영국 법원의 이번 판결에 보조를 맞출 필요가 있다고 판단된다. 또한 일부에서의 논란에도 불구하고 좁은 수로 항법은 모든 시계에서의 항법이며 좁은 수로에서는 비록 일방의 선박이 흘수제약선일지라도 선박 사이의 책무 규정이 적용되지 않는다.

The Coastal VTS will be continuously constructed to prevent marine traffic accidents in the coastal waters of the Republic of Korea. In order to provide the best traffic information service to the ship operator, it is important to understand the navigation risk factor. In this study, we analyzed the navigational hazards of Gunsan coastal area where the coastal VTS will be constructed until 2020. For this purpose, major traffic flows of merchant ships and density of vessels engaged in fishing were analyzed. This study was conducted by Automatic Identification System (AIS) and Vessel Pass (V-PASS) data. The grid intervals are 10 minute × 10 minute (latitude × longitude) based on the section of the sea. A total of 30 sections were analyzed by constructing a grid. As a result of the analysis, the major traffic flows of the merchant vessels in the coastal area of Gunsan were surveyed from north to south toward Incheon, Pyeongtaek, Daesan, Yeosu, Pusan and Ulsan, and from east to west in the port of Gunsan Port, 173-3, 173-6, 173-8, 183-2, 183-5, 183-8, 183-3, 184-1 and 184-2. As a result of the study, the fishing boats in Gunsan coastal area mainly operated in spring and autumn. On the other hand, the main traffic flow of merchant ships and the distribution of fishing vessels continue to overlap from March to June, so special attention should be paid to the control during this period.

The methods of celestial navigation to fix the ship position in line with the stars are only applied in the twilight time interval when both the celestial bodies and the horizon apppear simultaneously. This means that these methods cannot be used during the night even if the stars are visible. This paper proposes a novel approach which uses the azimuth of the celestial body in order to establish the great circle equation relating the observed body to the ship position when the celestial bodies appear. In addition, the proposed method does not demand the horizon and sextant equipment as with the previous methods. The key advantage which differentiates this method from previous ones is its ability to determine the ship position during the night when the horizon is invisible. Firstly, the vector calculus is applied to find the mathematical equation for the ship position through analyzing the relationship between the ship position and the great-circle azimuth of the observed body. Secondly, the equation system for the ship position is expanded into a standard system in which the input for the proposed mathematical system are the great-circle azimuth and the coordinates of the observed body. Finally, the numerical technique is also proposed to solve the nonlinear system for the ship position. To verify the validation of this proposed method, a numerical experiment is carried out and the results show that it can be applied well in practice.

Current marine navigational practice relies less on long-range visual marine signals such as lighthouses for reference purposes. This is due to the availability of Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS), which are integrated with other navigational aids on ships. Therefore, the objective of this study is to review the function of Pisang Island lighthouse and to propose the most relevant use of Pisang Island for current navigational needs. The function of the lighthouse was reviewed according to the IALA Navigational Guide and the AIS data image. The result showed that the most suitable navigational use of the lighthouse is to act as a reference for Line of Position (LOP). The AIS data image indicated that mariners are not using Pisang Island lighthouse for LOP. The trend in the Straits of Malacca (SoM) was compared with the trend in the Straits of Dover, UK. The selected experts verified that LOP was not practised there. As a specific example, a tanker ship route in the South China Sea was used to further support that LOP was not practised. This evidence supported the view that Pisang Island lighthouse is less relevant for current navigational practice and does not directly support the coastal state VTS operation and the establishment of the marine electronic highway. Furthermore, the existing shore-based VTS radar has limitations on range and the detection of targets near Pisang Island. Therefore, this study proposes the establishment of a new radar station on Pisang Island at the existing site of the lighthouse. The proposed new radar station on Pisang Island will add to the existing coverage of the VTS radar, bridging the coverage gaps to overcome the weakness of the existing shore-based radar and improve the safety and security of marine navigation in the SoM.

Long-range visual marine aids to navigation are not required for current marine navigational practices. Therefore, the objective of this study was to develop a minimum luminous range for major lighthouses that are still in existence to sustain the operation of the lighthouses in the future. Two steps were involved in the determination of the minimum luminous range, namely the modification of the existing geographical range formula, and the finding of a strong linear correlation between the light intensity and the luminous range with the lowest gradient possible in a graph. The application of the minimum luminous range would eliminate the loom of light beyond the geographical range of the lighthouse. This approach was applied to seven major lighthouses in Peninsular Malaysia, which resulted in a minimum luminous range of between 12 nm to 14 nm, which was a reduction from the existing range of 18 nm to 25 nm. The validation of the minimum luminous range was performed in two ways; using a Full Mission Ship Simulator (FMSS), and matching the proposed minimum luminous range with the lighting system available. The results of the validation by using the FMSS between the luminous range of 25 nm and 14 nm showed that the light could be sighted and identified at 58.7 nm and 58.6 nm, respectively, which was, therefore, not significant. The validation by matching with the lighting equipment available in the market showed that the eight-tier VLB-44, which has replaced the rotating lighting system in the US since 2008, was highly matched with the proposed minimum luminous range. This further validated the minimum luminous range. The minimum luminous range is sufficient for current navigational uses and may reduce the costs for procuring and maintaining lighting systems, and will be able to sustain the operations of lighthouses in this GNSS age.

According to Software Quality Assurance (SQA) and the Human Centred Design (HCD) guidelines for e-navigation by Maritime Safety Committee of International Maritime Organization, software quality related activities and practices will be in demand in the maritime field. To provide high quality software and a usable system to users, e-navigation SQA is supported by Republic of Korea. After merging with the HCD as suggested by Australia, it has been endorsed as IMO Circ.1512 in June 2015. To apply SQA to the maritime industry, it needs to achieve the current status of maritime software related industries. This article introduces the IMO Circ.1512 and the progress of e-navigation SQA so far including the international workshop held in Busan, Korea as previous accomplishments. Also, the result of a survey on the status of software quality management of the Korean domestic maritime IT related industry will be described. The purpose of survey is to find out how SQA is dealt with in domestic industry, what experiences the industry have had so far and what software project related issues they have. The questionnaire is composed of two parts. The first part mainly deals with fundamental knowledge about the scale of the company and the number of development teams s. The second part consists of three sub-parts with Quality Management, Configuration Management, and Process Management. Otherwise, several questions are surveyed with respect to engineering tools for SQA and education support. Approximately 150 cases were gathered. The outcome of the survey shows some points that both of industry and government can contemplate for the future.

Many maritime accidents have been caused by human-error including such things as inadequate watch keeping and/or mistakes in ship handling. Also, new navigational equipment has been developed using Information Technology (IT) technology to provide various kinds of information for safe navigation. Despite these efforts, the reduction of maritime accidents has not occurred to the degree expected because, navigational equipment provides too much information, and this information is not well organized, such that users feel it to be complicated rather than helpful. In this point of view, the method of representation of navigational information is more important than the quantity of that information and research is required on the representation of information to make that information more easily understood and to allow decisions to be made correctly and promptly. In this paper, we adopt Augmented Reality (AR) technologies for the representation of information. AR is a 3D computer graphics technology that blends virtual reality and the real world. Recently, this technology has been widely applied in our daily lives because it can provide information more effectively to users. Therefore, we propose a new concept, a navigational system based on AR technology; we review experimental results from a ship-handling simulator and from an open sea test to verify the efficiency of the proposed system.

Technology is changing the way of navigation. New technologies for communication and navigation can be found on virtually every vessel. System architectures define structure and cooperation of components and subsystems. IMO, IALA, costal authorities, technology provider and many more actually propose new architectures for e-Navigation. This paper looks at other transportation domains and technical as normative requirements for e-Navigation architectures. With the aim of identifying possible synergies in the research, development, certification and standardization, this paper sets out to compare requirements and approaches of these two domains with respect to safety and security aspects. Since from an autonomy perspective, the automotive domain has started earlier and therefore has achieved a higher degree of technical progress, we will start with an overview of the developments in this domain. After that, the paper discusses the requirements on automation and assistance systems in the maritime domain and gives an overview of the developments into this direction within the maritime domain. This then allows us to compare developments in both domains and to derive recommendations for further developments in the maritime domain at the end of this paper.

『해양경비법』 제14조에 규정되어 있는 ‘해상항행 보호조치 등’은 제1항의 ‘해 상항행 보호조치’와 제2항의 ‘안전조치’로 구성되어 있는데, 이는 일반적으로 언 급되는 『경찰관 직무집행법』 제5조의 ‘보호조치’와 차이를 보이고 있다. ‘해상항행 보호조치’란 “선박이 본래의 목적을 벗어나 다른 선박의 항행 또는 입 항ㆍ출항 등에 현저히 지장을 주는 행위를 하거나, 항구ㆍ포구 내외의 수역과 지 정된 항로에서 무리를 지어 장시간 점거하거나 항법상 정상적인 횡단방법을 일탈 하여 다른 선박의 항행에 지장을 주는 행위를 하거나, 임해 중요시설 경계 바깥쪽 으로부터 1킬로미터 이내 경비수역에서 선박 등이 무리를 지어 위력적인 방법으로항행 또는 점거함으로써 안전사고가 발생할 우려가 높은 행위를 하였을 경우에 국 민안전처 소속 경찰공무원이 선박 등의 선장에 대하여 발하는 경고, 이동ㆍ해산 명령 등”을 말한다. ‘안전조치’란 “태풍, 해일 등 천재, 위험물의 폭발 또는 선박의 화재, 해상구조물 의 파손 등의 사유로 선박이 좌초ㆍ충돌ㆍ침몰ㆍ파손 등의 위험에 처하여 인명ㆍ 신체에 대한 위해나 중대한 재산상 손해의 발생 또는 해양오염의 우려가 현저한 경우에 국민안전처 소속 경찰공무원이 그 선박의 선장에 대하여 취하는 경고, 이 동·피난 명령 등”을 말한다. 『해양경비법』에서 다루고 있는 중요한 해양경찰작용 중의 하나인 ‘해상항행 보 호조치’에 대하여 그 의의와 구조를 살펴보고 그 법적 성격을 면밀히 밝혀 해양경 찰 법집행 작용에 합당한 표준처분을 마련하기 위한 연구가 절실히 필요하다고 할 것이다.