Admiralty Digital Nautical Publications (ADP) and Backup for

Digital Nautical Publications

Any use of digital publications, such as Admiralty Light Lists (ALL), Total Tides (TT) or
Admiralty Digital Radio Signals (ADRS) series must be subject to the agreement of the Flag
State and appropriate to the chart portfolios carried onboard.

To ensure continuous availability of the digital publication data in the event of computer
system failure, a backup must be provided. ADP is designed to allow the use of second
computer for backup purposes (an activation key will be required from the contracted
supplier for each computer). Where the backup computer is located away from the bridge,
it is recommended that it is connected to a printer to enable significant navigation data to
be made available on the bridge.

The primary system must be available at all times during the voyage and therefore should
have an emergency source of power. The backup facility should be checked both before
leaving port and routinely during the voyage in order to ensure its availability.

Where ADP are used to meet the SOLAS carriage requirement, the Safety Equipment
Certificate should be endorsed to show that digital publications are being used and that
appropriate backup is provided.

Corrections to Digital Publications

Digital publications such as Admiralty Light Lists (ALL) or the Admiralty Digital Radio Signals
(ADRS) must be kept up-to-date. For vessels using Admiralty Digital Publications,
specifically authorised by the Flag Administration, there are currently two methods of
carrying out these corrections, either via Weekly Update CD or downloaded weekly from the
UKHO. The preferred method will be decided by the Management Office depending on the
communications equipment onboard the vessel.

The corrections on the weekly update CDs are cumulative so it’s only necessary for the
vessel to install the latest copy onboard to update the digital publications. Downloaded
corrections automatically request the latest corrections applicable to the vessel. This
correction requires to be burned to a removable data device for loading into the system.
These removable data devices must be used only for this purpose and not contain any data
which might compromise computer integrity.

The backup facility must be updated at the same time as the primary facility.