Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services (INCOIS), under the Ministry of Earth Sciences, has come out with another pioneering system of ‘Small Vessel Advisory and Forecast Services’ or ‘SVAS’ for small vessels navigating the coastal waters on the east and west coast alerting about any ‘overturning’ zones 10 days in advance.
The ‘SVAS’ includes forecasting to small vessels about significant wave height, wave steepness, directional spread and the rapid development of the wind sea. Boat-specific warning is issued with the region of danger in conjunction with the category or the size of the boat, informed director T. Srinivasa Kumar in an exclusive interaction.
The advisory is based on the ‘Boat Safety Index’ (BSI) which indicates whether the particular boat is safe during the prevailing or forecasted wave conditions. BSI is derived based on the beam size, category of the vessel, significant wave height, wave steepness, directional spread and rapid changes in the sea state.
