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This year's theme for World Maritime Day is the Year of the Seafarer which will be celebrated at the Organisation's Headquarters on Thursday 23rd September 2010. Selected by the IMO to give the maritime industry the opportunity to pay tribute to seafarers across the globe for their contribution to society and the global economy, the theme aims to recognise the risks seafarers face when doing their jobs... read more about Year of the Seafarer.

The UKHO has recently reached a number of key ENC coverage milestones.

This month, we completed Chinese coastal coverage; in total, the UKHO has now released 375 Chinese ENCs covering the huge area of Chinese coastal waters and all of the country's major ports. ... read more about Chinese Coastal ENCs Complete.

Every year in June, the IHO celebrates World Hydrography Day. The aim of the day is to recognise the achievements of the hydrographic community and to raise awareness and understanding of hydrography, which is essential for safe navigation and the protection of the marine environment. First celebrated on June 29 2005, the UN adopted a resolution to celebrate it annually to coincide with the date the IHO was established in 1921... read more about the World Hydrography Day event from UKHO.

Following the success of our first navigation event in Hamburg in May, we're now moving on to Singapore, where the second one will take place on June 30th at the Marina Bay Sands Hotel.

The events form part of our ongoing programme to provide international mariners with timely information and practical guidance, which enables them to plan effectively for a future world of digital navigation...read more about the second International Navigation Event from UKHO.

The Posidonia Exhibition 2010 is fast approaching (7-11 June) and the UKHO's focus at this year's event is going to be on addressing the business, operational and compliance issues raised by the ongoing shift in maritime navigation from paper charts to digital technology...read more about the Future of Navigation at Posidonia 2010.

Bjorn Woge, managing director of HanseNautic concluded the Hamburg conference and set the tone somewhat for how the debate might be shaped going forward.

All manufacturers hope their products will be the most popular in the market, he remarked, but when they are about something as fundamental as digital navigation, there is an even greater need for users to trust that they are reliable and can be operated under harmonised regulations...read more about setting course for the future.

Ken Helle Jensen and Mads Friis Sorensen of Furuno gave the Hamburg event a real-life take on training for ECDIS and eNavigation but that didn't stop Ken from describing the kind of systems that we might see on the ship of the future...read more about a cool pair of trainers.

The Hamburg Navigation event was always designed to be interactive. The audience voting became a useful indicator of how they felt digital navigation was progressing. But crucially it gave them the opportunity to share their concerns too...read more about Hamburg votes for eNavigation.

The Q&A that closed the first session of the day saw UKHO's Michael Cauter, Rudolph Kreutzer and Don Gregory take the stage to warm up the theme of data integration. With so many external pressures on the horizon, could digital navigation really help...read more about Integration, integration, integration.

This week we have been putting together the finishing preparations for the first in a series of one-day navigation events with some of our regional partners.

Taking place in Hamburg on Thursday, the UKHO and German distributor HanseNautic have invited representatives from a number of shipping companies to the exclusive event hosted by Lloyd's List's Tom Leander... read more about the Hamburg event.

Almost 50% of delegates to the Admiralty/HanseNautic navigation event believe that the growth of environmental and safety regulations is making it increasing hard to turn a profit... read more about Managing costs, making efficiencies.

The future of navigation is not just digital, it's social too. The maritime community's online presence is growing rapidly and becoming increasingly active. Whether it's new blogs appearing, such as Clay Maitland's which launched at the start of this year, or gCaptain's announcement this week that its forum now houses the knowledge of 5,000+ professionals working in the maritime industry, it's interesting to see how active the shipping community has become in the online world. Here at UKHO, we can see that the maritime community's relationship with the web is beginning to change... read more.

With numerous ships heading towards Haiti to provide supplies and equipment, the UKHO is lending its support to the relief effort in the form of the latest charting information... read more.

Training was in the spotlight last week. Gordon Brown met with shipping unions and ship owners, who were looking for government support for maritime training in the UK, to ensure the future of the industry in the country. They only had 15 minutes with the Prime Minister, but we hope the meeting was a success... read more.