Westwood Shipping Lines, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Weyerhauser Company, is the third steamship line, after CSX and TOTE, to voluntarily install International Tug of Opportunity System (ITOS) transponders on seven of its container vessels, bringing the tracking system's deep sea vessel total to 11.
The ITOS transponders, manufactured by Meteor Communications, Kent, Wash., are also installed on roughly 100 tugboats from the Puget Sound to the inland waters of British Columbia. ITOS signal base stations are located from California to Alaska.
The concept and purpose of ITOS has been that in the event of an emergency situation, the nearest ITOS-equipped vessels can be called upon to assist in these incidents. At the same time, information on the ships themselves, like their course, speed and position, are transmitted to the Marine Exchange of Puget Sound, which in turn sends this information to U.S. and Canadian Coast Guard vessel tracking offices.
Each participating vessel has a transponder, which Bob Bohlman, executive director of the Marine Exchange, said is "the size of a laptop [computer] and about 1.5 inches high" and a battery box bolted down and linked to a 13-foot whip antennae as well as a GPS antennae.
ITOS is a maritime industry-sponsored initiative, which is funded by voluntary assessments paid by all vessels over 300 GRT arriving in Washington and British Columbia ports.
Westwood Shipping's vessels sail weekly from PNW ports to Japan and Korea.
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