Tidetech stepped aboard Carnival Splendor in Sydney Harbour recently (April 2026) for something quietly significant.
Working in support of the Australian Hydrographic Office (AHO), Tidetech has supplied high‑resolution tidal and current data for Sydney Harbour as part of Australia’s first live S‑100 bridge trial. The trial is now underway aboard two Carnival Cruise Lines vessels calling at Sydney, bringing next‑generation digital navigation data onto the bridge in a real operational setting.
"S‑100 is a big change because it treats tides and currents as live navigational information rather than background context," said Roger Proctor, chief scientist at Tidetech.
"With gridded S‑104 water levels and S‑111 surface currents, the challenge is delivering the right resolution in a way a bridge team can interpret quickly and use seamlessly in their operations.”
S‑100 is the International Hydrographic Organization’s (IHO) future framework for digital navigation. Designed to move beyond static charts, it enables interoperable, layered data products — from charts and bathymetry to tides, currents, and safety information — all delivered in ways intended to support safer, more informed decision‑making. For many bridge teams, however, this is totally new and represents a fundamental shift in how navigational information is presented and used.
From standards to the bridge
The data being tested includes Tidetech’s gridded S‑104 water level and S‑111 surface current datasets for Sydney Harbour, delivered at 100m resolution in 20-minute time steps. The focus is on technical performance and usability, specifically how bridge teams interpret dynamic information, how much detail is genuinely helpful, and where clarity matters more than density.
"This trial allows us to get real feedback from bridge crews operating regularly in a busy port," said Alvaro Sanchez, director national charting for the Australian Hydrographic Office.
"The bridge crews of the two vessels will see the different products available to them in the future with the ability to turn layers on and off depending on how much they want or need at critical times like manoeuvring in a confined space like Sydney Harbour.
"In the case of Carnival Adventure, it passes under Sydney Harbour Bridge with sometimes as little as two metres of clearance above the vessel — what we call the air gap — so dynamic depths have the potential to improve the safety of that transit."
Australia has previously explored S‑100 through simulator‑based testing, including work in the ICSM S‑100 Working Group testbed using Tidetech’s Torres Strait model. Those efforts were an important foundation, but a live trial aboard operational vessels is a different proposition altogether.
Live trials expose questions that simulators cannot always reveal, particularly around human factors like attention, trust in new data layers, and how information is prioritised when conditions change.
Collaboration at the core
The trial aboard Carnival vessels reflects a close collaboration between hydrographic offices, ship operators, external data providers and software manufacturers (OEM). It brings together AHO’s leadership on national hydrographic data, Carnival’s willingness to trial emerging technology in an operational environment, OSI Maritime Systems’ innovation, and Tidetech’s experience delivering high‑resolution, operational metocean data.
"It's great to be involved with the development of S-100 products and to be introducing them to our bridge teams at an early stage," said Doug Bird, nautical manager for Carnival Cruise Lines.
"This allows us to familiarise with what’s coming, provide feedback direct to a hydrographic office, and shape future navigation practices.”
For Tidetech, the project sits in the long arc from standards development to real‑world use. S‑100 products are new and still present various challenges. What happens next — how they are developed for, used, understood and trusted on the bridge — will shape their impact just as much as the technical standards themselves.
A meaningful milestone
This trial marks an important step for Australia in moving S‑100 from concept to operational reality. Its aim is to show what’s possible when standards, data and users come together in a live environment, and it provides practical insight into how dynamic ocean information can support navigation in the years ahead.
“You can learn a lot in standards meetings and simulator testbeds, but a live bridge trial is where the interesting questions come up," Proctor said.
"We're interested in learning about what gets noticed, what the bridge crews like and dislike, and what actually helps decision-making when they’re navigating for real.
"For Australia, seeing S‑100 move into an operational setting like this is a genuine milestone, and it’s exactly the kind of feedback opportunity we need for continued development of the standards."
Although this is a small step in a long journey , it signals something much larger at the beginning of a new chapter in how navigation information is delivered and used in Australian waters.
Photos: Jamie Millar
