Articles
MANTRAZ articles
Guides on vessel fuel monitoring, bunker verification and fuel consumption.
What is a Fleet Management System for Vessels?
A fleet management system (FMS) for vessels pulls together data that used to live in separate logbooks and separate people's heads — where each vessel is, how…
How to Verify Marine Fuel Bunkering
Every bunkering has three numbers that are supposed to agree and often do not: the target quantity ordered from the supplier, the volume a flowmeter actually…
How to Calculate Vessel Fuel Consumption
Vessel fuel consumption is usually worked out one of three ways: from engine running hours and a known consumption rate, from engine RPM using a load curve, or…
ROB (Remain On Board): What It Is and How to Calculate It
ROB, short for Remain On Board, is the quantity of fuel left in a vessel's tanks at a given moment. It is one of the most used numbers in ship operations: the…
Tank Sounding Explained: Sounding Tables and Flowmeter Gaps
Tank sounding is the oldest and still the most common way to find out how much fuel is in a vessel's tanks: lower a tape into the tank, read the depth of the…
Preventing Vessel Fuel Theft: Measure, Reconcile, Alert
Vessel fuel theft is one of those problems many operators suspect and few can prove. Fuel is usually the largest running cost of a vessel, it is easy to move…
Bunkering Procedure Checklist: Before, During and After
A bunkering procedure checklist exists because fuel transfers go wrong in predictable ways: the wrong tank, an overflow, a leaking hose, a quantity nobody can…
GPS Tracker vs AIS: Which One Does a Vessel Owner Need?
GPS tracker vs AIS is a question many vessel owners ask once they realise their vessels already show up on public ship-tracking websites. If anyone can see the…
Supply and Return Fuel Flowmeter: Why Engines Need Two
A supply and return fuel flowmeter setup is the standard way to measure what a marine diesel engine actually burns. It surprises some owners that one meter is…
Coriolis Flowmeter for Ships: Measuring Fuel by Mass
A coriolis flowmeter is one of the instruments used on vessels to measure fluid flow directly by mass rather than by volume. It comes up whenever an owner…
Measured vs Estimated Fuel Consumption: Why the Gap Matters
Measured vs estimated fuel consumption is a distinction that matters more than it looks once you start comparing numbers across a fleet, because a figure that…
Starlink vs VSAT for Ships: Choosing Vessel Connectivity
Starlink vs VSAT is a question that comes up as soon as a fleet operator starts choosing how vessels will stay connected to the office. Both are satellite…
Fuel Flowmeter Installation: Schemes for Different Engines
Fuel flowmeter installation is not a one-size-fits-all job, and the layout that works on one vessel's fuel system will not necessarily suit another. Two…
Apparent vs True Wind: What the Sensor on a Moving Ship Reads
Apparent vs true wind is a distinction that matters as soon as a wind reading comes from a sensor mounted on something that moves. A wind sensor fixed to a…
Vessel Data Analytics: Five Questions, from What Happened to What Next
Vessel data analytics does not start with a dashboard full of charts, it starts with a question, and the questions get harder to answer as you move up through…