Landing Craft Tank Fuel Monitoring: Fuel and Position for LCT

MANTRAZ is a landing craft tank fuel monitoring system for operators who run LCTs and want to know what each engine burns on every trip, not just what the vessel used in a month. Main engine fuel is measured by flowmeters on the supply and return lines, and every LCT's position, speed and status appears on one fleet map, from the loading point to the beach where the ramp comes down.

How an LCT is used, and why fuel gets blurry

A landing craft tank carries cargo, vehicles and heavy equipment to places without a proper jetty, running onto the shore and unloading over its bow ramp. The work mixes open-water passages with slow approaches, beaching and pulling off again, and the load changes from trip to trip. Each of those affects fuel in its own way.

A single fuel figure for the vessel flattens all of it. It cannot tell you whether a heavier trip, a longer approach or one engine running harder than the other drove the number up. When that figure comes from manual logs, it is also hard to separate a real change from a recording mistake.

Landing craft tank fuel monitoring, per engine

For each engine, MANTRAZ shows RPM, speed and fuel consumption side by side, with fuel density and temperature, running hours and exhaust temperature, plus power meter readings where one is installed. Auxiliary engines are usually estimated from running hours, and reports keep measured and estimated fuel apart.

Everything sits on one timeline. Move it through a trip and you can see how consumption followed the engines: the passage, the approach, the time on the beach and the run back.

Knowing where each LCT is

Every vessel sends its position, speed and status every 60 seconds, and each connection is marked Online, Offline, No GPS or No Sensor. The office can see which LCT is loading, which is under way and which has reached its landing site without calling anyone. You can replay past tracks, measure a route with an ETA for the people waiting on the shore, and vessels beyond cellular range can still report through the app's satellite mode.

Fuel on board before the next trip

A landing site is not always close to a place to take on fuel, so knowing what is left in the tanks matters. MANTRAZ keeps a Remain On Board balance for each vessel: the start balance, plus every bunker, minus what the engines burn, with adjustments so the balance matches the tanks. You can check the fuel on board before planning the next trip or ordering the next bunker.

Comparing trips on the same route

Many LCTs repeat the same run between a loading point and a landing site. Every voyage report lists distance, average speed, litres per nautical mile, fuel per running hour, time in each operation mode and the wave conditions met on the way. Put two voyages side by side to see the delta %, overlaid charts and both tracks on one map, and it becomes clear what made one trip cost more than another.

Already running on LCTs

MANTRAZ is already installed on LCT vessels, as well as on tugboats, MV and AHTS vessels. The LCT is one example, not a limit: the same system works on other vessel types too.

See it with your own fleet

To see tracking and per-engine fuel with your own landing craft, contact the team for a demo.