In this article we discuss the various options that are available to tailor ullage reports to our specific needs.
The ullage reports section in the latest version of CargoSurveyor has two major differences in comparison to the older version:
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While the older versions were limited to a maximum of 26 tanks, the new version can create reports with a maximum of 53 tanks.
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The older versions of the ullage report did not have any configuration options other than the titles in the header. The new version lets the user decide which units need to be printed, whether the VCF is calculated for each individual tank or only for the total cargo volume for each grade, based on the average temperature for that grade.
Aside from that, another albeit minor difference is that the entries on the tank editor screen have slightly changed; in the old version there were three fields for temperature, but these have been replaced with one single entry for temperature, plus one field for ‘tape correction’ as well as a field for ‘water dip’ both in cm/inches. The reason behind this change is that in the ReferenceHeights and Raw Measurements report the user can record his raw ullage and temperature values, so there really is no need for three temperature fields within the tank editor.
Let us first examine where exactly the major differences occur, and what the configurable options are:
1. When we need to create a new ullage report, we first decide on the number of tanks and the tank configuration. Let’s take for example a fuel barge with 9 sets of wing tanks, loading a cargo of heavy fuel oil with a density of 990.
2. Upon opening the app, we go to the ‘Tanks’ tab and press the ‘Extended’ button: the Standard layout gives us a maximum of 7 center tanks plus 7 sets of wing tanks (plus two slop tanks and 3 bottom lines), which is not enough for our barge with 9 sets of wing tanks:
Main entry screen
3. As soon as we press the ‘Extended’ button, the Tank Configurator screen shows up, where we can enter the number 9 in the text box for wing tanks, in the top of the window on the left:
As soon as you enter the number, the ‘New Form’ button becomes enabled:
4. As soon as we press the ‘New Form’ button, the Tank Editor screen shows up, with a dialog on top where you can enter the file name of the report. For this exercise, let’s enter ‘testship’:
5. After pressing ‘OK’, the dialog disappears, and we can now see the tank editor in full, with all tanks showing on the picker. As yet all fields are empty, and since we are going to attend the loading of this barge knowing that she will load just one grade of fuel with a density of 990, we can use the ‘Quickfill’ button to enter in advance the density and grade name for all tanks:
6. After pressing ‘Quickfill’, a dialog disappears, where we can enter values for ullage, water, temperature, density, volume, thermal expansion coefficient (alpha), grade name and a single letter that represents whether we want to apply this information to port side tanks / starboard side tanks / wing tanks/ center tanks / all tanks / odd tanks or even tanks (P/S/W/C/A/O/E).
7. For this exercise we will enter ‘990’ in the ‘Density’ field, and ‘Rmg’ for ‘Grade name’. If we don’t enter a letter for the bottom field, the information will be applied to all tanks:
8. After pressing ‘OK’ you will see that the two values have been entered, and applied to all tanks. The screenshot below shows tank 9S. You will notice that the ‘Quickfill’ button is now disabled; the button is only enabled if the first tank (in this case ‘1P’) is selected.
9. The current example being a barge, we will delete density and grade name for the two slop tanks and the three bottom lines. But first we can use quickfill again to fill all tanks with an oil volume, and set a temperature as well as an ullage for each tank.
For this example, we will enter a volume of 500 M³ for all odd tanks (1, 3 etc), and a volume of 400 M³ for all even tanks, with a temperature of 51.2 ºC for all loaded tanks. We spin the picker back to the first tank to enable ‘Quickfill’, press it and enter the following values:
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ullage: 2.50 mtr
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temperature: 51.2
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volume: 500 M³
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letter ‘O’ (or ‘o’), both small letters and capitals are recognized
Now we press ‘OK’, and press ‘Quickfill’ again, and enter the following values:
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ullage: 3.50 mtr
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temperature: 51.2
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volume: 400 M³
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letter ‘E’ (or ‘e’), both small letters and capitals are recognized
After pressing ‘OK’, we are now done with entering the required data. Now we can erase the data entered in the two slop tanks and three bottom lines. This will need to be done manually, by selecting each tank / bottom line and clearing all fields. It is possible to erase the contents in desired fields for all tanks using Quick fill by entering ‘000’ in each field that you want to be cleared.
10. in order to print our ullage report, there are several things that need to be set up to ensure that the report is printed the way we want. Prior to printing we should also have a look at the totals for our testship, to make sure that we did not make any mistakes, and that the total matches with our expectation:
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First, go to Settings (in the ‘More’ tab), and choose either Metric or Imperial depending on your requirements. For this example, lets go with Metric. When you open the app the first time, the default settings are: Imperial, Tables version 2007, ‘Apply VCF to totals only’ set to No, and ‘Avg temperature basis’ set to Volume, as seen in below screenshot:
Default settings
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Now swipe the switch beside ‘Imperial’ to the left to enable ‘Metric’, and set the switch ‘Apply VCF to totals only’ to yes. This will result in the VCF being calculated only for the total cargo volume, basis the average temperature of the total volume:
– Next, we go to Report / Report Settings. The first time we open the Report Settings, all fields are empty and units to print are all set to Yes. In the top of the Report Settings page there is an icon ‘Your Logo here’, where you can put your own company logo, or a picture taken with the camera. We can fill in some data such as ship name, date, cargo name, draft etc for the report.
Now if you look at the bottom half of the page you will notice there the switches for MTVac / MTAir / LTons / GSV / Bbls which speak sort of for themselves with the exception of GSV and Bbls: since we have set ‘Apply VCF to totals only’ to Yes (see above screenshot), even if we set the GSV switch to yes in Report Settings, only the total GSV will be printed. If we want GSV to be printed for each tank, we would need to set ‘Apply VCF to totals only’ to No. The Bbls switch includes Gallons as well, so if this switch is set to No, Bbls and Gallons are not printed.
If we have multiple grades within one report and we opt to print all grades in the report, then the total GSV will be printed on the first page, and a breakdown with units for each grades will be printed on the second page. If the GSV switch is set to No, the GSV value(s) will not be printed at all.
There is one more switch regarding GSV: GSVUnits, which can be set to either M³ or Liters (at 15ºC or 60ºF depending on whether you are using Metric or Imperial standards). All the switches described here apply to the printing of ullage reports, but the two switches in the Settings page (as seen in above screenshots) apply also to the Totals page, and to Txfer Reports.
Additionally, there is a switch ‘Print All Cargo tanks incl empty:’. If this switch is set to Yes all tanks on the vessel are printed, regardless of whether they contain any cargo or not. If set to No, only tanks belonging to the selected grade, or in the case of printing all grades only tanks that are not empty are printed. We will set this switch to ‘No’.
Next is the open ‘Add bunkers to Ullage Report’. Set this to Yes, to enable entering bunker details for the ullage report. The bunker details can either be entered manually, or imported from an existing bunker report. Since I am assuming that this is the first time we are running the app, we will enter the bunker data manually. We can set the switch for ‘Bunkers Reported in Units’ to for example MTVac, and we can enter a maximum of 6 tanks, with quantities before and after the cargo operation.
Below the list of tank names, there is a switch ‘Before / After’, which we use to enter both the quantities before and after the operation. The other switch ‘FuelOil / DieselOil’ is only used when we import an existing bunker report, to select either fuel oil tank or diesel oil tank quantities, depending on the cargo grade that is being loaded or discharged:
Now that we have adjusted settings according to our needs, we can go to More / Tank Totals and see how the quantity on our testship tallies. Upon pressing the ‘Tank Totals’ button we are asked to choose either Standard or Selected:
Our test ship has an extended layout, so we press Extended and get presented with a list of available ullage reports:
Once we have selected our test ship we get to choose either ‘Rmg’ or ‘Grand Totals’:
Selecting ‘Grand Totals’ will now result in the following display:
Now lets return to Reports, and select ‘Ullage Reports’. Once again we will be asked to choose either Standard or Extended, so we choose Extended and select our ‘testship’ ullage report, and then we select ‘Totals’ when asked to select a grade:
Finally, we are presented with our ullage report. Upon the report being printed, we are asked if we want to email the report:
If we press ‘OK’, the mail application will pop up, with the report attached as a pdf. Within Report Settings we can actually configure email addresses that are automatically set as recipients, or you can manually enter TO addresses. If we press ‘NO’ we are asked if we want to export the report to csv (Comma Separated Value) and we will also be asked if we want to email the exported file. This is all explained in detail in the user manual, which can also be downloaded from this blog. Below the two pages of the actual report:
Because we selected ‘Totals’, the density is also printed for each tank. If we had chosen to print only ‘Rmg’, then the density would only be printed in the box with ‘Totals all cargo’, below the table version.
Below the ullage report if we select to print ‘Rmg’, with the ‘Add bunkers to Ullage Report’ set to No, and our Logo set to MMC. The density is now only printed in the ‘Totals all cargo’ box:
If the client requires the VCF to be printed for all tanks, then we must set ‘Apply VCF to totals only’ to No on the Settings page. In that case VCF for all individual tanks will be printed, provided that we have set the GSV switch to Yes in the Report Settings page:
In the bottom of the first three report pages above, you can see the text ‘Put your business legal disclaimer here’; this is another setting in Report Settings, in the upper part. Whatever text you enter there will be saved in the app’s local settings and remain there until you change it. If you have not entered your own customized disclaimer, the app warns you of that when you exit the Report Settings page. The warning can be disabled by selecting ‘Do not show again’. If you set the disclaimer text to empty, no disclaimer will be printed at all.
Mooring Marine Consultancy 