Voyage data recorder

Have you ever played with a toy that records your voice and plays it back to you? Well, think of a voyage data recorder as a bigger and more important version of that toy!

A voyage data recorder (VDR) is like a black box that is installed on big ships to record all the important information about the ship's journey. Just like your toy that records your voice, a VDR records things like the ship's speed, the direction it's going, the weather, and the conversations between the crew members.

Why is this important? Because if something goes wrong with the ship, like it gets lost or even worse, it sinks, then the VDR can be used to find out exactly what happened. It's like a detective, and it helps other people understand what went wrong so that they can learn from it and prevent it from happening again.

So, just like how you use your toy to play back your voice and hear what you said, investigators can use the information on the VDR to figure out what happened on the ship before something bad happened.

Overall, a VDR is a really important tool that helps keep big ships and the people on them safe by recording important information about their journeys.