In February 1998 I told a ship's master that his vessel would clear the ice in the Cabot Strait in nineteen hours. It took forty-one. I was eight months into a job as an ice and weather routing analyst at Brumelle Marine Routing in Quebec City, and my estimate had been the midpoint of a calculation whose spread I had not thought worth mentioning. The master was courteous about it. My chief forecaster, Aurèle Penvenan, was less so, and asked me to keep a log of every estimate I issued beside the time the passage actually took. I kept it for three and a half winters. It showed that my estimates were reasonably centred but far too confident, and that the people relying on them would rather have been given the range.
01 / Arrival forecasting and calibration for shippers and terminals
02 / Season-close and winter disruption forecasting
03 / Shipper data-sharing and commercial confidentiality
04 / Shipment data for cross-border filing
05 / Vessel and driver telematics governance
06 / Fuel-based emissions data for customers' reporting
Vessels whose voyage and fuel data my team governs
15 lakers
Plus two bulk terminals and 210 road tractors, 2026
Arrivals inside the published 90% window
88%
1,510 arrivals, 2025 navigation season
Data function operating budget
C$10.2m
2026; 48 colleagues; company revenue C$912m in 2025
A shipping company's data is mostly promises made to other people, so I publish how often ours come true and let shippers check the record for themselves.
I am chief data officer of Morvaise Navigation, a privately held Great Lakes and St. Lawrence shipping company based in Montreal. We operate fifteen lakers carrying iron ore, grain, road salt, stone and cement between ports on both sides of the border, two bulk terminals and a road bulk fleet of 210 tractors. My team of 48 answers for the data that leaves the company as much as the data that stays inside it: arrival forecasts sent to terminals and shippers, the shipment records behind customs filings, the fuel figures behind customers' emissions reports and the telematics gathered from our vessels and trucks. I report to our president and chief executive, Rémi Vautrinel.
I began in 1997 as an ice and weather routing analyst in Quebec City. I joined Morvaise as a voyage planner in 2001, then spent eleven years at Thibervaux Transport, a cross-border truckload carrier, where I rebuilt how shipment data reached customs and later wrote the rules for cameras and telematics in 1,240 tractors. Morvaise brought me back in 2017 to assemble fleet data scattered across noon reports and lock logs, and in 2021 I became its first chief data officer.
The questions I work on are practical. How sure are we that a vessel will reach an elevator on Thursday, and should the shipper be told the odds? Which of our data can one customer see without learning another customer's business? What is a fair emissions figure for a cargo when the ship sailed home empty? I have answered some of these at a cost in revenue, and this site records those costs beside the results.
Arrival windows instead of arrival times
Since the 2023 season we have sent terminals and shippers a likely arrival time with a window designed to hold nine times in ten. In 2025, 88% of 1,510 arrivals fell inside it, and waiting-time claims fell from C$2.9 million in 2021 to C$1.1 million.
A closing date the ice decides
A season-close rule declines late fixtures when a voyage's chance of clearing the locks with margin falls below a threshold. It cost six cargoes and about C$3.4 million of revenue in 2023; no Morvaise vessel has since needed unplanned icebreaker help at closure.
Border data captured at the order, not the dock
At Thibervaux in 2009 we stopped dispatching cross-border loads without complete shipper data. Document-related delays fell from 6.8% of southbound crossings to 1.4%, and one customer worth about C$6 million a year left rather than change its booking habits.
Telematics with an expiry date
In 2015 I set purposes, retention limits and driver access for camera and telematics data across 1,240 tractors. We accepted an insurance discount worth about C$560,000 a year less, rather than hand the insurer a continuous video feed.
Current focus
This season I am extending fuel-based emissions statements from the marine fleet to the road bulk division, so that a salt or stone customer receives one method across the laker and the truck. I am also rebuilding the winter forecasts for municipal salt depots, because two mild Decembers in a row have made our historical record a weaker guide than our planners assume.
Conversations I welcome
From mid-2027, once our platform programme ends, I would consider a chief data officer role at a larger rail, port or multimodal operator. I would also take one non-executive seat on a risk or technology committee outside shipping, with my chief executive's agreement, and a small number of speaking invitations each year.
Beyond the page
The record behind the perspective.
In the boardroom
Oriselle Waterways FoundationDirector · June 2022–present
Formation
Bachelor of Science in applied mathematicsUniversité Ferrandine · 1997
Master of Science in operations research (part-time)Tourmelle Institute of Technology · 2005
Maya brought me the season-close rule with the cargoes it would cost us already listed. A year later she came back to say the threshold should have been the committee's decision rather than hers. The second conversation told me more about her than the first.
Rémi VautrinelPresident and chief executive officer, Morvaise Navigation Inc.The full record ↗
Contact
From mid-2027, once our platform programme ends, I would consider a chief data officer role at a larger rail, port or multimodal operator. I would also take one non-executive seat on a risk or technology committee outside shipping, with my chief executive's agreement, and a small number of speaking invitations each year.
