200214 Ancient and Modern Attitudes to Navaids

Ancient and Modern Attitudes to Navaids
Report No. 200214

I have often encountered two opposing views, one which "refuses to look away from the ARPA and out of the window", and the other which "refuses to look into the ARPA and looks only through the window". Very rarely have I seen people with a well balanced attitude who, so to say, "look at both the ARPA and 'out of the window.'"

I belong to the so-called "GPS generation" - other than my first two ships, all the rest had GPS, though I have used the Decca, Loran, Satnav, even Omega, and still take sun and star sights on clear days and nights (Something which I continue to teach my cadets). A few years ago, we had some interesting voyages on 14 knot 30,000dwt ship sailing between Brazil and the entrance of the English Channel - the master would check our position on the Satnav every noon....just to be on the safe side, and then switch it off.

I often wonder, if it is not the slowness of seafarers to adapt to new technology which makes them either over dependent or foolishly independent. Do we practice shouting or, for that matter, using smoke signals, in the fear that the telephone lines or cell phone towers may be down sometime? Do we stop using the TV/heating/lights/electric appliances-preparing for the power shut down? Do we stop using computers and e-mails fearing a computer crash / virus attack (Something which happens more often than the GPS going "off"!). Do we go about revising the multiplication tables of "23"....just in case the calculator goes bonkers?

For all those people so suspicious of all the modern gizmos on the bridge, have they had a look into the cockpits of the very aircraft that fly them to their ports of joining/sign off? The normal transatlantic Boeing carries two people in the cockpit, the autopilot functions with inputs from the anemometer plus the INS and automatically alters course. Perhaps they should go and give a lecture to each of these pilots every time they join / sign off.

The fact remains, no technology is fool proof....but that doesn't mean we should live in the Stone Age! To shrug off modern technology is as stupid as to over-rely on it. I recently used the ECDIS during a Radar and Navigation simulator course and wondered why such a fantastic tool is not used on ships. It would ease the burden from the watch keeper tremendously. There is no good reason why a watch keeper would doze off on the bridge if he had a supply of coffee and wasn't overworked and had a reasonable sense of responsibility. A tired watchkeeper would end up sleeping STANDING, even in the midst of the English Channel traffic, with no modern gizmos.

I'd love to know what other navigators think of this and what their reasons are. Perhaps we could have a healthy debate by which we'd all learn.

See Also Reports: 200244; 200266 and 200267