200244 Ancient or Modern 2

Ancient or Modern 2
Report No. 200244

I have continually exhorted Bridge Teams to practice their sextant skills when deep sea, and to take visual positions as a primary means of navigation when coasting, rather than rely on electronic aids alone. These exhortations are backed up by the Master's Standing Orders almost without exception but on many vessels there appeared to be some reluctance to actually take visual positions. Having read various trade publications, I'm slowly concluding that this is an industry wide problem. The problem may be down to reasons as simple as the fact that the azimuth mirrors on some ships are of poor quality, are difficult to read at night and give the observed bearing in a reversed compass rose, and/or the height of the repeater is too high for many of our navigators to be able to read the bearing without climbing on a box of some description (boxes and platforms are in place on some ships but not on all). It may be down to training too; do sea schools stress the importance of visual bearings to the young navigation cadets of today? Do Masters frequently and verbally stress their requirements?

There appears to be an inability for today's navigator to be able to deal with taking three visual bearings and a radar range, plotting the position on the chart while maintaining an overview of the traffic situation and, if necessary in port approaches, keeping the Master informed too; this is not specific to one nationality, it's across the board, but it may explain why the navigator is reluctant to leave the security and continuity of the radar display.

Today's navigators seem to be reluctant to go outside into the marine environment when they can simply plot a GPS position, or obtain a position from the radar, or simply put an "x" on top of the Nautoplot light. Also, they certainly do not move themselves from the centre of the wheelhouse to the bridge wing and back to the chart table at anything like the speed we ancient mariners used to do when we were lads. Nor do they look out of the window to compute the movements of other ships with their eyes and brain nearly as much as their predecessors did. They would rather rely on the information gleaned from the ARPA display, no matter the quality of that information. On the other hand, though, do we want the navigators to walk onto the bridge wing, sometimes a decent distance from the centre of the action, to observe three bearings from a moving platform? Is the basic equipment they are using of a suitable standard? Our SMS states that "traditional methods should be used to cross check electronic information," but it's fair to say that a GPS position is often more accurate than the cocked hat obtained from two or three gyro bearings, rarely with error applied, and a radar range or two.

We also use the radar-based parallel indexing technique and have been using it for so long in our Company, since at least the mid-70s when one of my esteemed predecessors was teaching it, that this technique must surely qualify as a traditional method! However, the important fact must not be forgotten: we must back up one method of fixing the ship with another independent method. GPS Positions backed up with radar-derived positions would comply with requirements. With the advent of electronic charts, user-friendly track control steering modes, ECDIS etc., we expect our officers to be more aware of electronic aids then ever before in the past, such that a Master who has been retired for ten years may well struggle to run a bridge successfully until he has had a period of adjustment and training, should he/she return to sea for whatever reason.

Electronic aids have improved so much over the last decade or so that, with a continuation of this progress, eventually the emphasis will change from visual positions being our primary navigation method with electronic aids backing them up to the visuals backing up the electronics. Whether we are prepared to accept this paradigm shift is a moot point but the reluctance to use visuals is prevalent through the ranks from Chief Officer down to cadet. When we consider that GPS is locked into so much of our bridge equipment, from radars to echo sounders, and hardly any one these days can use a sextant to good effect, perhaps we need to consider a progressive change of training emphasis. What are young persons being taught at sea schools? Is the emphasis on traditional or modern navigation techniques? As we slowly evolve to navigation by paperless chart, we, the Company, may need to rethink our stance on this subject.

See also reports: 200214; 200266 and 200267

Feedback

According to my experience, mariners are getting more and more certificates and instead of knowing more, due to the use of all the electronic equipment, they know less. In addition to using the electronic navigation systems they should use the traditional navigation (sextant, compass bearings etc.) whenever they can.