HE00635 - Why ships really collide

The shipping industry, from the mariner's viewpoint, is rather like a set of Chinese boxes.

Open one and there is another inside and another inside that, with each more remote and more difficult to deal with. Every casualty produces a flurry of documents, rules, advice on how not to collide and the inevitable 2018we fail to understand2019 pronouncements. Blame, of course, is apportioned without going too deeply into the boxes and we settle down to await the next inevitable incident.