"Radar, Third Mate, is just an aid to navigation!" This was a reproof from the master when on a cold night, he found me in the warm wheelhouse using the radar to determine a couple of ranges and bearings, rather than the pelorus on the freezing bridge wing.
He was quite advanced in his views, unlike the skipper on my first trip who used to lock up the radar and only permit its use when visibility was nil but, of course, he was quite correct.
Today's masters have a whole range of equipment that tends to delight the younger "Generation Y" officers, who they have to remind to look out of the window and avert their eyes from the multiplicity of screens available to them. AIS, GPS, ECDIS – it's all just made for people who have to be dragged away from their XBoxes and suffer terribly when their smartphones fail to receive a signal 1,000 miles from land.
But does anyone on board actually understand all this gear the shipowner lavishes upon his vessels? Consider the apprehension in the mind of the pilot of a ship who has just boarded an inbound ship to discover the bridge "team" is intent on taking their ship overland on its passage to the berth, such was the set-up error on their electronic chart system. Then consider that this is not a rare event, but something that pilots are encountering time after time after time.
The pilot, breathless after his climb to the bridge from his boat, peers at the ship's ECDIS screen to discover in a large panel effectively obscuring most of the navigational information that the user license that facilitates its use has regrettably expired. It is not the best time to enter into discussions about financial arrangements. No wonder the bridge team appears so glad to see him.
Pilots also report a worrying incidence of either pirated or unapproved hydrographic software, and at least one serious accident has been attributed to the master effectively "driving" the ship on a chart he has downloaded onto his laptop and ignoring the paper charts lurking unused in the chart table drawers. The information, which he was treating as Gospel, was inaccurate and very out of date.
The art and science of navigation, which it is fair to say, seemed to be reasonably well understood and established, is currently undergoing a rude shock to all its systems. ECDIS might be the "bees knees" and the navigational future, but it has been described as still "embryonic", which is something that we should perhaps be concerned about as it is now a mandatory requirement. Not for the first time – think back a few years to AIS – we have equipment being installed on ships before it has been properly developed, and a training regime about which we are still arguing.
ECDIS is such a fundamental change from the old certainties of paper navigation that it really does need a great deal of thought as to its safe and efficient adoption. As with all these electronic advances, all the manufacturers are entirely convinced that their equipment is the best, so at the latest count there are now some thirty different types of equipment available, all with their subtle differences, even though the end product might be roughly the same.
It is not being Luddite or a stick-in-the-mud to wonder whether we are now engendering an over-dependence on this amazing equipment in the minds of its users. It appears terribly reassuring in its presentation of information to the navigator. Turn up the scale and there is even the "shape" of the ship moving along the fairway. The position of the vessel is even being confirmed by the GPS. What a splendid piece of kit! But what is that buoy we are passing? It shouldn't be there! Maybe it has broken adrift! But then the sweating pilot bursts into the wheelhouse and points out that our electronic road map is not the foolproof device it is believed to be, and the ship is within a few cables of running aground.
There is a need to keep our equipment in perspective and remember that it is only an "aid" to navigation, recently emphasised Tampa Bay pilot Captain Jorge Viso, speaking at the International Maritime Pilot's Association Congress in London. An over-dependence on electronics and its distractions, complacency about its apparent accuracy and a neglect of first principles, were all encouraging unnecessary risk-taking, much as the "unsinkability" of the 'Titanic' drove her to disaster.
Sooner or later, this debate about e-Navigation will seem very old hat, but getting to this state of confidence might be very rocky indeed. Do we have the blind leading the blind aboard ship, with older masters hoping against hope that the Second Mate knows what he is doing as he sets up the ECDIS, and the latter officer crossing his fingers and knocking on wood as he undertakes this task?
It is slightly worrying that there is still argument about the extent and intensity of type training (as opposed to the mandatory college course on generic equipment) on the ship's gear, before somebody is let loose on the navigation for the upcoming voyage. It is too important to be left to some bewildered chap trying to translate the confusing English of a manual into reality, a couple of hours from departure.
