Maybe there is just a generational difference here, but I do not see an apples to apples comparison here. I have never considered the ARPA to be a laborious task on the bridge. Relative vectors and true trails, and away we go, one ship at a time. We’re not landing an airplane, most of the time, no one involved in a traffic situation would get a speeding ticket in a school zone, and we have the technology to see them miles away.
I have however, seen mariners on the wrong side of a TSS because someone reversed the route without looking, I’ve seen mariners take a tanker through a PSSA because they didn’t understand it was there, and there was that story about a year ago out of Alaska where that tug ran into a rock they thought was uncharted, only to discover it was very much on the chart.
Let me ask you this: in that scenario, with a clear day, the airport in sight, and perfect visibility, what can the computer possibly provide that I don’t already have?
- Did that fishing boat just stop?
- Did that fishing boat just turn around?
- Is that fishing boat going to hit me?
- Which of these tankers are drifting, and which ones are moving?
I can tell you a lot faster with an ARPA than monitoring the range and bearings of all the targets in the neighborhood, and it’s not even that hard.
Meanwhile, as ports are implementing more and more VATONS, and traffic patterns are more often than not just magenta lines on a chart, unmarked by buoys, yeah, the computer can tell you a lot more about where you are compared to looking out the window on a clear day.
Yet, we have become what I call “Children of the Magenta.”
We think we must have those magenta lines on the map and that magenta v-bar steering us, or for some reason, the plane won’t fly. I’m being facetious, but sometimes that’s exactly what happens.
Meanwhile the Captain loads some random route, not the one I had planned, and I come up to watch and the 3rd mate has us passing inshore of the Miami Sea Buoy for some reason on a voyage from NY to Texas.
We’re all saying the problem is a skill issue at it’s core, just not in agreement on what skill.