I should grab this plugin as well, I keep Open CPN and a GPS in my bag just incase the gremlins attack the electronics, it would be great to have a backup.
I ran an experiment crossing the Indian ocean where I had the secondary input in the ECDIS as DR, and I would manually input a position, pretending I did a celestial fix, and the difference rarely exceeded 1000 meters when I’m making a fix every 4-8 hours. I do wish commercial ECDIS would have a celestial fix option, it can’t be that hard, I say, armed with only chat gpt and no formal coding training.
I fired two mates that lacked the minimum required skill using ECDIS or ARPA.
It was a clean DFC (Discharge for Cause) because there’s full agreement that those skills are required.
Can’t fire (or at least a clean DFC would be difficult) a mate that lacks sufficient visual skills. No choice but to either train or hold their hand in high workload situations that a competent mate could handle alone.
EDIT: Both mates that were fired had sufficient procedural memory (aka muscle memory) to rapidly push the buttons in the right order (like entering a PIN number to unlock a phone). If that had been lacking they would not have passed the class.
The effective use of instruments requires procedural memory which has immediate feedback. The watch officer can quickly gain sufficient situational awareness (SA) given low workload conditions.
Visual by contrast is pattern recognition. Feedback is slower, takes a few days to see improvement.
The viewpoint from the bridge of a ship underway is almost everything appears to moving aft. With a little practice the eye will quickly and easily pick out vessels which break this pattern. But unlike procedural knowledge, which can be gained quickly, recognizing patterns will take a few days practice.
Estimating the ship’s position by eye is the same, it’s pattern recognition. Takes practice to learn.
The importance of using the appropriate instruments should be obvious. Visual information can be used as a ‘filter’ to identify what requires the increased precision that instruments provide.
If I ever get my ship back to sea, I can be glad we don’t have any magenta lines to be children of.
We have a helm, no auto pilot, throttles and a button for the whistle. There are no other controls to type messages into on the poop deck. We have some dials for compass, rudder indicator, wind, depth etc.
Radar, radios and chart plotter with all their buttons are below in the charthouse. That remoteness is sometimes a curse but it encourages the OOW to make visual assessments first. To leave the poop deck to fiddle with the knobs is necessary from time to time but in my situation on watch at night, the OOW is the only maritime qualified person on deck and the helmsman may well be doing her first trick on the wheel (probably seasick) having never been to sea before (some have never seen the sea before). A volunteer watch leader with good experience helps but wandering off to twiddle knobs induces its own mild panic as to what’s happening on deck in my absence.
I’ve never seen an ECDIS and don’t understand some of the abbreviations thrown around, but I’m very supportive of the concept of relegating automation (what there is) to lower priority until you have time and opportunity to deal with it.
Giving a junior deck officer the conn in a high traffic area is probably the quickest way to give a junior deck officer the experience needed to build the required confidence
In Korea Strait at night for example.
The junior officer maneuvers the ship short-range through the F/Vs, tows, coasters etc. while the captain uses AIS / ARPA/ ECIDS to plan out longer range path clear of navigation hazards and larger, faster vessels.
The captain maintains longer-range situational awareness (SA) required to give instructions as to the ship’s general direction (“we’ll go behind that big container ship”) but also still be able to assist the junior officer’s actions (e.g. “use more rudder”) wrt close-in traffic.
This division of duties works because of how visual / instrument information is processed. The captain can focus on the instruments for SA for the long-range but still verify visually with just a quick glance out the window while the OOW can keep eyes-on to watch bearing change.
Scott, mentions that at sea navigation takes less skill because chart work abstracts away most of the real world to make it easier.
In my experience the skill required for the more difficult task of navigation using the real world can be learned faster than mariners expect by using purposeful practice.
I’ve never seen a marine pilot overly reliant on the electronics.
I have seen maybe three of four captains that apparently had little confidence in their own visual skills. I"d say maybe 10 or 15% of C/Ms, roughly about half of 2nd mates and about 80% of third mates were very dependent on aids such as ARPA and ECDIS.
Point being; for most mariners visual skills increase with experience. It’s a matter of practice and having confidence in the ability to develop innate skills.
I get what you’re saying about experience improving visual skills, but some of your points don’t hold up.
First, saying pilots are never too reliant on electronics is a stretch. Yeah, they know local waters, but that doesn’t mean they’re always right. There are plenty of cases where captains had to step in because a pilot’s call was wrong. Trust should be based on actual skill, not just job title. Also, I find it worth mentioning that if pilots are expected to rely primarily on visual skills, then the widespread use of Portable Pilot Units (PPUs) raises questions — why equip them with such advanced tools if visual observation alone is considered sufficient?
Linking rank directly to experience can be misleading. In many cases, senior officers may have more hands-on, recent experience with navigation and maneuvering than the captain, particularly on vessels where command duties are more administrative than operational.
Second, acting like “eyeball navigation” is better than using all your tools is just risky. Modern navigation works because we combine visuals with ARPA, ECDIS and everything else. Ignoring those systems because you think your eyes are good enough has gotten people into trouble before. Safety isn’t about picking one over the other - it’s about using every tool you’ve got.
And what does “overly reliant on electronics” even mean? If you’ve got tech that helps avoid mistakes, why wouldn’t you use it? Ships are bigger, traffic’s heavier, and regs are tighter than ever. Relying only on “natural skills” isn’t tough - it’s careless. Using your tools properly is not overreliance. It’s called doing your job professionally.
Yeah, experience helps, but it doesn’t replace good habits. The best navigators use their eyes AND their decision support tools, because that’s how you keep things safe.
I agree, but I not talking about the best navigators, it’s about watch officers who under value visual skills and don’t appreciate that practice is the key to improvement.
Most of the rest of your post seems like a strawman.
It’s almost like people with almost no experience suck at their job, this is not a groundbreaking take, nor is it unique to any one industry. This whole thread is just coming back to say 3rd mates suck these days, and I’d argue they always have sucked, and when it comes to equipment or tech we may not be well versed in, we all suck sometimes. I recall sea stories from long retired captains about firing new 3rd mates for xyz within weeks, long before anyone anyone had heard of ECDIS.
Think about what the academies actually have to do these days. They have to get all their students though an obstacle course making sure they have enough sea days, check every box, while fitting in enough general ed and huminites to justify a BS. My cadet experience was not particularly unique, a grand total of 8 days standing under way watch in the middle of the ocean, and a commercial experience split between needle gunning, sitting pier side, or going in circles in a modlock box.
Because we are the best and most highly trained merchant mariners in the world () so much time is spent doing borderline pointless sign offs, because it’s what the coastguard said is required. I specifically remember spending time underway for an assessment observing that I can in fact untangle, and throw a heaving line, as required by the Coast Guard. There is just so much to learn, and so few wheelhouses to learn in, Even if they did away with training ships, and sent everyone to sea for a year like Kings point, we optimistically have what, 185 ships greater than 1000 tons? That’s 370 billets split across the 6 schools, you could only have 61 deck cadets per class if everything worked perfectly.
I think we need to focus on giving a shit about people. Someone failed these folks, we are responsible for passing on the institutional knowledge of our industry. This is not marketing where we can just watch you tube videos and go based on vibes. But at the same time it’s our responsibility to understand how to use all the tools available to us as well. It is your duty to the people driving over the bridge you are transiting under that you know how to use the tools available to you to verify everything is hunky dory.
It should go without saying, but to be clear a ship’s officer needs to be proficient with the tools available on the bridge including ECDIS and ARPA. This is not the least bit controversial
The question is why is the idea that junior officers can and should add visual skills to their toolbox be so difficult to accept?
Have you ever tried judging 50m from a bridge 200m away with no visual reference at all.
At the front which you can’t see anyway due to container stacks.
And the back which you can’t see either due to container stacks. And no visual reference to the channel edge.
I suppose you could keep going ahead until a crane topples.
Or keep going astern until the back end stops going around.
Or , heavens above you could use the latest technology ( actually it is quite old now) and swing the largest ships in the world in a pretty tight space in a 4 KT current in weather conditions up to Force 8 every working day for the last 10 years.
No brainer really.
Ditch the PPU and eyeball it.
Yeah
As Mr Hogsnort says.
Ships have outgrown ports, even ones designed for this size of ship
Imagine if someone finished 4 years of medical school then went to work at a hospital and some old man that looks like their grandfather tried to explain to them they need to use a voodoo doll.
That’s must be what it’ feels like joining your first ship and having an old man that looks like he maybe made a couple too many trips around the horn trying to tell you that some situations are better solved by eye.
Electronic tools are very useful but they already understand that.
) so much time is spent doing borderline pointless sign offs, because it’s what the coastguard said is required. I specifically remember spending time underway for an assessment observing that I can in fact untangle, and throw a heaving line, as required by the Coast Guard. There is just so much to learn, and so few wheelhouses to learn in, Even if they did away with training ships, and sent everyone to sea for a year like Kings point, we optimistically have what, 185 ships greater than 1000 tons? That’s 370 billets split across the 6 schools, you could only have 61 deck cadets per class if everything worked perfectly.