Aviation Video - Children Of The Magenta Line

Maritime Topics Marine Safety
41

The difference would be that someone finishing medical school still goes on to a 3-7 year residency. And you know what? I’m willing to bet there are doctors complaining about the quality of residents they are seeing as well.

If the training model flipped, and required 3 additional years of sea time after finishing a 4 year degree before becoming a 3rd mate, you’d see the level of skill you you’re looking for, because they’d have experience, which you’ve noted is key for taking the training wheels off and not watching the world though the radar screen. We also probably would have almost no new 3rd mates, because we get paid crackers compared to a doctor, and a large chunk of academy folks last 5 years anyway.

I don’t think anyone is saying junior officer should not be required to look out the window. But due to the course load and physical constraints, there is not a lot of time to practice looking out the window. But that comes with time.

But when you have a brand new 3rd who just had some retired admiral telling them that making your bed and wearing a pressed uniform is important, and that their position in the corps of cadets would be viewed as an asset to future employers, while they were fighting for their life trying to calculate stability for the SS American Mariner by hand in class - I think we should be just a little bit of understanding when their navigation soft skills aren’t that of someone who has been sailing even 5 years.

If you go to some of these academies and see what the institution values compared to the skills the mariners need, you’d be making the same face the the 3rd mates give you when you expect them to evaluate CBDR by eye:

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/28/2f/e1/282fe1d7e40e216c723740b0af255952.gif(image larger than 4 MB)

42

To get someone trained in piloting by eye takes , on average, about five days.

I know because at Coastal Transportation Inc we do it regularly.

We have our own 65’ training boat Curlew, operating on the Salish Sea.

We do it with mates newly minted from ABs. We do it with academy grads. Also, for MMA students working for us over the summer. The instructors are our captains.

The training is simple: travel day after day past islands and reefs and all sorts of traffic with just a compass, paper charts, and binoculars. In fog/night you add the radar. Nothing else. No magenta line.

Take a look at the San Juan islands and Gulf Islands on a chart. That’s one of our training grounds. A complete labyrinth of rocks and strong tidal currents.

At first the trainees freak out. By the end of the first day most begin to calm down. By the fifth day most are proficient.

A fringe benefit: the captain can closely observe the mates he will sail with later on a freighter. There are usually no more than two trainees aboard.

There have been cases where the trainee was terminated because they could not pass the course, the captain having no faith in their navigational abilities.

When you train like this reality intrudes in way it can’t in a simulation. Once, in a dangerous pass called Race Pass, the Curlew’s steering system failed. The crew had to diagnose and fix the issue in minutes. Diagnosis: low battery voltage. Cure: swap out steering batteries with generator batteries. Method: get to work NOW before you run aground. Ten minutes of intense action and a lesson in diagnosing steering problems the trainees will never forget.

They learn very quickly because the back of their brain warns them if they screw up they could die, forcing them to concentrate intensely in a way they never would in a simulation. When you come across the few who are obviously not concentrating ( the talkers) you fire them.

The cure for over reliance on the magenta line exists. In the end it’s simply a financial decision not to make use of it.

43

@freighterman says 5 days, that matches my experience. It’s closer to 3-7 days then that many years.

44

The smokers have a tell.

When a smoker starts the training they will burn one every chance they get, their hands shaking as they flick the lighter.

If they’re a one-pack a day man they’ll go through two packs on the first day.

But every day they will smoke less.

By the fifth day they’ll be back to one pack a day. That’s one way you can tell they’ve become proficient.

45

It’s basically the same skill needed to drive a car in traffic or avoid people on a crowed sidewalk. Just need to recalibrate for ship traffic.

It’s easier with an ARPA, the OOW can watch relative bearing change then estimate CPA close / not close / not sure and then walk over to the ARPA and get a more precise CPA. After a while the confidence will increase in their ability to use visual as a filter to reduce workload.

More time at the window drinking coffee and less at the ARPA pushing buttons.

46

Don’t get me wrong, I get it, I get the tradition, and I get this is what the institutional knowledge is based on, but Paper charts don’t exist any more, why wouldn’t this get update with the tools they are supposed to be using? Like how do you not recognize this as a liability if something happens?

It’s like USCGA having the eagle as their training ship, sure, it’s cool, but how useful is it to spend a summer on a tall ship?

I mean, you also observed this, and that’s what I was referencing:

47

I have over many years noticed a difference between young officers who have during the course of their training served in a sail training ship. I have found young Polish officers more proficient than the average.

49

great post - and it was true 40 years ago as well !!

50

I once relieved a Polish Second Mate who could’ve run circles around half the Masters I’ve sailed with. He was the best I’ve ever met.

51

Trying to light master’s cigar , keeping the ashtray for him or mug of coffee or doing what ?

52

As long as you put a magenta line in front of a trainee they will watch it in preference to looking out the window.

Using paper charts is not what we teach. We use the paper charts because it is the only way to eliminate the magenta line, and because it increases the rate of learning.

The real lessons are mentally synthesizing the data on a chart—any chart—into analyzing what you see from the windows, so you can more quickly arrive at a navigational decision, and also keeping your eyes roving through the windows.

The same trainees get training on plotters in our wheelhouses, under real conditions. It’s not an one or the other situation.

I should point out here that our boats operate under a pilotage waiver from the BC Pacific Pilotage Authority. Meaning, we are allowed to operate without pilots in waters where other vessels need them.

A deep-sea operation has two to three navigators on the bridge once in pilotage waters. So, I get it. That navigational team can share the load.

We usually have one navigator per watch in those same waters. They have to do it all. Average isn’t good enough.

A lot goes into getting the company waiver. It can easily be yanked. So, our captains spend a lot of time training mates to a higher degree of expertise, and with a faster learning curve, than other companies require.

(By the way, paper charts exist for Canada and the USA. We still buy them all the time.)

53

Lets blend both old and new. Instead of using eyes , ears , legs and toys which are not so NEW anymore separately , lets use all that together and use some brains jointly . This could fix the problem at hand and be beneficial.

Now some useful quotes for greybacks my age und older as well as young pistols:

" a piece of wood can drift in a river Nile a 100 years & never become a crocodile" - Egiptian proverb

" Only fools learn from experience. I prefer to learn from the experience of others. - Otto von Bismarck

From BRM take aways" never ignore an alarming cry of a cadet as may be he had something important to say , that will save You from a disaster - reward him for his courage even if his alarm was inconsequential "

" winds of change is not just a song .Adjust your sails and use them to your advantage. "

“Life’s tragedy is that we get old too soon and wise too late.” – Benjamin Franklin

Now to my peers:
quote:
Antiquitam, argumentant ad

It is the fallacy of supposing that something is good or right simply because it is old.

"This is the way it’s always been done, and this is the way we’ll continue
to do it. "
(It brought poverty and misery before, and it will do so again…)

There is nothing in the age of a belief or an assertion which alone makes it right. At its simplest, the ad antiquitam is a habit which economizes on thought. It shows the way in which things are done, with no need for difficult decision-making. At its most elevated, it is a philosophy.

Previous generations did it this way and they survived; so will we. The fallacy is embellished by talk of continuity and our contemplation of the familiar.
While the age of a belief attests to experience, it does not
attest to its truth. To equate older with better is to venture into
the territory of the fallacy.
After all, human progress is made by replacing the older with the better. Sometimes men do things in a particular way, or hold particular beliefs, for thousands of years.
This does not make it right, any more than it makes it wrong.

" You are not having a car. I never had a car, my father never had one,
and nor did his father before him. "
(Which is probably why none of them got anywhere.)

End quote

Now back to alias @Meme.Lord . From many of your inputs in other threads it is evident You have another problem except these I have already mentioned before. You despise the "old fools " :winking_face_with_tongue:

Well I did it too and I was wrong. I discovered that at my present age . Remember that where You are we " the old fools" have already been. Where we are You still have many miles to go and may never get there. :winking_face_with_tongue:

In every profession to be a virtuoso one has to learn and practice the classics first.

You surely will disagree. :winking_face_with_tongue:

54

Your line about the classics may have said it all. The best 2/M I sailed with was Romanian and the 2nd Engineer from the same country the worst. I’ve also had the pleasure of sailing with an excellent C/M from Kiribati whom I am pleased to see now sailing as master for a major European liner company.

55

I know from experience that mariners can acquire visual skills in just a few day. Many mariners don’t believe this. What would an expert say?

I prompted ChatGPT to answer this question as Andy Clark

Prompt is:

There is empirical evidence that shows that mariners can be trained in visual navigation and collision avoidance in about 5 days of deliberate practice. Many professional mariners do not believe this is possible. How would Andy Clark explain why this is possible.

Here’s the answer:

Summary

Why Visual Collision Avoidance Can Be Learned in 5 Days — An Andy Clark–Style Explanation

Cognitive science shows that with focused, real-world practice, the brain rapidly rewires to improve perception and decision-making. Andy Clark’s predictive processing theory explains how:

  • The brain learns by predicting—then adjusting when surprised. Repeated exposure to vessel movements in traffic builds a fast, intuitive model of what’s normal and what’s risky.
  • Action and perception are linked. Turning your head, shifting your gaze—all are part of the thinking process. Skill grows not just in what you see but in how you move to see.
  • Skilled performance is mostly unconscious. Just as new drivers learn to scan ahead and adjust without consciously thinking about it, mariners develop an intuitive sense of risk and motion—even if they can’t explain how they’re doing it.

So yes, 5 days of deliberate visual practice can re-tune a mariner’s perceptual system. That’s not magic—that’s cognitive science.

All that said; electronics including ARPA and ECIDS are very valuable tools and the OOW must be proficient in their use and use them as appropriate.

56

This is exactly right.

When trying develop a metal picture of what is being seen out the window using a tool like ECDIS is far more efficient than paper charts for obvious reasons.

57

They don’t make old timers like they used to. Back in they day they talked about the war. Today’s old timers never even sailed in a convoy, and now they complain about the 3rd mate’s reliance on ARPA, when they would be lost without their GPS, and couldn’t put together a coherent semaphore signal if their life depended on it. That’s why I’m going to start the oldest Old salt training program, where we pretend LORAN still exists, sound the depth with a lead line, navigate by celestial, drink a case a day, and routinely cause environmental disasters. /s

I also have many miles to go to Hyderabad, India, and based on what I’m seeing about both the life of some of these old timers, and life in India, I’m not sure I’m interested in getting to either of these places.

I’m a firm believer there is a survivor’s bias in the maritime industry.

image
image1280×954 102 KB

If you only look at the folks sailing, you’re only going to put armor where the bullet holes are.

58

spowiednick, if you’re directing your question to me, it was his intimate knowledge of every piece of electronics in the wheelhouse and chartroom.

60

I do not know who are these people . My take on this is that they are old fools and they will remain old fools. Ask them how to utilise their eyballing techniques regarding anticollision in milk shake forg ? I do not need ARPA to do it .I need good working radar because before I saw my first ARPA i did thousands of manual plots using a pencil and a plotting screen. I belong to the generation that gets histerical about not having radar and I met old fool assholes who did not allow me to use radar because of the magnetron wear and tear. Because i did thousands of plots I do not need anymore to do a plot. I see it in my mind .

,
Now let me tell You a story. I was to relieve a British Cpt in Tema Africa. ( It was my 4th or 5th command) . I joined the ship on anchorage there . I was stressed. Jezuuus I thought . British Captain. !!! He will eat me for breakfast with this Rule Britannia and all that shit.
The hegemon of the seas for 100s of years and I am a puny nothing cpt from a country which has only 580 km of shore line and 100 years old acess to sea. I felt like I was to meet a fucking T’Rex. :wink: .

We did not have much time as he got flight from Tema so we went through the customary blah , blah, certificates , handover and all that shit. He was my age now and I was 37 and felt like a kid.

So we went on the bridge to discuss things , voyage plan and all the nuts and bolts of it , some of the equipment including radars I was familiar with but in the radio room I saw two Satcom C terminals which looked foreign to me and I asked him which one was LRIT . He did not know and was a bit surprised I asked him such question. Then I asked him if he could give ma a brief walk through on one of them regarding sending msgs and general use. .

He got really pissed off . Went to the chart room and brought a pencil and a blank piece of paper and said|: Listen young man !!! If I need to sent a message using this toy I need a pencil here and that effing piece of paper. I writte the message on it and give it to the mate to send it!!! That is the master’s job and You better learn it fast. :wink:

Another story with a British superintendent. We walked on deck and to impress Him with my futuristic vision of how to fix all the pox-marks from falling on deck twistlocks ( the semi-automatic and automatic where not in use then) , I proudly presented him with my maintenance schedule. :wink:

He looked at me with the look of incredulity and said: listed Cap. We know about your zeal and potential to take care of things but can You hold your horses and allow the chief mate to take care of it as we in the office do generally see the masters as persons supposed to see the deck as walking area and who are are the least concerned with fixing it so it looks nice. So my suggestion is to leave it to the chief mate while You pls focus on commanding . :wink: .

I have a lot of stories of confrontation between me and the " old fools" as conflict between the old and the young/new is as old as our civilisation. :wink: it will continue untill all hell freezes.

61

It’s not so much the methods used but the skill acquired,

A radar can be ‘eyeballed’ too.

For navigation, In the case of limited visibility the method that was used on the Aleutian freighters (ex-Alaskan fisherman) was radar was used (head-up only) but only eyeballed, put the heading maker where you wanted to go and then keep an eye on distance off.

For anti-collision an EBL (or mechanical equivalent) could be used but in practice in the channels of Alaska’s Inside Passage it was rarely necessary .

In any case, today efficient use ARPA and ECDIS is obviously required but it’s not a matter of visual vs instruments, it’s about the value of having visual skills in the toolbox.

62

The ultimate challenge re: navigation/collision avoidance IMO is what I call the 1/4 Mile Situation.

You’re in a mile wide channel at night. You have four targets on the radar. Two crossings. One overtaking . One apparently drifting. All about a 1/4 mile away. Tidal current speed 3 knots. Your lookout is a waste of space. You’re alone in the wheelhouse.

A typical situation on the BC Inside Passage.

In simulator testing the OOW who is comfortable with using just a radar and visual piloting/collision avoidance skills is more confident in dealing with the situation than someone who relies strictly on ARPA.

Both use ARPA but the person proficient in visual piloting looks through the windows and can mentally process the data faster.

ARPA is telling them everything they need to know but the mind has to translate that into the real world. A matter of a few more seconds of cogitation.

But interpreting the relative motion of vessels in a close quarters situation by observing their lights calls on a primal function of the brain. If you have the experience it’s second nature. It cuts down on the extra cogitation needed to mentally process the ARPA data, which frees up your mind to deal with unanticipated problems.

What are those problems? One can be logs. The IP in May is lousy with big logs. Entire trees washed down from the mountain. Sometimes Johnstone Strait is littered with them.

By day you’re going to maneuver around the biggest ones visually. A lot don’t show up on radar. At night you have no choice but to plow through them. They bounce off the hull with a big thump or get chopped up through the wheels waking everyone on the boat. The first thought is collision with a small vessel.

Can’t see them at night by eye or radar. In the 1/4Mile situation if you hear that thump have you hit a log or have you hit a yacht? The visual watch makes the difference in wasting mental energy.

The other situation is fish openings. Imagine that mile-wide channel now filled with 70 salmon gillnetters, all with their nets out, and you have to maneuver through boats and nets. ARPA is not going to be a huge help. You’re going to have to suss it all out by eye, while maneuvering around larger vessels, all in a narrow channel .

(Pro tip: if you see a big tug and tow going your way, slow down and fall in behind it. Fisherman expect most power driven vessels to avoid them. But they aren’t suicidal. When they see a tug hauling an enormous log barge that can’t maneuver, they quickly make a lane for it).