This thread does seem like it is going off track a bit…but still time to avoid a grounding.
As far as your remarks’ I wouldn’t make the claim that my bridge term is an exemplar, far from it. In well-organized, efficient ports I do rely upon the skills and expertise of the pilot, however in some ports with inept pilots the lack of a good bridge team does become a liability.
I can’t devote my full time and attention to training the bridge team. My approach is similar to what @OneEighteen has described. I mostly focus on having a good plan in place.
I think quite the contrary, I don’t believe the elimination of 1 person errors is idealistic at all - i think it is ideal. Granted - maritime is far below other complex systems in programing and training to eliminate 1 person errors. It is light years ahead of where it was 20 yrs ago, and no reason not to believe it can still get much better, and equal those other systems. I have confidence in sailors, of all nationalities, if properly trained and supported this is completely possible.
One of the mentioned is a buzzword knee-jerk response by a bunch of office dwellers (include ERM in this).
The other is a legitimate science that has had billions of dollars and hours spent creating, refining, and continuously improving. It is rigidly implemented and taught to all operators starting day 1 at the company.
BRM/ERM is the bullshitter trying to pretend he’s legitimate and in the same world as CRM…
I sincerely hope you are correct and I do agree that we are very much further down the road Than we were 20 years ago.
I still have to agree with the point Ausmariner is making about Power distance/difference, sorry can never remember which it is.
It was something that I suppose we all intuitively knew but could not put a label on , very much like the Pivot Point theory which BTW I think is a great teaching tool to Ship handlers but has it’s flaws. Sorry digressing again.
I wonder what the ideal bridge team would be like? I sympathize with the crews that have to call at a port with less than well trained pilots. They need a way to get to the dock safely with their own resources.
I am friends with a guy who I was supporting to be a pilot in Houston. He worked as captain for a large oil company that took BRM very seriously. He had a regular crew and I know he trained them well. He complained often about pilots who ignored their BRM input or were dismissive. I shared his indignation about outright rudeness. Not excusable, but suggested we revisit the BRM issue after he had been a pilot for awhile. He was much more understanding after having a wide variety of ship experience.
I am not a believer in shore based assistance as someone else suggested unless the pilots service provides it in a way that limits liability to the association (another subject, let’s not go there in this thread) and is robustly funded.
Many years ago the vessel traffic system broached the subject of having a pilot on watch in their center. This idea was a good one but would have required funding for four pilots paid for by industry or Coast Guard. The idea never got past the funding issue.
The only way a pilot would truly trust a bridge team is if they brought it onboard with them - a junior pilot and a helmsman minimum. Maybe limited to occasions of possible fog or heavy rain. I don’t see that as something industry would pay for.
And that’s what true BRM comes down to. Economics.
20 years ago, on my last ship, we hung 4 unlimited masters licenses in the board. At least 3 of those had various federal first class pilot endorsement for various places. All of the senior officers had significant training in ship handling in restricted areas. Every mate routinely conned the vessel into all the ports we called, under the supervision of the pilot and master. We all lived by the 2 man check on everything we did. It was an ingrained culture. After every helm or bell order a pilot would give, I can guarantee both the master and the mate on watch was immediate checking the rudder order indicator or the tach. We all knew how many more starts the engine had depending on the level of starting air. We all knew that even if the pilot wanted more turns we were near saturation speed. We were not the experts in local knowledge or in ship handling as the pilots we took. But they were not near us in our knowledge of our ship. We approached our work as a team, whether in confined waters, heavy traffic, or working cargo. We were barely calling BRM in those days, but that is what I think it looks like.
Now is something like that possible on a large scale - I think it is 100 % possible, maybe even probable.
We had / have a Pilot First Class on duty 24/7 in our VTS.
It is a wonderful thing.
They have three hats
VTS supervisor
Duty pilot
And
Duty harbour master.
The Port Management mechanisms that you have described are both really progressive and smart. I particularly liked your description of introducing the second Pilot on large tonnage.
Did the duty VTS Pilot have the ability to challenge a vessel in Pilotage transit or was he/she in a passive monitoring role?
Very much so.
The title was DPC Duty Port Controller, and He , they were all He when I worked there but that could change soon, had The authority to issue a Harbour Masters Special Direction. You would be in a whole load of hurt if you disobeyed one .
The Port was London UK and we had 120+ Pilots when I finished and were actively recruiting due to the age profile and a major increase in traffic.
I must add that my Port was not perfect but the will was there to make things as good as possible from both the Pilots and The Management team including the Harbour Masters department.
This is the next stepping stone and the implementation by the Port of London and its Pilotage team is truly progressive. I congratulate you.
I would surmise that you have also worked with in excess of 5000 individual bridge teams and between OneEighteen, yourself and myself we have worked with approximately 18,000 to 20,000 BT’s. That probably places us in a reasonable position to have an educated opinion on the effectiveness of conventional BRM measures within the global maritime arena.
If I did not truly believe that BRM is not the silver bullet in preventing the one man accident then I would not be bothering with this conversation.
I have recently analysed the “Ever Given”, “Ever Forward” and “Milano Bridge” incidents and just shook my head. If this is indicative of a successful solution then I am pleased to be retired.
Edit: The highly successful aviation sector have ATC to control the airport environment. The analogy is that, presently, the Maritime sector is operating without an equivalent MTC.
The DPC system is not new by any means it was in place when I started training in 1999 and had been in place for many years prior to that.
The 2 Pilot system was started around 2015 with the opening of The London Gateway Container Terminal. Prior to that the Largest Container Ships we could handle were around the 300m and 13m draft and had to come in on the top of the tide.
With LGW there was a capital dredge so we could handle the largest Ships with a draft of 16m but also handle 13m+ draft at low water.
We were very fortunate to have a clean slate for this new terminal unlike other ports where the size grew in small steps we really were taking a massive step upwards so we had a chance to introduce new systems and tech such as PPU.
The change to the 2 Pilot system needed a different mind set as I was so used to talking to the Captain when Manoeuvring we now had to incorporate the other pilot without alienating the Captain. I think most of us got it mostly right. Well I hope so anyway.
Exactly and this is reflected in recent global maritime incidents.
“The aim is to reduce the probably and severity of accidents.”
Would you propose that this would be an acceptable position within the aviation culture and if not why accept it in the Maritime sector?
This all started 46 years ago at Tenerife airport. The aviation sector already had ATC in place so all they needed to do was sort out the power distance issues in the cockpit ……CRM……which they have done very successfully. This was also supported by emerging satellite technology.
This then seeped over to the maritime sector and applied its dictates to an entirely different and larger control team………without the assistance of any form or iteration of maritime ATC.
Forty four years later a totally preventable incident occurred in the Suez Canal as a result of dysfunctional human factors and the global maritime economy was severely impacted. The overall salvage, release, general average and maritime economy costs were stellar. There were no official lessons to be learnt from this debacle.
Twelve months later the “Ever Forward” was charging down the confined Craighill channel at 13 knots with the Master down below enjoying his meal whilst the Pilot was on the bridge having a close affair with his mobile phone. The vessel was refloated 34 days later. Fortunately, on this occasion there was no channel blockage.
And now containerised shippers have come to the realisation of General Average. Wonderful “PR”.
