Good Job!
Yes agree. It is 4/10 of a n.mile if expressed in fractions. (Or should that be 2/5 NM?)
Maritime Communication should be in the language that is internationally agreed (Standard English) spoken clearly and using words and phrases that is commonly understood by seafarers of all nationalities. (I.e. SMCP)
Use of words and phrases or slang that is unique or limited to a nationality, or an area, is NOT having “social skills”.
Unnecessary niceties just cause possibility for confusion and take extra time in an emergency.
You can practice you social skills in the messroom, or at home.
Encompasses any and all communication between humans and as such it includes
KC’s statement that
is basic and fundamental social skills.
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From Wikipedia
A social skill is any competence facilitating interaction and communication with others where social rules and relations are created, communicated, and changed in verbal and nonverbal ways. The process of learning these skills is called socialization. Lack of such skills can cause social awkwardness .
Some mariners may lack good manners at times but the vast majority have sufficient social skills to do their jobs.
The term for the rules of behavior in formal situations is etiquette.
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Yes there is a US Maritime VHF radio etiquette:
IMCO issued RESOLUTION A.474(XII) PROPER USE OF VHF CHANNELS AT SEA
Adopted on 19 November 1981
It contain standard messages to be used for communication as far as possible:
I remember that wire very well.
In 1975 I was an ignorant Ltjg assigned to shore duty in Concord, California. I was the Harbor Master in charge of four tugs, 50 barges, and about 25 people. Ask anyone, they’ll tell you the Navy just willy nilly assigns young officers to jobs they know nothing about. To make it interesting, half our tug deckhands were women. The Navy was just getting its toe in the water about women on ships and harbor tugs were the first place they put them.
That wire laid rope was awkward, stiff and very heavy.
What with wear and tear on the headlines we were down to our last spool of it. We had it on order for six months or so. I tracked down the company that supplied it and called them. The Navy was the only customer for wire laid rope. They were waiting for more orders so they could switch production in order to make a run of it.
So I asked what everybody else - civilian companies - were using if it wasn’t wire rope. Dacron. I called some harbor tug companies in San Francisco and they confirmed it. One of them offered to let me ride and see it in action. At that time everyone was scared of synthetic line because the first material had been nylon which parts with catastrophic force. Killed people. But it was explained that Dacron was different. I grabbed one of the chief petty officers (I needed some experienced help, the word of a lowly jg carried no weight.) and we went down in civvies that weekend and watched.
There was no doubt that was the way to go, but the Navy took a lot of convincing to let me order two spools of Dacron to test. I guess the word got out through the chief petty officer grapevine because we got inundated with calls about the “new” line.
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