How much value in traditional navigation plotting skills?

1.1 The Master and all Navigational Officers of UK Flagged vessels, which have Electronic
Chart Display and Information Systems (ECDIS) as their primary means of navigation,
are required by the Port State Control Committee Instruction 47/2014/15, to have
completed both generic and ship specific equipment ECDIS training.

2.1 Following detailed consideration by the Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA) and in
agreement with the Merchant Navy Training Board (MNTB) Technical Committee it has
been agreed that anyone who holds a completion certificate for an MCA-approved
NARAS/NAEST course (operational or management) issued after 1 January 2005
meets the requirement of ECDIS generic training.

3.1 ECDIS ship specific equipment training for Deck Officers must relate to the make and
model of the equipment fitted onboard the ship which they are currently serving. The
decision on how to deliver ship specific training is now the responsibility of the ship
owner or operator. They must take into account their responsibilities in accordance
with ISM code (specifically sections 6.3 and 6.5) and also the STCW convention,
Regulation I/14 - 5:

Generic ECDIS training is compulsory for every navigator according IMO regulations.

It is flag state recommendation and/or industry standards interpretations of the owner’s/operator’s obligations with respect to ECDIS type specific training.
Nowadays it is assumed that each deck officer should have an ECDIS type specific training and such training should be authorized by the manufacturer.

Edwin Hutchins has an explanation that might explain why the process of getting a fix on a paper charts seems like it adds some value.

Ultimately what matters with navigation is the ship’s position in the (so-called) real world. The chart (paper or electronic) however is only a representation of the real world. It’s too difficult for the typical third mate (for example) to navigate in the real world so they instead use a chart which is a simplified representation of .the real world

The pilot on the other hand has a good representation of ( a small part of) the real world in his head. That’s how a pilot navigates, using the senses to update between the real world and the representation in the mind as the ship moves.

The pilot is navigating in the real world while the ship’s officer is using a representation that seems to them to be the real world.

This can be tested by asking the mate and pilot the question “where is the ship?”. The mate will put his finger on the chart and say “we are right here” but the pilot will say something like “we’re coming up on point so-and so”.

EIDT: Another way this can be verified is by looking at how the CG tests mates compared to someone sitting for pilotage. The mate gets the “chart plot” test. It tests the general skill of transferring data collected from the real world using instruments (bearings and ranges) onto the chart representation.

By contrast, with the pilot exam the CG evaluates the paper representations created by the pilot applicant from memory (their mental representation).

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spot on

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It’s an interesting subject. Hutchins’ describes the process the Navy uses to maintain a nav plot in his book, the analog-digital-analog metaphor that I posted about here:

The first time I sailed in Alaska was on a CG Cutter, right after I got out of the Navy’s QM “A” school.

The next time in Alaska was the first time as mate on an Aleutian freighter. The captain (Doug) was an ex-fisherman, He only used visual information, either off the radar or out the window.

Took me a while to adjust, didn’t have the tools I was accustomed to using (had charts, only a heads-up radar with fixed range rings, had a gyro so could orient the ship’s heading to the chart ). It wasn’t until after the gyro compass stopped functioning properly that I learned to navigate the same as Captain Doug was doing it, not only without a plot but also no way to orient for direction to use the chart, only visual and radar.

A few years later I did get federal pilotage for some SE Alaska ports and the routes between them.

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Same - Sherman 1980-81 as QM1 - first of a few alpats on her. A few more times as 3 Mate on tankers to Valdez - but then spent most of the rest of my days at sea on a US Gulf - USAC run on chemical ships

I usually have a problem with such studies.
On the one hand, a high-class scientific specialist, on the other hand, research based on the observations of USNavy, and that from three decades ago.
In the nineties, this was just the beginning of eNav, and even such brilliant scientists did not necessarily know how fast the irreversible changes were going.
And an entirely different issue is the translation of the behavior observed on war ships to the commercial vessels.

Interesting, please remember that the pilot is still only an adviser and it may happen that the officer will also have to navigate in this “real world”.

Yes, a poor choice of words on my part. Hutchins doesn’t use the term “real world”

He uses the example of walking out the back door of a theater onto an unfamiliar street. To answer the questions which way am I facing? and where am I? “one establishes correspondences between features of the environment and the features of some representation of that environment.”

Using features of the environment is how I just made it to the kitchen and back for another cup of coffee.

Whether or not the pilot is considered an advisor does not change the fact he perceives the ship transiting the area of his expertise differently than the typical mate on watch.

That’s exactly the point. This thread is about how to break the watch officer out of the habit of just staring at the screen. They’ve entered a sort of “virtual reality” when they should also be using other methods.

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Gotta thow an opinion here: if navigation was really important for officers they would send the Junior Officers and cadets/midshipman to the equivalent of QM “A” school.

Not sure what they do in OCS, but would assume the academes navigation courses are significantly more comprehensive than “A” school.

Even if they do not get to the level of the local pilot, all watch officers can get to the place where they should be able to see when the world out the window and the screen do not agree. And the most important part of learning how to do that is to start looking out the window.

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Bare minimum at OCS. Afew YP’s from the academy, one, two days max rotating through bridge, chats and plotting, CIC/radar, deck and engineroom. All stations were E-2 and up. They knew how to do it, OC’s did not except for certain areas of specialty among we Mustangs, of course! I gather the Academy spends a bit more time than NAVOCS but not much seeing some of their grads.

Two weeks for training a lower deck savage engineering puke to be ship’s Navigator is just criminal but I already addressed that.

I disagree.
This thread is about whether skills in traditional navigation plotting on a paper charts can still be useful to deck officer. And my answer is clear, no such skills are needed for a navigator on a modern ship.

The discussion of looking out the window and bad habits of young officers is a completely different matter, and it has little to do with pilot skills or military experience.

My understanding was that the question was would forcing the watch officer to take bearing and ranges be useful in making a connection between their mental representation and their immediate environment.

I agree with you that it would not because the information obtained is not in useful form.

Agree - Seems Navy depending on “systems” both human and other to replace inherent skill of the Navigators/OOD’s. Or possible over the years have just devalued the skill of navigating, believing, as some due on this thread the skill is largely now perfectly performed electronically. And the need for human skill in this area is diminished.

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Respectfully disagree - Would agree if the statement was 99% of the time no such skills are needed. But I am not, and I hope the industry is not, at a point where we are willing to put 100% confidence in one method of piloting.

In which case, in order to be in a position to use a different method in unusual circumstances, one must learn and practice it.

The risk in not doing so, is a dependence and faith in the electronics build on an inability of the officers do do anything else.

Back to my example of the Captain believing his electronics even though the world out the window said it was incorrect. ( now he may have just been trying to deny the situation and not the navigation )

@Sirk is evidently making the claim that the plotting skills are not needed at all but I’m not.

All mates have basic plotting skills (some are very slow at it) so it’s a question is what needs to happen to get them up to speed on the bridge. From my experience it’s getting the mate’s face out of the ARPA, use it as an aid rather than exclusively.

I don’t think forcing them to plot targets on paper would be the easiest way to do it. Better to let them conn visually while someone else keeps one eye on the radar.

Most urgent need is to build up their confidence in visual navigation and traffic avoidance.

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The vast majority of commercial vessels still use charts, at least as backup, so knowing how to use paper charts is still necessary (and will be for a while). Even if there’s ever a time when paper charts are truly obsolete the theory behind plotting on them will never be because if your GPS goes down you’ll need to know how to plot manually on the ECDIS.

Are you kidding?
ECDIS is a mandatory equipment on passenger ships above 500 GT and all others vessels above 3000 GT. In practice, for safety reasons, ECDIS is installed on almost all ships, while for economic reasons, ship owner/operator resigns from paper charts even as a backup.
Have you noticed a change in NOAA’s publishing policy, UKHO as well.

In this situation, you need to go to the emergency procedures which you should learn at the compulsory training courses I wrote about before. And this has little to do with traditional methods/skills, whatever that means.

@ Kennebec_Captain & Texastanker
I have the impression that you do not understand the challenges facing modern shipping and you are confusing the eNav concept.