Is the Master’s Authority Being Misunderstood?

Professional Mariner Forum
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42

Not in my navy. “Con” (single n) is our term and it means the person conning the ship, not conducting. He often stands at the primary conning position, normally at the centreline pelorus, which in the good old days, had voice pipes to the wheelhouse below decks via which the wheel and engine orders were passed.

Some ships had a conning tower which was an armoured and protected structure within the bridge and gunnery direction tower.

But the word in British origin navies unequivocally is conning, meaning directing the ship by wheel and engine orders. The con does not imply command.

43

Bowditch:

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Evidently the term is also used on the merchant side but I don’t recall ever hearing it. I have heard the concept referred to less explicitly, as in “I’ve got it” or similar.

44

Well there we go, the US has “conns” and Australia has “cons.” I feel like there’s a joke to be made there, but I won’t. Probably along the lines of colour/color. :man_shrugging:t3:

45

For what it’s worth, google and Wikipedia list French and old English verbs to conduct or guide as the likely root word for conn or con.

46

I agree. In the navy having the conn meant that officer was the one giving orders to the helmsman and engine order telegraph operator. That only

The one place I have heard “conn” referred to in the merchant service was to describe the place most often occupied by the pilot as a conning station. It wasn’t an official designation and varied from ship to ship but on most ships it was close to a window with a clear view forward, slightly to the left of the helmsman. On well designed bridges this “conning station” had a radar repeater close by and a clear line of sight to the rudder angle indicator and gyro repeater…and a voice data recorder overhead. Bridge wing had a “conning station” on both sides too.

47

Yea - like you I have done time on military ships and merchant ships. On military ships it was a formal announcement - " I have the Conn" - like you said - meaning I am giving helm, engine, thruster etc orders. Separate was " I have the deck". I am also doing the non-navigation bridge duties. And on normal watches, they would be combined and on relief you would say " I am Mr. I have the deck and the conn"

I never made such an announcement ever, on a merchant ship, and it wasn’t needed. The closest we ever came was announcing the course on watch turnover. " Course XXX, I got it" . I don’t remember there ever being any confusion on who was giving the helm/engine orders. We would refer to it as “conning” but I don’t remember a formal announcement to the bridge.

48

Arriving at an overseas military port I had a U.S. Navy pilot come aboard while we were under charter to Military SeaLift Command. I expected he would take the conn, he expected that someone on the bridge team would keep the conn and he would just advise. We got it sorted out, followed commercial practice and we tied up without incident.

Apparently cruise ships are now facing the same issue. For someone writing a SMS manual just calling it “it” is not going to be sufficient.

49

Very strange that several here have 30 years experience of this, 40 years of that and 50 years experience of sth else and never heard from commercial ships master after completion of PMX the following:

Mr. Pilot you have the con

or

She is all yours Mr.Pilot.

and these particular phrases do not need SMS procedure / instructions and were used prior ISM era as a matter of courtesy let alone respect to the person and his superior ship handling skills and intimate local knowledge necessary for a succesfull completion of the whole voyage or succesfull beginning.

50

sea story -

My company hired an observer to ride on the ships of the fleet to evaluate our bridge processes/procedures. He was an ex US Navy Captain.

I was second mate, the third mate and I had now sailed together for over 2 years, on the same ship, on the same run. Depending when we reported on board we would either be second or third. We had turned over watch quite a bit it is fair to say.

The observer was on the bridge to observe our watch turnover procedures while I was taking the mid watch. I came up on the bridge, read the night orders, took a quick position, reviewed the chart, stuck my head in the radar, took a good look out the window, got a cup of coffee and when up to the mate I was relieving. We were in the Straits on Florida and there was a decent amount of traffic.

the turnover went something like this:
“what ya got”
"that guy is going that way, that guy is going to be close, no clue what that guy is doing.
“cool - 280 - I got it”

The observer was not impresed.

51

The only times “conn” was used in my experience in merchant ships was when the Master and I were exchanging it when entering or leaving port, and it was always stated as such (“you have the conn”), and logged in the bell book and deck log. I’ve seen Masters being given the conn by the pilot both leaving the dock and entering in U.S. ports when the Master is acquiring the requisite trips to sit for the pilotage. I, and probably most of you, have corrected a pilot more than once while manning the telegraph.

52

And that is pretty normal. On the other end of the spectrum, on the tanker I was on leaving Pearl Harbor for Cherry Point, we got a new 2nd Mate from what apparently was a really hard charging MSC ship and it went something like this:

“Hey ____, we’re steering (whatever it was)°T, checking __°, load programmed up, no traffic.”

“Ok, I’m ready to relieve you…”

“Um, I’m ready to be relieved?”

"I RELIEVE YOU. I AM _____, I HAVE THE DECK AND THE CONN."

“Ermmmm, we don’t do that here but, I stand relieved then.”

The sound insulation on the T-5s sucked and waking up sparks with his bellow was a sure way to have that happen only once. :joy:

53

I think the misunderstanding here is that in naval ships there’s a crowd of people taking over and a crowd being relieved. Invariably there’s a bunch of junior officers under training competing for time on the bridge and depending on their competence the fully qualified OOW may delegate duties from sharpening the pencils and answering the phone up to and including taking the watch including the con, navigation, collision avoidance, station keeping, manoeuvring, zig-zag, etc.

So it is vital for the helmsman/quartermaster to know who is giving the orders from amongst the clutch of officers present. He would be told who has the con. In former days, when the helm was below the bridge somewhere, there was no need to specify the con as all voices from the bridge were obeyed.

The crowd on a merchantman’s bridge is slimmer and hence no need to specify the con.

Just to add some good solid naval BS to the system, I have strong memories of my time as OOW of the (temporary) flagship, a “fast” replenishment tanker. With the admiral and his staff embarked, no other ships in the fleet to worry about - we were racing across the Pacific to catch up with them and get to your Independence Day in 1976, there was more than a crowd on the bridge whenever the admiral decided he didn’t like the movie in the wardroom and wandered up to the bridge.

Picture the scene. The admiral would normal signal the fleet his night intentions ie course, speed, formation, command arrangements, manoeuvres etc. So the admiral and his staff populated the port side of the bridge (in a proper flagship, he’d have his own bridge) and the ship’s captain and staff on starboard. The navigator would point his dividers to our precise position on a chart of the whole Pacific and the admirals staff would discuss this momentous news and compile a signal, released by the admiral, from OTC to all ships under my tactical command - night intentions encoded etc.

That was transmitted by radio to the non-existent fleet and duly received by the ship’s operators on the starboard side. The ship’s signal yeoman would decode the signal and call, "Captain, sir, OOW, message executed with a time to all ships, night intentions etc etc. We would chorus our understandingmand the admiral would depart and a dozen officers could return to the wardroom movie and I as OOW could sneak back into the captain’s chair and quiet bliss return.

54

In my experience, accounting for all types of vessels, the only occasion when “Pilot has the con”was voiced was whilst piloting passenger vessels. Invariably, the majority of passenger vessels were fitted with azipod/bowthruster systems. There was always a fairly comprehensive MPX detailing the point of change of con.
Departure.

  1. MPX
  2. Allocated senior officer or Master conducts berth departure and cons vessel to agreed handover position.
  3. “Pilot has the con”

Arrival.

  1. MPX.
  2. “Pilot has the con”.
  3. I Pilot the vessel to an agreed position off the berth.
  4. “Captain/Senior Officer has the con.
  5. Vessel berthing completed.

The utterance “con” was never used on any other type of merchant vessel in my port.

55

Deep draft position on the issue:

56

Oh my VERY DEAR @DamnYankee have we ever met or were at school together.?

There are many old threads here on the issue. Left a link in my first post but of course was ignored as IRRELEVANT .

Here is another one .

Just a few screenshots demonstrating how sclerosis kicks in real fast .

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57

Can you Sir elaborate?

58

I have seen the phrase “Captain, Pilot so and so has the conn” used many times on merchant ships on the US East Coast as the sea pilot turns over with the docking pilot, and vice versa. It’s very much in daily use here.

I have been present on one occasion on a US merchant ship when a particular chief mate took the watch and bellowed “IM SO AND SO. I HAVE THE DECK AND THE CONN” The awkward silence on the bridge was palpable.

59

Pretty basic really. There’s one deck officer on the bridge of a merchantman, so when he has the watch, he has the con. Hence the “slimmer” description.

On any warship, there’s usually more than one deck officer. Although one may be the qualified OOW, he may have one or two others at various levels of training. He may delegate the con to allow those under training to exercise manoeuvring the ship. It would be normal to inform the helmsman/quartermaster which officer has the con.

Bear in mind warships tend to manoeuvre constantly especially when in company with other warships so there’s more wheel and engine orders ie more conning with both junior officers, helmsmen and engineers in the machinery control room under training and eager to practice and be able to play with the throttles for real etc. A merchantman tends to sail straight lines on auto pilot and will often alter course without any orders by adjusting the heading on the auto pilot.

60

This is from ICS Bridge Procedures Guide,

“The presence of the Master on the bridge does not relieve the OOW of responsibility for the watch, unless the Master has explicitly taken control. Any handover of responsibility must be unambiguous. The OOW should remain on the bridge, continue to manage the Bridge Team and support the Master, unless instructed otherwise.”

This is more or less boiler plate language. There are many other publications / guidance that use similar language wrt to the master’s presence on the bridge.

I understand that on merchant ships the terms conn / con is in fact used but I don’t recall hearing that more formal term. Usually it’s “Ok, I’ve got it” or similar.

Edit:
Here’s guidance from the Swedish Club that uses the term “conn”:

COMMAND
The Master has always overall command of the vessel but not
necessarily the Conn.
CONN
• will be in operational control
• informs all team members about planned manoeuvres and actions
• delegates defined tasks to team members
• shall request challenges from team members when limits are
exceeded

It should always be clear who has the
Conn i.e. if the OOW has the Conn, the Master must clearly
inform the bridge team when he takes the Conn.

61

Interesting. I wonder if any losses in court were attributed to the use in a merchant ship of the word “conn”? Pretty sure that most of us have always had the helmsman directly respond to the pilot’s commands. I generally repeated them in unison with the helmsman.