IMO is working out rules for these kind of legal questions:
Rule 5 say: “Every vessel shall at all times maintain a proper look-out by sight and hearing as well as all available means appropriate
in the prevailing circumstances and conditions so as to make a
full appraisal of the situation and of the risk of collision.”
Questions:
How will “look-out by sight and hearing” be covered?
How will “all available means appropriate in the prevailing circumstances and conditions” be covered?
Will legal responsibility be held by somebody sitting in a control room on the other side of the world, watching several vessels simultaneously?
So if I was operating autonomous ships the office would be in some place with no extradition agreements and with no cameras. A false name would also be handy.
I am sure that with sufficient remuneration they will find someone who will be happy to risk their liberty for the dubious security of a vessel maintained to the general standards of the Merchant Marine.
Thinking this through, after a couple of glasses on a Saturday evening…
If these ships are under the control of someone ashore (as the IMO discussion proposes) they would not be MASS as described. A more accurate classification would be Automated Remotely-Supervised Ships - ARSS.
So this “secret control bunker” would be the ARSS-hole.
Calls to the the ARSS-Hole to resolve risk-of-collision might be something like “get your ARSS out of my way!” and so on.
Interesting, no…
[Sorry, I’m Irish, it’s Christmas, can’t help meself!]
The rules for ecdis is/was a complete cockup. IMO 100% to blame.
They couldnt understand what a computer is.
Every brand so different you need to do a course on each one.
Hence for the first time in history a Captain is allowed to turn it off of he feels the crew not competent enough to operate it.
( assuming its still got paper based systems)
So the IMO is run by complete incompetent idiots?
Does that incl. those attending as national delegates at IMO as well?
Oh I know; “the whole world is run by idiots” in your opinion.
(Except ONE world leader of course)
When you are finish sorting out Singapore, maybe you could help getting the rest of the world on the right track?
It was clear with the Ecdis fiasco they were way out of their depth
Who are they, mostly silly old farts ex captains who probably cant use a PC and these types are the ones who end up on comittees
I know in the NI the former DP experts they swore by had no clue, never worked for a DP supplier, not technical just SOF ex Captains, nice guys but no clue.
One even wrote a book on DP without having ever worked on a DP vessel.
It looks like both IMO and NI are in need of your expertise, otherwise it will all be just “old farts ex Captains” running the show.
If you have the time on your busy schedule of solving the world’s problems that is.
PS: Thick books are written about thing both you and I don’t know the foggiest thing about. Most are written by people we don’t know anything about too.
The whole reason for having a navy is to protect a countries investment in trade. Unless we get autonomous merchant shipping I see little chance of getting mariners to sea when their safety is supposedly guaranteed by someone sitting in an office on the other side of the world.
?