Lessons of the Bounty by Andy Chase

Professional Mariner Forum
41

A couple of points…

With regards to the judgement vs experience; In his coverage of the Bounty hearing Mario wrote "The Illusion of Experience. Mario also wrote an article [Experience Means Nothing – Judgement is Everything](Experience Means Nothing – Judgement is Everything)about the Tenerife airport disaster . The pilot of the KLM plane, Jacob Van Zanten, was one of the airlines most experienced and trusted pilots. He was responsible for the deaths of 500+ passengers. Wasn’t his error many time worse the Walbrige’s? Walbridge might have thought that the future of the organization was at stake. All Zanten had to do was wait another 20 seconds to make sure there wasn’t another 747 on the runway before he went barreling down it with all four engines at full throttle. This should tell us something about the nature of decision making and appreciate how easy it is to make errors.

The second point is regarding the approach Walbride used to make his decision. In Andy’s article he advocates a couple things. One is using an approach which utilizes BRM concepts which has been discussed, The second point was to make decisions about risk in a methodical manner. Andy demonstrated this approach when the captain in his story used a scoring system.

Likely the way Walbridge actually made the decision to sail was based on intuition, his personal tolerance for risk, confidence in the Bounty to handle heavy weather and a strong desire to get to Florida.

It might have gone something like this:

Walbridge makes the decision to sail, it comes to him in a flash just like Jacob Van Zanten’s decision to take off (We gaan, Let’s go). Then he has to justify it.

Objection: High risk voyage
Justification: Fine, don’t like it get off.

Objection: Bounty will encounter high seas and strong winds
Justification: We’ve been in worse and came out fine, why should this time be any different.

Objection: Hull is in poor shape, there may be far more rot they what is visible.
Justification: Many repairs were made in the shipyard, the hull is in better shape then it has been in a long time. Also it’s been fine so far, it will be ok for one more trip.

Objection: There is something wrong with the bilge pumping system - this is an additional risk factor that should be considered.
Justification: The C/E is new, he’ll get up to speed quickly and get it sorted out soon enough. If he needs help I (the captain) can help him as I know the E/R systems inside out.

Objection: The crew is either new to the Bounty or not very experienced.
Justification: No problem, I’ve been on the Bounty forever. I could sail this thing single handed if I had to. All the crew has to do is follow orders and we will be fine.

Objection: You need to make check to see how “robust” your decision-making process is by seeking out other opinions including from the crew .Justification: This is a sailing vessel, we operate on the wood ships and steel men principle. If you want to sit around a campfire and sing kumbaya you need to get off the Bounty and join the campfire girls.

42

I would tend to say that in general, experience improves sound decision making …

Confirmation bias or myside bias:

Confirmation bias is the tendency of people to favor information that confirms their beliefs or hypotheses. People also tend to interpret ambiguous evidence as supporting their existing position.

  • Attitude polarization (when a disagreement becomes more extreme even though the different parties are exposed to the same evidence),
  • Belief perseverance (when beliefs persist after the evidence for them is shown to be false),
  • Irrational primacy effect (a greater reliance on information encountered early in a series)
  • Illusory correlation (when people falsely perceive an association between two events or situations).

A tendency to test ideas in a one-sided way, focusing on one possibility and ignoring alternatives.
Wishful thinking and the limited human capacity to process information.
Weighing up the costs of being wrong, rather than investigating in a neutral, scientific way.

Confirmation biases contribute to overconfidence in personal beliefs and can maintain or strengthen beliefs in the face of contrary evidence. Poor decisions due to these biases have been found in all organizational contexts.
Biased search for information
Biased interpretation
Biased memory
Polarization of opinion
Persistence of discredited beliefs
Preference for early information
Illusory association between events
Individual differences

Social psychologists have identified two tendencies in the way people seek or interpret information about themselves.

  • Self-verification is the drive to reinforce the existing self-image
  • Self-enhancement is the drive to seek positive feedback.

Both are served by confirmation biases. In experiments where people are given feedback that conflicts with their self-image, they are less likely to attend to it or remember it than when given self-verifying feedback. They reduce the impact of such information by interpreting it as unreliable. Similar experiments have found a preference for positive feedback, and the people who give it, over negative feedback …

Confirmation bias should be proven to be thoroughly study prior granting a credential.

43

Added one for you:

Objection: Sailing through a hurricane is a bad idea.
Justification: We will go around it. I have plenty of experience at sea including hurricanes and I know how to get around them*

  • (don’t tell the crew that you intend to go right through it or that your previous hurricane avoiding skills have deserted you)

[QUOTE=Kennebec Captain;129686]A couple of points…

With regards to the judgement vs experience; In his coverage of the Bounty hearing Mario wrote "The Illusion of Experience. Mario also wrote an article [Experience Means Nothing – Judgement is Everything](Experience Means Nothing – Judgement is Everything)about the Tenerife airport disaster . The pilot of the KLM plane, Jacob Van Zanten, was one of the airlines most experienced and trusted pilots. He was responsible for the deaths of 500+ passengers. Wasn’t his error many time worse the Walbrige’s? Walbridge might have thought that the future of the organization was at stake. All Zanten had to do was wait another 20 seconds to make sure there wasn’t another 747 on the runway before he went barreling down it with all four engines at full throttle. This should tell us something about the nature of decision making and appreciate how easy it is to make errors.

The second point is regarding the approach Walbride used to make his decision. In Andy’s article he advocates a couple things. One is using an approach which utilizes BRM concepts which has been discussed, The second point was to make decisions about risk in a methodical manner. Andy demonstrated this approach when the captain in his story used a scoring system.

Likely the way Walbridge actually made the decision to sail was based on intuition, his personal tolerance for risk, confidence in the Bounty to handle heavy weather and a strong desire to get to Florida.

It might have gone something like this:

Walbridge makes the decision to sail, it comes to him in a flash just like Jacob Van Zanten’s decision to take off (We gaan, Let’s go). Then he has to justify it.

Objection: High risk voyage
Justification: Fine, don’t like it get off.

Objection: Bounty will encounter high seas and strong winds
Justification: We’ve been in worse and came out fine, why should this time be any different.

Objection: Hull is in poor shape, there may be far more rot they what is visible.
Justification: Many repairs were made in the shipyard, the hull is in better shape then it has been in a long time. Also it’s been fine so far, it will be ok for one more trip.

Objection: There is something wrong with the bilge pumping system - this is an additional risk factor that should be considered.
Justification: The C/E is new, he’ll get up to speed quickly and get it sorted out soon enough. If he needs help I (the captain) can help him as I know the E/R systems inside out.

Objection: The crew is either new to the Bounty or not very experienced.
Justification: No problem, I’ve been on the Bounty forever. I could sail this thing single handed if I had to. All the crew has to do is follow orders and we will be fine.

Objection: You need to make check to see how “robust” your decision-making process is by seeking out other opinions including from the crew .Justification: This is a sailing vessel, we operate on the wood ships and steel men principle. If you want to sit around a campfire and sing kumbaya you need to get off the Bounty and join the campfire girls.[/QUOTE]

44

The overriding justification was that they were not going to make any money getting banged around in New London where the ship would be exposed to additional damage; and, they would miss their dockside event in St Petersburg, Florida.

And with all the justifications, there was no reasonable excuse for what happened.

45

What I can’t figure out is why they didn’t head north instead of south. The likelihood that the hurricane would get as far as Maine is much lower than it reaching New London. There are tons of good hurricane holes spread out all over the coast of maine. There would have been plenty of places for them to hide and be much safer than A) in New London or B) at sea. Of course, as PMC said, they couldn’t make any money by hiding out and they would have to miss their engagement in St. Petersburg, so I’m sure that played more into the decision making than anything else. I can understand why they didn’t want to sit in New London and await their impending doom, but given their other options they didn’t heave to head out into open Atlantic either.

46

While Walbridge might be of some interest to psychiatrists , there is no reason for professional mariners to give him too much attention.

47

Fair point. How about the Marine Electric? How did THEY get convinced to keep taking that thing out?

48

[QUOTE=PaddyWest2012;129705]What I can’t figure out is why they didn’t head north instead of south. The likelihood that the hurricane would get as far as Maine is much lower than it reaching New London. There are tons of good hurricane holes spread out all over the coast of maine. There would have been plenty of places for them to hide and be much safer than A) in New London or B) at sea. Of course, as PMC said, they couldn’t make any money by hiding out and they would have to miss their engagement in St. Petersburg, so I’m sure that played more into the decision making than anything else. I can understand why they didn’t want to sit in New London and await their impending doom, but given their other options they didn’t heave to head out into open Atlantic either.[/QUOTE]

Here is how to understand choices made with regards to the encounter. Take the forecast wind speed and and sea height and divide by two… Thus if the forecast was for 50 kt winds and 25 foot seas then they interpreted that as if the forecast was for 25 kt winds and 12 ft seas.

This takes into account the overconfidence, lack of experience in bad weather and the lack of safety margins due to the culture aboard with regards to risk.

Mariners with limited experience in heavy weather often over estimate the severity of the weather they have encountered. For example when an inexperienced mariner encounters a single wave of 30 feet while in a sea with a SWH of 22 feet he might believe he has encountered 30 foot seas unless there is a more experienced mariner to tell them different. If he later sees a forecast for 30 foot seas he assumes it will be like the 22 ft seas he has encountered in the past. Consider Walbridge’s description of his encounter with a hurricane in that interview on TV.