I like that look at the radar, look out the window, look at the radar does it all make sense.
Hopefully you can stand and get that out the window view without moving away from the radar.
Iâm very happy I didnât suffer under the training schemes mostly mentioned here. I went to the naval college. We lived in the small boats and were required to be assessed as competent in every class of boat. We sailed, rowed and motored. This was all before we saw a chart or a compass. We raced in sailing boats and pulling (rowing) boats.
We later learned to navigate later but the small boats were the basis. As junior officers at sea we always drove the shipâs boats, sea boats etc, landing craft, liberty boats, captainâs barge. We were expected to learn and not know everything, but stuff it up and you did it till you got it right. Bang the boat and you helped fix it.
I recommend small boats as part of any seafarerâs training.
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nice BUT the real work today, zero ship handling skills and the DP world sure proved that.
( exception here for GOM crew as they can all drive perfectly)
the DP schools with the NI and the Ship owners/charterers association all duked it out and the IMO and the UK Chamber of shipping got involved as the charterers tried to force the DP schools via DPTEG to certify that a student was competent at ship handling.
Huge push back because we can see how incompetent 99% are.
The IMO was forced to say, An unlimited Masters ticket is a certificate to say in theory the Master knows how to manage the vessel"
Case closed.
So it looks like the some Navys know how to drive but cant navigate and the Merchant navy can navigate but cant driveâŚlol
Of course the view outside can be seen from the radar but I think itâs a mistake for new third mates to conn the ship that way.
When you watch ship pilots they very often (not always) conn from near the centerline and go to the radar only as needed for a more precise and/or more reliable information or to confirm the visual picture.
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Third mates should learn some ship handling.
They should know how to make a turn on a reference point. This requires getting the ship up to the required rate of turn and then reducing rudder. This is needed in traffic when it required to show another vessel your intentions (readily apparent to another vessel observing visually)
Also they should be able to visualize very roughly how much room is required to make turns.
Much more than that would be done by a more senior officer or pilot.
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I guess Iâm also fortunate that we manoeuvred ships as cadet midshipmen and thereafter.
As a cadet on sea training we each manoeuvred the ship (a destroyer capable of 30 knots) on a number of pilotage anchorages in the Great Barrier Reef. We planned the pilotage and executed it, conning the ship, fixing by visual means, running tracks on bearings etc. In other words we did everything any navigator would do in a warship for several runs of about an hour each. A cadet midshipman in this stage is trained in theory of pilotage and ocean navigation but not yet qualified. We were considered somewhat below an able seaman in status and slung hammocks and ate in a cramped mess deck. We did all work normally done by junior seamen and engineering sailors.
We all also manoeuvred the ship for man overboard drills, often unalerted as the captain might hurl a life buoy over the side and see what happened. In one case he hurled a cadet over the side just before we were going to stop for hands to swimming. We loved it.
To gain our tickets in more senior rank, we understudied qualified officers on watch, but every effort was made to allow officers (qualified and unqualified) to manoeuvre the ship. Warships perhaps have the freedom to do things you canât on a commercial ship ie time to teach the officers to manoeuvre the ship especially when in company with another warship. How many times have you got the engineer to do a man overboard on the con and put the captain on the throttles (of a steam turbine) in the engine room?
I was first allowed to bring a frigate alongside as a very junior lieutenant ie equivalent to 3rd mate. No tugs, no pilot, no assistance, and a bunch of expert critics watching from other (competitive) warships in port. I did pretty well berthing in admittedly flat calm conditions. When is a merchant mariner first allowed to bring his ship alongside a berth?
My point is that there are types of training that can benefit the eyeballing, forget-the-instruments approach that are great fun and build a sense in the junior officer of confidence in himself and can be carried on to more senior roles. I doubt the merchant approach will ever have that freedom unless you require (or encourage) your progression up from small ships and coastal/inshore qualifications where these skills can be started. If every deck officer just races up the ladder to master unlimited and your training is focussed on that, ship handling will never be a priority.
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I found that useful when coming into a port at night with a huge amount of back light.
Ok so Iâve made a little sketch to hopefully show the point Iâm trying to make. (not to scale)
In this situation COLREGS require the watch officer on vessel âAâ to alter course to stbd and pass astern of vessel âBâ. Problem is that for whatever reason itâs realized too late that a fishing vessel marked âxâ puts a kink in that plan.
The issue here is that to be safe the watch officer should be watching the bearing change on F/V âXâ visually in case of a change in course or speed because an ARPA vector might not update quickly enough.
But at the same time they are going to want to bury their head in the RADAR / ARPA to compute a course required to pass astern of vessel âBâ at the required minimum CPA.
This time pressure and conflict between priorities is going to cause elevated stress in the watch officer which in turn will make it even more difficult to perform both tasks simultaneously.
But both tasks donât need to be done simultaneously. The watch officer could just wait until the F/V is abeam and then turn the ship till the heading is aft of ship âBâ. Then switch to the ARPA and calculate the exact course needed.
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Re ARPA: Back when I was a Raytheon dealer and teaching new customers ARPA/MARPA, if either the customerâs boat or the target boat were going downwind and yawing around in a following sea, the radar would go nuts either losing lock or wildly changing the CPA. Tanker vs tanker maybe not so much, but a sailboat running downwind or a fishing boat screwing around with nets and gear might not ever give an accurate calculation. IMHO
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Pilots learn to fly small airplanes first because there are things you just canât let students do in a bigger airplane without risking a lot of $$$ repairs or maybe your life. (well there is the gas bill too 
)
IMHO learning to race small sailboats may seem arcane and useless to a future freighter skipper and the racing rules for sailboats ARE somewhat arcane and not used for anything else, but there is nothing like a crowded starting line to hone situational awareness and being able to apply the right rule at the right time.
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This is precisely the reason I donât require the mates to practice celestial navigation. Iâm not about to burn up my credibility on a âwhat if the GPS goes outâ scenario. For one improving the overall ability to navigate without instruments covers that and for another I got more urgent issues.
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I think you might have misunderstood what I said, or maybe I misunderstood what you said. Either way I will try and clarify.
Because of all the STCW classes AND the classes required by the state for the bachelors degree (social science, liberal arts credits, etc.) itâs impossible to fit the small boat classes ie Tugs&Towing (which is accredited, has reliable boats, and has about 3-5 students per boat & instructor). The problem is not money, to many electives, to many sports, or lack of qualified instructors. The academy I attended had about half and half âsmall boatâ - whether it be tugs, ferryâs, or OSVâs - and deep sea instructors. The most well remembered instructor by 90% of students in my years there spent his entire career on tugs.
I played a sport, and I took the REQUIRED electives for my degree. The problem is there is just not enough time in the day to fit the class in when you have a full 0700-1600 schedule with hardly a lunch break. The problem is quite literally that there is no feasible way to fit it into your schedule unless you take summer classes, came into school with transfer credits, or fall behind and take an extra year. If you try and go over the credit limit it has to be approved by the dean and you incur extra charges on top of your tuition.
We ran the class in crappy weather and that was exactly the justification. Short of weather that would create a danger to the class, we were out there.
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I donât think itâs bad to ask mates to do some sort of celestial work maybe a few times a week. I kind of enjoy it, and have had the pleasure of being in a situation where we quite literally lost everything except propulsion so while the second mate and chief mate were panicking about having to shoot a sunline/star fix, the kid who just took his exams 3 months prior was in a much more comfortable place because I was more familiar with it.
Also, I think celestial is the cool part of navigating. Thereâs nothing more satisfying than taking a 3 star fix and nailing your position right on top of the gps fix. But again, itâs important to note that youâre not going to be taking a sun line in heavy traffic, and youâll also always have a bowditch/some sort of material handy to help walk you through a problem you havenât done in a few years.
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That sounds like the beginning of a good sea storyâŚfeel free to share.
Ok, but game it out.
If 50% of the mates think itâs a great idea and 50% think itâs a result of poor risk analysis than making it a requirement will cause loss of credibility with 50% of the officers. If there is no requirement than there will be no loss of credibility.
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I think if instead of saying âevery watch do x,y,zâ and say âtry to do some celestial work when possibleâ and create an environment where as Master you come to the bridge from time to time and say âhey Iâm shooting a sun line, why donât you do one as wellâ or something along those lines, meaning a more casual way of approaching it, I think it would be more well received.
Obviously Captainâs are busy people. I wouldnât expect this to happen even regularly, but on a trans-pacific/Atlantic voyage where there is a lot of monotony I think itâs possible to pull off.
Most of the captains Iâve sailed for would have an aneurysm if I was doing anything on the bridge ânot navigation relatedâ, no reading, no phone games, no computer work beyond the log. I think this has created a sort of complex with me where when Iâm on watch, Iâm on watch and thatâs it. It was good for those captains, but on my most recent ship the captain was confused why I wasnât working on anything and was just up thereâŚ.watching⌠so again, for me personally, celestial is kinda fun. Itâs something to eat up watch beyond putting a fix on the chart and checking the compass.
Sure, Iâm not opposed to anyone practicing, I think we mostly keep our hand in by helping the cadet.
Anyway, this has been discussed a lot here and itâs off topic.
With regards to the topic I try to budget my interactions with the mates to what I think are the most critical areas. Lot of ship collisions and groundings with a working GPS.
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My training a number of years before you followed a similar pattern with an advantage that I had been sailing and racing small yachts since I was 9 years old.
You omitted the officer of the watch drills you would have done right from when you were a very junior officer. Where you manoeuvred a frigate 500 yards from another frigate changing and taking station using nothing but the mark one eyeball, an optical hand held range finder and a Batternburg plotter. The commanding officer sitting close by offering criticism from time to time.
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I hadnât got to this post hence my previous one
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I realize this thread is getting a bit long in the tooth but wrt to this point:
The third mate is not being put it command of the ship. They are usually put on the 8x12 watch, the so called âcaptainâs watchâ with written instructions to call the master as required. On runs like Oakland to Honolulu that might mean nothing but open ocean sailing.
But most often the master can in fact have stay on the bridge and observe, ready to take over while the third mates, for example, makes a simple turn about the sea buoy after dropping off the pilot with no risk to the ship.
Most captain donât do it because they donât expect the third mate will ever do it unsupervised. But that doesnât work on runs that have many consecutive days in heavy traffic.