[I]I think Capt. Fran hit the nail on the head. This is a power thing for you…and a lot of engineers.
[/I]I asked this before, even if it is. What then? Do you think the Master community will cede legally endorsed power of executive authority easily? Nobody has done that in history willingly. However if the Ship owner community can be convinced otherwise, there is a distinct possibility that traditional status quo structures prevalent in shipping might undergo a change.
[I]Your company obviously has captains that won’t bend to the corporate objective (doing things as cheaply and as rapidly as possible) and engineers that you think will.[/I]
[I]You want engineers to run the show? Let’s have mechanics tell pilots where to cut a line of squalls or whether to divert because of a mechanical discrepancy.[/I]
If you read through Company finance sheets, you’ll realize that apart from the inadvertant and rare occassion of bumping the vessel here or there, frankly Masters personally don’t usually soil the balance sheet. That comes out of , machinery spares, stores, normal salaries, (pollution related fines…scary), insurance and stuff. Just a month or 2 back, i tracked a ship and found that a cat 4 TS was heading down south Barrier Reef on it’s way. Sent a message to Master on what he intended to do to avoid this. He’d done a cursory calculation and assumed and insisted it would’nt be on his path. On the net, i had accurate data, and requested him to divert well away. He did heed my request, and as it turned out the storm turned Cat 5…Hamish would have met the ship bang on. Timelines got delayed, but this does not prevent us from spending a bit on safety too and assisting Master in his role. You’re way off mark i can assure ou on your above statement.
[I]And what’s your point about the number of stripes on your shoulder boards? Another symbol of authority? Does the number of stripes equal the amount of power and authority one wields?[/I]
Power and authority alone have never guaranteed good governance or management anywhere on this planet in History. Power and authority are important, and like you mention, “someone must be in Command’. I’d say " someone must be in control” for sure. No questions there. However who do you give the “power and authority”?
If we have a system where we are unable to extract change with the times, it does become a burden and dictatorship of sorts. Without saying that ships should be democracies, i do venture that ‘Authority’ sructures/ managements can be pulled down in shore companies, democratic Governments and supplemented. Not in absolute command regimes. Like the ones run in the Middle East. Seems a bit like failing Islamic states fighting terrorism demanding more religion to fight terror…does’nt work. There’s much more to the shipping industry than maintaining under law ‘Navigators only for command’. With management changes only do better technological inputs and savings surface. Status quo rigid management structures whilst good for sometime tend to wear off in effectiveness.