I would tend to agree with you that “older” mariners may not be as proficient with using an ECDIS although seriously I did very well with OSL, pretty good with Sperry and I can get by with TRANSAS. My issue with ECDIS is that the controls for the basic stuff which should be universally standardized are all over the place, poor regulation in my view. However, I did sail with no GPS, No LORAN and an RDF for use in fog. I venture to say, since I have some small experience currently teaching that modern mariners would be extremely hard pressed to operate in THAT environment. Not being critical of them while they may learn celestial at school and terrestrial at school but without constant continuous use those skills very quickly atrophy. And without the reality that you have to get it right the practice they might make is without any pressure. Remember no GPS means just that, even auxiliary. I tried pushing for the USCG to keep Loran C around in our coastal and Inland waters, they did not and we don’t have RDF for whatever use it was as any backup.
There are a lot of signals out there. Jam one and I’ll use another one.
People who advocate for paper charts and celestial/terrestrial navigation as a solution to this issue never did any challenging navigation with either.
RDFsignals are everywhere. Wouldn’t take much to make receivers again
GPS vulnerabilities have been on the political and technological agendas for some time Space Policy Directive 7 (2021) and are deemed a priority by many, including CISA PNT Risk Management and advocacy groups like RNT Foundation. However GAO has repeatedly been critical of implementation due to lack of progress metrics and oversight GAO: DOD / GPS Alternatives.
Ground based alternatives might play a role, but, by their very nature, will be of limited benefit to the maritime world.
Although the document European Radio Navigation Plan 2023 has a rather eurocentric perspective, the voluminous appendix (pp. 80) gives a nice overview of GNSS implementations, augmenting and diverse alternative technologies with their strengths and limitations.
That’s a bold statement. I’ve had the dubious pleasure of suddenly losing GPS signal across all receivers (because of shipboard interference) in confined waters (within the La Rochelle breakwater) in absolute zero visibility (couldn’t even see the glow of shore lights). I assume that the happy outcome had something to do with my experience with inshore radar navigation, but either way I was convinced that it is an essential skill. But hey, maybe that’s not what you mean by “challenging navigation”?
As for “just using another signal” there is a whole bunch of things that can knock out electronic positioning aside from loss of signal, from network issues to broken bridge windows. Granted, RDF is probably a better solution than DR to loss of sat nav on passage, but that too requires some familiarity with traditional navigation methods.
I’m not advocating a full return to monke, but I don’t see many excuses to lack working knowledge of DR, radar fixing, etc. Deck officer workload is steadily increasing, but there is no shortage of idle moments in which one might brush up those skills. The question is how we fill them.
It had a lot to do with luck as well, as you would no doubt admit having experienced the effect of extremely heavy rain squalls on the accuracy of radar returns while doing that sort of navigation.
The fact is that navigation without satellite positioning systems was a matter of both skill and luck, and there are plenty of good mariners whose bones litter the seafloor who lacked the latter while having an abundance of the former.
A bridge window blowing out or a wheelhouse fire shouldn’t knock out a prepared navigators satellite positioning for more than a minute.
The skills you mention are essential, but I think people look at them in the wrong light. As someone else pointed out if the ECDIS stops telling you where you are and you default to it being useless and drag out paper charts you didn’t really know how to use it to start with.
My understanding, and I could be mistaken, is that the ECDIS using doppler for DR (dead reckoning) positions differs from traditional paper chart DRs in that the ECDIS continuously calculates the distance and direction of the actual path the ship takes through the water.
In that case the resultant ECDIS-DR position would require fewer assumptions regarding STW (speed through water) and leeway. That DR would presumably be more precise and thus far more useful than the traditional DR.
Strictly speaking a DR corrected for leeway would be an estimated position (EP).
Why does it matter? Good response was strictly linked to the boomer bitching about the move away from paper charts, like that has anything to do with this issue.
It’s 20/80. Most mariners just want to become good at their jobs which requires acquiring specific skill sets depending upon which maritime sector or field. Few want to spend idle time learning old-timey navigation if it’s not needed.
I think those who were forced (or did so willingly) to jump from sector to sector may have picked up a wider range of skill sets that results in a wider perspective.
For 80% of mariners once they get good at their jobs that’s it. The old-timers limit their computer/ ECIDS skills to what’s needed to get by.
The young 2nd mate who has half an hour before sailing and is trying to figure out why some voyage files are not loading has little or no interest being regaled with a story of how the old man made landfall with a repurposed car radio using Danish Butter cookie tin for an antenna.
Gyro needs to be working as well
At the time it didn’t feel like 'winging it". There was a different way of thinking about navigation
If the ship was in the middle of the Gulf of Alaska for example using DRs or LORAN A, sun lines or whatever the exact amount of error in the position didn’t really matter. If someone wanted a position a DR would be picked off the chart to the nearest tenth of a minute.
As the ship approached land more accurate positioning information would become available. If there was significant error in the plot once a good fix was gotten a new DR plot was started. The track would be laid out to avoid close approach to hazards in areas that lacked good radar/visual information.
There was also different skill sets. For example looking at a chart and evaluating good radar points - mud flats vs a steep cliffs etc. Having experience using DRs or RDF and soundings etc meant knowing roughly how much error there was and when they could be depended upon.
It really wasn’t as difficult as the old-timer sometimes make it out to be. Today’s more precise positioning systems are really more about efficient transits than avoiding hazards.
Europe was putting in a new E loran to back up failed GPS, seems like they gave up.
That works very well as they have an almanac in it to correct all the old issues.
They also don’t require any particular skill or mental effort on the part of the user so you could train a monkey to “follow the road”. Whether that is a good thing or not is a matter of opinion.
In many cases you’re probably right. There is however the phenomena of the taxi drivers and the anti-lock brakes. There’s been studies that show (half the taxis in the fleet equipped and half not) that taxi drivers, instead of using the ABS brakes to improve safety, drove more aggressively to get more fares / day.
Same with ECDIS in some cases. Equipped with ECDIS the third mate might find themselves more often alone in the wheelhouse in restricted water and/or traffic where they would not have in the past.
I wasn’t actually being that critical of the old timers when I talk about tech illiteracy. It’s not just celestial skills that atrophy, I don’t believe there are actually any ECDIS questions on the 3rd mates exams at all. State schools get a handful of days playing watch officer on a training ship, and then maybe some cadet time, but the average cadet is probably nowhere as deep in the ECIDS as they are in the paper chart still these days. and while there probably are more nerds in the younger crowd, ECDS skills can still atrophy.
100% switching between manufactures is a nightmare. I’ve only ever worked on TRANSAS/Wartsilla, I’m sure there would be a curve getting me up to speed on one of the other manufactures as well.
I think that is objectively a difficult situation to navigate in, and the public’s expectation of our risk tolerance has (understandably) changed. I don’t think Summit Venture V. Sunshine Skyway Bridge would happen today, not because our technology or folks are better in the wheelhouse, but also because systems outside the ship are being designed with more safety factor. From the comfort of my arm chair, I do not believe the same excuse for “factors beyond the pilot’s control” would be acceptable today after changes in regulations.
This is not entirely the case, because GPS has never actually been deactivated since it was bought online, however individual GPS receivers fail all the time. One of the many cellphones onboard, or even my handheld in my ditch bag would likely survive a lightning strike, fire, or angry tern trying to build a nest out of the wires, or any other gremlins coming out of the woodwork. But yes, we are all going to have a bad time if someone breaks or turns the GPS system.
If you are in war area I can tell you the positions move a few miles away then come back.
Plus solar flares turn it all off.
Been in both of those situations and that was before there was jamming and spoofing
This highlights the importance of leaving past track/breadcrumbs on, hopefully we aren’t going to go hard right when the ship teleports a mile to the left of the track line, or start a 2692 when the ECDIS suddenly shows us aground 3 miles inland in a Walmart parking lot. Solar flares cause a degradation in signal, and last 30 minutes to an hour, and have never permanently damaged a GPS satellite. Reading though the reports of GPS problems, it sounds like these events only happen for a matter of minutes. I’ve even knocked out GPS with the HF radio before, we didn’t die. Hopefully we can look up and take a gander out the window during these unprecedented times.
What I’m getting at, is yes, a high altitude nuke, meteor strike, alien invasion could take out GPS all together in some sort of EOTWAWKI situation. But in your career, how often have you sailed in a thunder storm compared to sailing in a war zone? An outage that lasts less than the duration of your fix interval is less of a concern to me than physically losing the GPS in the middle of the Pacific on the way to Guam. Going though the thought exercise of using a handheld GPS isn’t a terrible idea. And even if the handheld doesn’t work, if you’re somewhere to worry about it, you can take a fix off land.
And given banking, utilities, aviation, and everyone else and their mother use GPS for time and position, if GPS went down, down, I’d much rather be a little further off shore rather than in the middle of whatever civil unrest would be playing out on shore.
I think this is correct but it depends upon how difficult the situation is. If the situation is only moderately difficult, not overly stressful, a successful outcome will build confidence that the methods used are valid.
I agree with this as well. Some functions that should be simple are objectively overly difficult.
Just stumbled upon this Scott Manley video about GPS posted last week, good watch, but the sparksnotes of things I didn’t know and should make us feel a little better:
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The GPS system actually sends out a current model of the Ionosphere so receivers can factor in Space weather, and likely solar flares to a degree.
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the newer protocols for GPS signals make them “More Difficult to jam”
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I guess DGPS got turned of in 2020? I have never heard of WAAS but I guess that’s what we’re supposed to be using now? Something to look into if your GPS is supposed to rely on DGPS vs WAAS.
All this does a whole hill of beans if the Russian warship is 2 miles away pointing the GPS death ray at you.