With autonomous ships over the horizon, how soon before ship owners take a page from the airlines’ playbook and push for single person bridge manning?
How long before ship owners push who? One man bridge operations are already allowed by STCW (at least in daylight). OICNW can be the sole lookout.
My impression is that it is the SMS that generally prevents this from happening and that is an office publication, is it not?
Is this now the industry standard? My boxship and MSC blue water days are well behind me but if things have changed that much, please correct me. My recollection is that BRM emphasizes the importance of human interaction as the OICNW mate directs his bridge team in the ship’s navigation. How can the removal of this major component not fundamentally change the nature of BRM and its effectiveness .
Well, yes, there is an IMO standard for One man bridge operated (OMBO) ships and the ships can be assigned an optional class notation for one man bridge operation. I don’t know if the design or classification is required to conduct OMBO or not. It would be interesting to hear from someone with experience. But either way, I think it is not that uncommon.
I wouldn’t call it standard, but It’s also not unusual. It depends on bridge watch condition, which as portofdc said, is an SMS thing, unfortunate not standardized. STCW does say that the extra lookout should be immediately available if needed.
Bridge watch conditions are actually a pretty slick way to manage BRM in theory, It’s hit or miss how I’ve seen or heard about it being implemented across the industry.