Tag: Watchkeeper

Ship groundings and collisions still occur with depressing regularity, and are often attributed to errors in navigation. In the UK P&I Club's latest LookOut, Risk Assessor David Nichol, highlights some of the contributory factors and suggests steps to ensure navigational safety.

The bulk carrier Muros ran aground on Haisborough Sand last December. UK MAIB report identified that Muros’s route was planned and monitored by the 2/O using the vessel’s ECDIS. However, system and procedural safeguards intended to prevent grounding were either overlooked, disabled or ignored.

The Japan Transport Safety Board issued an investigation report on the collision between a container ship and a fishing vessel off Himeshima Village, Oita Prefecture, Japan, that killed one person. The report includes causes of the incident and lessons learnt, to prevent similar accidents from occurring in the future.

Two reports have been published investigating aspects of fatigue of seafarers; The first is an on-board and predictive modelling study into the 8 hours on/8 hours off watchkeeping pattern; the second is a predictive modelling study into a range of 2-watch and 3-watch watchkeeping patterns.

BIMCO Watchkeeper article: Redefining the 'safe' port

BIMCO Watchkeeper: What's for Dinner?

Weather is becoming more unpredictable and possibly violent There is a tendency these days perhaps to be a bit blasé about bad weather. Whatever one's view of climate change might be and the suggestion that weather is becoming more unpredictable and possibly violent, nobody can deny that shipping remains heavily weather-dependent. Indeed, it could be argued that we are likely to become more so if horsepower is to be penalised and slow steaming becomes "institutionalised". Just as the old sailing ship men were adept at using the weather to their best advantage, it could well be that the weather component of seamanship becomes more - not less, important - as the century progresses.All enclosed wheelhouses, externally generated weather forecasts and weather routeing services, along with reliable power plants, may well combine to almost isolate the mariner from the meteorological conditions, suggesting that weather is "somebody else's" business. Nothing could be further from the truth, although it is a regrettable fact that charterers often attempt to "micromanage" the conduct of a voyage by trespassing into areas that are more appropriately left to the Master.Charterers themselves, particularly those without seagoing experience, need to take a step back and learn something about the ...

Nowdays, it looks similar to the 1970s and 1980s Ship values are causing concern, as those who bought ships when the price was high are now finding that they must face a precipitate decline in the market and book value of these same nearly-new vessels. It is something that is completely predictable, what with the febrile state of the global economy but also a perfectly natural consequence of both the over-optimism that saw so much over-ordering and the effect that this would inevitably have upon ship supply.One does not have to be much of an historian to relate this regrettable coincidence of bad news to the situation in the 1970s and 1980s, when the seeds of the shipping industry's long depression were sown in a similar fashion. Then it was state-supported credit that persuaded owners that they should buy against a new era of perpetual growth. Now it has been everything from short-term demand spikes to the new fashion for public finance that drove the enthusiasm that has so spectacularly backfired since the Autumn of 2008.One can, however, be persuaded by doom-laden headlines in newspapers written by people with little concept of the historical trade cycles that govern shipping and ...

ECDIS tend to eventually become a mandatory carriage requirement Everyone is getting concerned about ECDIS - the Electronic Chart Display and Information System that will eventually become a mandatory carriage requirement for all merchant ships.Two P&I clubs - the Standard and the UK P&I Club - have issued comprehensive warnings to owners and managers about these important upcoming changes. The inference is that this represents a major change in navigation that needs action to deal with if ships are not to be detained, or worse still, the "ECDIS assisted accident" is not to become a grim feature of inquiries into incidents.So why is the coming of ECDIS such a big deal? Why is it so very different to all the other advances in equipment that have miraculously appeared on the bridges of ships over the past 40 years or so? ECDIS is different because the leap forward in navigation is rather larger than anything that has come before - like the arrival of radar or automated collision warning equipment, AIS or suchlike. And most importantly, it will require mandatory training before a watchkeeper is able to operate the equipment that is fitted to the ship to which he or she ...

Everything that goes on in one port will be different to that which took place in previous ports There is a phrase famous in maritime circles which refers to "the customs of the port" and which suggests that pretty well everything that goes on in one port will be different to that which took place in the previous port, and that which will go on in the next. The procedures, the documents demanded, the "ritual" visits of all the officials which need to visit the ship and all the inspections of paperwork will be slightly different, but all will be accorded great importance. The Master of the visiting ship would be unwise to suggest that the "customs of the port" are due an overhaul!Can the ship/port interface be made more efficient? This question forms the basis of the next Nautical Institute Command Seminar, to be held in Bristol on 4-5 November, organised by the London and Bristol branches of the professional mariners' organisation. BIMCO would undoubtedly answer the question very much in the affirmative, because greater efficiency in this area has for many years been part of the agenda for better facilitation in trade, with the smooth passage of a ...