New navigation aid?

[John Arton]

The so called navigators of today rely totally on electronics, GPS and ECDIS for position fixing, Radar for collision Avoidance and all the time fail to recognise that the bridge windows coupled with their eyes and the compass repeater are still the best method of position fixing and collision avoidance. Even as far back as the old QE2, it managed to go aground off the East Coast of the USA due to the bridge officers not realising that the GPS signal had failed and it was giving them positions based on dead reckoning.
Many ships are now sailing without paper charts and there has already been a number of ECDIS generated groundings. A recent case was a ship running aground on the Varne where the track that the "navigator" had generated using the ECDIS took the ship straight across the Varne Bank!!!
When all these modern electronic aids came in, the users had been brought up using sextants, compass bearings and radar only for navigation and were rightly aware of their limitations and tended to distrust the information these instrument's gave us so we used other non electronic means to check them.
By the 70's there were already starting a generation of navigators who were becoming more and more reliant on electronic nav. aids but there was enough old codgers around to still get them to cross check every thing. We are now in an age when even the senior officers on board have been brought up to rely solely on electronic means of navigation and believe implicitly on the information given to them on the computer monitors scattered around the bridge. I say computer monitors as all these Nav. systems are computer based, your ARPA radar has a computer inside working out CPA's, your ECDIS has a computer taking feeds from various sensors and using computer generated maps, displays the ships position yet all the operators of these systems forget the basics of computer programs and systems which is SISO {**** in, **** out} and will happily believe what they see on the monitor above what they can see with their own eyes if only they looked out of the bridge windows.
There is a small but growing body in the industry who are realising this total reliance on electronics and hence the introduction of alternate but still electronic, means of obtaining position fixing information apart from reliance on GPS signals. Another aside to all these electronic systems are that many "navigators" are deliberately inputting false information into certain systems such as AIS in order to protect there ships from piracy yet the IMO recognise that these systems can be a valuable aid to collision avoidance.
Yes the world as we know it has certainly changed enormously since mr. Gates got into bed with IBM and produced the first working and affordable computer and we are now living in a world ruled by them, because after all they are infallible are they not?
Who goes to the library these days to research a new topic, everyone just uses Google and Wikipedia etc. to look up any information you need and hey presto within seconds you have every you would ever need to know about anything.
Who in the Banking system uses their knowledge of the client in front of them to decide the suitability of loaning money to them. A few clicks of the buttons on their computer, a few ticks on yes/no answers provide to them over the phone and hey presto, if the computer says yes, thousands of pounds can be in your account in seconds. It can also be taken out of your account by a snot nosed teenager sitting in his bedroom who has managed to hack into all your bank details.
Computers, love them or hate them but be beware of their fallibilities where ever you use them, be it at sea or at home.
rgds
JA

[Graham Smith]

Having read all of the above comments, the grey cells went full astern to what is fast approaching 60 years ago and my first voyage. This was aboard a 'fast built to last one voyage', Park boat complete with magnetic compass and Kelvin Hughes (?) echo sounder. I believe all relevant 'observations' have been recorded in this thread so, suffice to say (and conclude) with "Remember those Shakespearean chart pencils? To be or not to be"? Should you, personally, have been (initially H B) one who found it hard to swing this particular lead, then please feel free/three to wait until you've fathomed out how to erase this pundit.......dot........dash. Have a good weekend folks! My nurse, Anne Corse, has just come to take me..........................away.

[gray_marian]

#10, Captain, 'remains of a body in the fresh water tank' can you elaborate
further on that story please.

[Graham Smith]

Interesting and true, John, thanks for expressing the views of myself and countless other 'proper' navigators of the mid twentieth century. Am I allowed to ask when, with whom (and why that company) you 'signed the parchment' and when and why you came ashore?

[Ivan Cloherty]

#10, Captain, 'remains of a body in the fresh water tank' can you elaborate
further on that story please.

I believe Brian is off to his sunny retreat in Fleetwood. Whilst vessels are in drydock or undergoing extensive repairs it is common practise to drain all the fresh water tanks, these can have a capacity from anything from 15 tons to 100 tons, After they have been drained they are then scaled and cement washed, the cement when dried prevents the FW from becoming tainted with rust etc. Usually it is a one man job there being insufficient room for two men with all the beams, girders, floors (vertical) etc in the strengthened part of the vessel, usually the forepeak and afterpeak, these tanks being situated at the extremities of the vessel and away from where most of the work is taking place midships. It was not uncommon for men on these tasks of cement washing to sneak forty winks as it is a most boring job. At the end of the repair work someone would shout down the manhole 'anyone down there' and if receiving no answer would proceed to fasten up the entry hole with bolts, not a noisy job, the tank would then be filled with water and the unfortunate occupant drowned, no amount of knocking on the lid would make anyone aware, even if there was anyone in the vicinity, cement wash brushes are not reknowned for their decibel features. Some workers were not missed as it was a practice for some to sneak off early and the bolting man would have assumed that this is what would have happened in this instance. It has happened on many an occasion, but some were fortunate to be released others were not. Personally I never entered a tank without having a heaving line tied to the rim of the entry hole or on the closing plate itself so that anyone approaching the hole would know that someone was down there if the heaving line was disappearing down the hole, some of course were too bloody lazy to go and look for a heaving line thus leading to their own demise. A most unpleasant way to leave this world.

[Captain Kong]

#10, Captain, 'remains of a body in the fresh water tank' can you elaborate
further on that story please. Marian.

thanks for that Ivan,
There were some whiskey bottles in there as well I was told. It was in drydock in Glasgow so I guess that would explain a reason.
But again, just as you described it. I have heard of it before on other ships.
And after a few months under water the body disintergrates down to a skeleton and is dispersed in the water,
Cheers
Brian.

[Jim Brady]

What was Lord Vestey's thinking for not having radar aboard his ships Lamport & Holts (an I imagine Blue Star and Maggie Booths.)Was it to keep those on the bridge on their toes and not to rely on radar ?It didn't do the Hildebrand much good if she didn't have radar when she ran aground in fog at Lisbon.
Regards.
jim.B.

[gray_marian]

Sorry to be so naive Brian, what's the 'after peak' and were the men on board aware of the the decomposed body in the water tank before they left the ship?
Don't suppose the ship owners had to pay compensation at that time or did they?

[Captain Kong]

Hi Jim
When I was on the Blue Star and Lamport boats, Vestey was reputed to have said.
"I pay my Officers to keep a good look out not to look into a box." or words to that effect.
I have been on look out on the Dunedin Star charging up the channel at 16 knots trying to make the London tide in thick fog , stood on the focsle head wetting my knickers at the thought of some big ship coming towards us. I would have been the first one to be hit.

On the ESSO Caledonia, 256,000 dwt. loaded, homeward bound from the Gulf for Rotterdam. , the radars broke down and thick fog, just me and a sailor on the bridge. could not see the fore deck, 1,000 feet long. Whistle blasting away and eventually made the Dover Straits when it cleared, a ciggy in each hand, sweating.Not a little scary.
.
.
.
.Hi Marian,
the after peak is the opposite to the fore peak. [the forepeak is right in the bows of the ship, at the front, and is used for ballast when required.]
It is the compartment as far back on a ship as you can go , it is in front of the propellers,
It is below the water line and is used to store fresh water for domestic use in the after accommodation.
I wrote about it in the DUNEDIN STAR voyage at the end. Seafaring Stories thread in Swinging the Lamp forum.
The crew who lived aft were getting sick and breaking out in boils and scabs according to my friend.
They complained that the water was causing all this and was bad. They were told it wasnt bad because the tank had been cleaned and cement washed in dry dock at the start of the voyage. So eventually the tank was drained and on inspection the remains of a body was found in there. So it was assumed that the man in the dry dock had consumed some whisky, there was a bottle in there, and had fallen asleep in a drunken stupor, when the men shouted if anyone was in there and no answer the plate on the man hole cover was battened down and screwed water tight. When it was filled with fresh water the man then drowned.
Hope that answers the question.
Cheers
Brian

[j.sabourn]

Brian, havent looked at all the answers to this one, but seems to me the obvious one would be for all erstwhile navigators to brush up on the Rule of The Road and learn the Rules and Regulations they were at one time supposed to know. Time was in our time that transits of the Dover Straits etc were made without GPS Radar and all other so called modes of Aids to Navigation. It seems to me that we are going backwards and standards are really beginning to show. The excuse that shipping nowadays is more profuse does not stand either, as during our days shipping was in larger quantities numerically than of today. All one ever hears nowadays are excuses for whatever dilema our erstwhile so called leaders of great nations put us into. Shipping as a once great source of our once great Nation has been subjucated to the bottom of the heap by very unintelligible people of no intellect whatsoever, they are or will reap the benefits of their bad policy making in years to come. JS