Quote:
Originally Posted by bigbill
I'm a retired shipdriver. I was an Officer of the Deck on carriers (1100' and 100K tons) and in my duties, I was in charge of a bridge team that included two junior officers, and five enlisted watchstanders. My job was the safe operation of the ship and to train the junior officers to have my job. Sleep deprivation can be a factor, but command environment where watchstanders feel free to speak up (questioning attitude) are vital.
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Congrats to your son BigBill, and forgive me, but I'd like to steer this conversation back to the original subject.
Bill makes an important point above when he mentions the importance of watchstanders being in an environment and trained to speak up if something doesn't seem right. This is called situational awareness. The maritime industry long ago adopted Bridge Resource Management concepts from the aviation industry, who called it Cockpit Resource Management. All merchant officers (worldwide) are required to complete a a BRM course every five years.
While the two major incidents involving collisions between Naval ships and merchant vessels were quite different, they appear to share a common thread of lack of situational awareness. We really don't know a lot about what happened with the Fitzgerald yet,a s the actions of the merhcant vessel have not yet been released (they'll be covered in the report being prepared by the USCG for the NAVY), but we know for sure what happened ont he McCain, and it isn't pretty.
The McCain slowed down and turned in front of a merchant ship (a relatively small tanker named the Alnic MC). The series of events leading up to the collision would be funny if not for the loss of life. In a nut shell, the bridge crew tried to shift the steering from one location to another, didn't know what they were doing, and then tried to slow down, but only slowed one engine, thus turning the vessel into the path of the tanker. What boggles the mind, is that nobody bothered to actually look at the shaft tachometers, and nobody seemed to have a good handle on what should be pretty simple mechanics of shifting helm positions. The entrance to the Straits of Singapore is busy, but it is not a particularly challenging situation, as you aren't encountering significant crossing traffic.
What the NAVY has not addressed, and what I feel is most important, is that they have no "ship driver" track. Somehow, amongst all their other duties, and relatively few months at sea under way, naval officers are supposed to magically gain the same competence that it takes years at sea, standing two watches every day, that merchant officers get. The British Navy requires all of their officers to become fully STCW certified. STCW refers to the International Convention on Standards of Training, Certification and Watchkeeping for Seafarers. In the USN, there is little int he way of actual watchkeeping training, and amazing number of people on the bridge that apparently (at least anecdotally) cause more confusion than help. Additionally, they rely on info. from the CIC, whose personnel don't have the same situational awareness since they can't look out the window. Contrary to popular belief, you can't really tell a mega container ship from a bunker barge with a radar.
The shear number of merchant ships in the world fleet has continued to grow, making our oceans ever more crowded. This has put pressure on the supply of qualified merchant officers, resulting in a lack of uniform quality. In my work, I see mostly tank ships, who, along with passenger ship officers, are generally the best paid, best trained and most professional. At the opposite end of the spectrum are the officers on dry bulk carriers, and (international) container ships (not true with American flag vessels, which are very well operated and have high pay due to the Jones Act), both of which tend to have slim profit margins. Judging by what we know of the Fitzgerald's collision, there can be no doubt that the container vessel shares some of the blame for the collision.
The bottom line is that until the USN addresses the training gap, they will continue to have avoidable incidents like the ones we had in 2017.
CaptStash....