Frozen in time or budget

[Peppermint]

In the post about the ship/yacht and sinking the point is made that container vessels have hugh blind spots even in good viz. In these days of cheap CCTV systems why is this still the case?
As to poor viz, ships adopted radar pretty quickly and its still developing but is it the only equipment that can do the job.
What about thermal imaging? There's enough hot air coming of most yachts to register.

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[Mirelle]

None of the above

There are not enough bodies on the bridge to spend time peering into TV screens.

A typical modern large containership carries the following crew:

1 Master
3 Deck Officers
1 Chief Engineer
3 Engineer Officers, or maybe two and an electrician
1 Electronics Officer
1 Cook
1 Steward
5 General Purpose Ratings

So your bridge watch consists, in daylight and fair weather, of one of the deck officers, plus a GP as lookout at night and in fog. Looking into a TV screen does nothing for your night vision, of course.

TV cameras have been used for berthing for a long time.

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[Evadne]

Re: None of the above

Unfortunately radar, wghich produces a 2-d image, has developed to the point where it'll give you a point of closest approach, heading , speed etc. of any target. TV, a 3-d image, still needs an intelligent being to watch it and interpret the pictures, whether it's visible light, IR or anything else. The problem is not being able to see the targets (yachts), it's paying for someone to be there and look for them in the first place.

Just be thankful that the idea of crewless ships, where humans would be helicoptered in for berthing operations at either end of a voyage, never came to reality. (Yet).

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[ParaHandy]

Impressive ....

... very, there were rather more crew on the Tricolor. It had two scandanavian officers; the captain and the deck cargo officer. The rest were Philipinos who are the crew of choice because they are cheap, willing and will work long hours.

Technology does not seem of much help either. Presumably the Royal Navy have the best that money can buy but the Western Isles appear littered with bits of HM subs.

What I doubt can be denied, is that humans will make mistakes. Tired, overworked, untrained ones will make more and that seems, to me at any rate, to be the current position.


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[Mirelle]

Watch it, sunshine....

...my wife's Filipina, met her when I lived there, and she certainly would not take kindly to being described as, "cheap, willing and will work long hours!"

Seriously, in answer to your post down below, the manning of ships has reduced considerably over the last ten years - down from a typical 23 bodies (33 ten years before that, 43 in 1983). Remember the Radio Officer? Long gone, along with the Chief Thief....oops Steward.....separate deck and engine room ratings, quartermasters, galley boy, wipers, greasers, carpenter, donkeyman, sick bay attendant, Captain's Writer and of course that ever present source of cheap labour the Cadets. The Bosun still sort of exists but since there are now more officers than ratings the need for a skilled foreman seems pretty tenuous.

The RN have, in my limited experience, the most expensive navigational technology that money can buy, but not, in my humble opinion, the best. Indeed, some of it makes the average Filipino second officer fall about with happy laughter.

(Would you like one guess as to whom the very last users of Decca charts were....?)

Ever wondered why your tax pounds produce so small a Navy at so great expense? Look at the profits of Naval contractors!

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[ParaHandy]

Re: Watch it, sunshine....

Got a feeling those might have been your own words some time ago ..... or something to that effect!! but most assuredly no intention of implying anything about Mrs Mirelle.



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[Mirelle]

Only teasing...

You are quite right; it's a perfectly accurate observation (I'm safe, she's gone to bed now.....) about Filipino crews; I don't know a single British officer amongst a rather numerous acquaintance who, having sailed with Filipinos, would go back to Jolly Jack.

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[Birdseye]

Re: Only teasing...

Talked my way on to the bridge of the Bilbao ferry last year, and was astounded to be told that they had only had gps for the past couple of years or so. Their nav kit was no better than that on my cruiser.

The US navy paid as much as $500 for a pair of plyers (?) through the official purchasing system. Any bets that our Navy is any different?

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[Peppermint]

Re: Ferries & The US budget

Ferries companies have got their act together recently. I traveled on the bridge of the Stena Hollandica a few times before the security tightened up. It's a new truck ferry and it's got all the bells and whistles. On leaving the quay the bridge crew is a helmsman and two officers. They drive it off the quay at Parkstone, from the bridge wing, with the thrusters. Then they handsteer down to Harwich and the helmsman is stood down and the two officers moniter the radars and keep watch while the machines take it out of the harbour along the channels and over to Holland. They sit behind hugh screens that integrate radar chartplotter and all of the other ships systems. It is interesting to note on the trip down harbour that the buoyage suffer's from a sort of paralax effect on the screen. Charted position and actual position all in glorious technicolour.

As to US forces overpaying for equipment you could by in Tesco's, and example I was told was B52 navigators seats have castors that cost 3$ from a DIY shop or 150$ from Boeing, it's long been accepted that the additional monies fund projects that congress won't pay for. Another explanation could also be that the military do run away with testing things they use to the Nth degree. Expensive stuff testing.
There is a story that the space shuttle hasn't got to pentium technology for its computers yet, it's still stuck with 486 stuff. The testing is so rigorous that they're always about five steps behind the cutting edge.

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