Nice bit of navigation !

Warm comfortable chair at the control centre on the bridge. Easy roll, and slight pitch. The vessel on auto-pilot. Small crew; so one man alone on the bridge. The eyes just flutter closed. A tiny hint of sleep..............................ooops.

Happened before off the Scillies going the other way, will happen again.

Answer, make the minimum crew sizes larger so a proper watch can be maintained.
 
Mariner69 said:
Warm comfortable chair at the control centre on the bridge. Easy roll, and slight pitch. The vessel on auto-pilot. Small crew; so one man alone on the bridge. The eyes just flutter closed. A tiny hint of sleep..............................ooops.

Happened before off the Scillies going the other way, will happen again.

Answer, make the minimum crew sizes larger so a proper watch can be maintained.
Click to expand...

Be off with you, and take your commonsense with you! The IMO sets manning levels; the IMO is made up of Flag States; the Flag States are mostly in the pockets of the shipowners; things that cost the shipowners money tend not to get into the regulations unless it seriously and visibly impacts upon safety(less important) or insurance costs(very important).
 
crewing

I find it ever amazing that a shipowner will spend millions on a state of the art vessel, and then crew it with the least number and cheapest officers he can find. Then work them to fatigue levels.
They then wonder why 'we can't get good people to stay at sea'.
 
On the subject of owners saving money.

A number of years ago, I investigated a grounding in the Red Sea.

The Chief Officer, from the Phillipines, took a bearing of the sun as it set (amplitude) but didn't calculate the compass error; too busy said he.

He was some 10 degrees to right of the required track, heading north and moving further to the right as the watch continued. He didn't bother to bring the vessel back on course and just drew a line back from the next intended track to meet his path over the ground where he altered to the new course, albeit 5 miles further to the east than he should have been. Not good seamanship but not in itself overly dangerous; if you know what you are doing.

He was on auto-pilot at about 12 knots, a large bulk carrier. The time was about 1910 hours.

The Chief Officer then went behind the bridge curtains to the chart table in order to 'calculate the amplitude'.

At about 1940 hours, the crew member who was look out went down to call the next watch. During the period since altering course the gyro compass had developed a slow wander and the ship had altered course to the east in a large arc without anybody noticing.

They noticed they were aground at about 1950 when the ship stopped moving and engine made a funny noise!!

The Master came to the bridge and managed to destroy the engine by ridiculous manoevres without thought. The only charted object on the shore was a large tree conspic. The soundings were incomplete from the 1875 survey so there was no certainty of position, notwithstanding the GPS fitted on the vessel.

Two things came clear to me during my time onboard. The Greek Master did not know that you can calculate compass errors using azimuths (1990's this was) the Chief Officer could not understand what he had done could be in any way wrong.

Secondly on my old ships we had a small liquid compass in a bowl with two mirrors, one small the other large, stuck on the top of the card.

You altered course, set up the autopilot then went to this device.

On the top of the compass was a small bar which had a light inside and a shielded light reacting cell. You adjusted the position of the arm so the light shone on the mirror of choice; either 5 or 10 degrees. If the vessel deviated off course, due to outside reasons, wandering gyro etc., the compass card would move in relation to the light beam and the reflection would not enter the cell, an alarm would sound; very loud and very urgent.

The cost of this equipment about GBP 500.

It costs more to change the vessel's name and paint the funnel.

You can guess which is given priority.

The best part came when the pirates got involved. I don't think I have had so much fun without having to pay for the pleasure.
 
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