Seaways – August 2019

32   | Seaways | August 2019 Read Seaways online at http://www.nautinst.org/seaways

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Master/pilot relationship

Î Much is being written about

Master/pilot relationship and there

is an emphasis on downplaying the

value of the pilot’s responsibilities

and function. I performed many

acts of pilotage in a variety of ships

and on none of those occasions

did I pilot a ship by giving advice

and Masters were always satisfi ed. I

have never disputed the fact that

the Master remains in command of

his ship, but I was always conscious

of the fact that I was responsible

for the safety of the ship and for

the safety of the harbour. I state in

my book Practical Ship Handling

that the Master rightly claims that

it is ‘his ship’, but I was always

aware that it was ‘my harbour’.

As an apprentice I fi rst noted the

entry in the log book that said

‘helm and engines to Master’s

orders and pilot’s advice’ and yet I

saw and heard all orders coming

from the pilot and I wondered why

the Master, by his log entry,

apparently absolved the pilot from

any responsibility. I concluded that

the pilot’s orders, by mutual

consent, were considered to be

orders from the Master.

There have been articles in

Seaways that tell us how the

captain of a cruise ship is able to

handle his own ship without help

from the pilot and without even

getting up from his chair in the

wheelhouse. Of course, on cruise

ships there is also a deputy captain,

the chief offi cer, at least one other

offi cer, one or two deck hands and

probably a cadet as well, all on the

bridge during the pilotage. Only

on warships have I seen a larger

bridge team. On many ships in my

experience there was the captain,

most of the time, usually one

watchkeeping offi cer most of the

time and a deck hand at the wheel;

there were sometimes other

personnel including a cadet on

some ships and perhaps another

deck hand part of the time; bridge

resource management and joint

passage planning was minimal

with such a small group of people.

Invariably, I was treated with

respect and thanks on arrival and

departure from the bridge.

In the March 2019 Seaways

there is a letter in which the

correspondent states that pilots

‘are not in any sense responsible

for the navigation of the vessel’.

This is not true and is an insult to

the integrity of pilots. If the pilot

has no responsibility, how come

both Master and pilot were given

suspended jail sentences and

considerable fi nes for their part in

the collision involving City of

Rotterdam? (The pilot was given

the heavier of the two fi nes.)

In the May 2019 issue of Seaways

there is an article about training

pilots. Bridge resource

management (BRM) was unheard

of when I was Master and when I

was a pilot. It is now an accepted

way of life on board ships under

pilotage, but it can be taken too

far. In the article I refer to it states

that the pilot and the ship’s

personnel must have exactly the

same plan for the passage from

boarding to berth. The author

refers to several mishaps involving

ships under pilotage and makes

the point that most of the

incidents occurred when the ship

was altering course. The author of

this article also suggests that, with

all the electronic assistance now

available, the training time for a

pilot could be shorter. I would

suggest that perhaps it should be

longer, as piloting a ship cannot be

likened to a video game.

I was a pilot in Sydney and

Botany Bay, Australia, for more

than 20 years and in that time I

conducted more than 4,000 acts of

pilotage and I never had a single

serious incident. During those

years there was only one serious

incident in the port of Sydney and

that was a collision between a

piloted ship and a regular trading

coastal ship whose Master was

exempt from pilotage. I call it

serious because any collision can

have serious consequences, but as

collisions go, this was not a very

bad one and there was no injury or

loss of life and very little damage.

I never heard the term ‘wheel

over position’ until I took a course

in the use of radar and that was a

few years into my career as a pilot.

At that time rate-of-turn indicators

were not standard equipment and

radar was not mandatory.

As you enter Sydney harbour

there is very soon a 90° turn to port

at the fairway buoy to enter a

southbound channel. Where is the

‘wheel over position’? I was never

told but I soon learned that it

varied and depended upon the

ship, the wind and the tide. It was

always my practice to start the turn

slowly in plenty of time to maintain

control. If I had a precise plan that

matched the precise plan of the

ship’s bridge team, the Master or

the OOW might have said ‘Pilot,

aren’t you turning too soon? We

are not at the wheel over position

yet’. Or perhaps he would have said

‘why are you north of the agreed

track?’

I executed that turn many, many

times and I never missed the

southbound channel and never

went aground. Between the

fairway buoy and the container

terminal or the tanker berth there

were three more right angle turns.

At the last of these locations there

were always tugs in attendance

and there could not be a precise

wheel over position.

I am not against sensible use of

electronic aids and on one

occasion I piloted a container ship

by radar in fog that was so thick

that I passed under the Sydney

Harbour Bridge without seeing it.

The Master did not question any of

my actions.

Capt Malcolm Armstrong FNI

Pender Island BC, Canada

Î I am a master student at

World Maritime University,

currently working on a thesis

about a bottom-up assessment

approach to improve safety

culture on board ships with the

help of leadership from senior

offi cers and teamwork between

crew members.

I believe that this thesis can

help to improve safety culture

as well as reducing accidents

caused by human error due

to lack of co-operation and

communication between crew

members. In order to improve

the validity of my thesis, I need

opinions of seafarers from all over

the world.

I would be delighted if

members of The Nautical

Institute could help me by taking

part in a short survey via Google.

http://bit.ly/32yH012

Soe Htut

World Maritime University,

[email protected]

Safety culture research