4 | Seaways | August 2019 Read Seaways online at http://www.nautinst.org/seawaysO
ver the past years there has been a lot of discussion regarding
the education of deck cadets. The Honourable Company of
Master Mariners (HCMM) recently hosted a Future Maritime
Skills Conference – a well-received and long overdue event
with the aim of improving the training and education of young seafarers
in the UK.
Those among us who have recently gone through the full system from
cadet to Master Mariner realise how outdated the syllabus is in relation
to modern seafaring. The Merchant Navy Training Board is building
future competence by proposing that outdated subjects be removed and
replaced with increased time in the simulator. There are areas of a deck
offi cer’s education that are completely redundant, such as the teaching
of union purchase derricks, manual radar plotting and communication by
Morse code.
However, the recent proposal to remove celestial navigation from the
education of UK cadets may be a step ahead of its time.
On the purely logistical side, celestial navigation is a requirement for
Offi cer of the Watch training as stated in the IMO’s Standards of Training,
Certifi cation and Watchkeeping (STCW) Convention. Therefore, imposing
change like this is not as simple as forwarding a proposal to an individual
country’s fl ag administration. Removing subjects from STCW requires far-
reaching participation from all member states at IMO level.GNSS vulnerabilities
I am sure current seafaring readers are aware that celestial navigation
is an art rarely practised these days, as a consequence of the increased
resilience of global navigation satellite systems. The increased robustness
of satellite navigation can only be a good thing. GNSS is fantastic – when
it works.
Those working ashore or outside the maritime sphere may be unaware
of the vulnerabilities of GNSS. Unintentional outage of signal may be
caused by phenomena such as solar fl ares, clock failure or space debris
shutting down satellites. This would be an unlikely ‘doomsday’ scenario.
However, the more likely intentional disruption of signal by spoofi ng
and jamming of GNSS signals is cause for concern, and reporting of
such issues is on the increase. Jamming devices are readily available
for purchase online and can be used to target individual vessels. It is
foreseeable that these devices could be hidden inside containers or
perhaps used by rogue passengers to disrupt the safe passage of a vessel.
For navigators to realise there is an issue with GNSS, they must practise
cross-checking their position at regular intervals. For coastal navigation it
is commonplace and appropriate to use methods such as radar range and
bearing, visual bearings and echo sounder.
But what do you use when crossing the Atlantic Ocean, when terrestrial
navigation is not possible? How will your company react when your
container vessel has been taken off -track and routed into a piracy area
as you passively follow your GNSS receiver? What will the headlines say
when your 3,000-plus passenger vessel’s GNSS has no signal – and the
ship’s offi cers are not equipped with the knowledge to sail the vessel to
an appropriate landfall and safe haven?The future
I do not believe we are yet in a position to completely remove celestial
navigation from the curriculum. We still need a level of redundancy,
which is the navigators themselves. As matters stand, it is conceivable
that a court could hold a vessel to be unseaworthy if no one on board was
capable of practising the art of celestial navigation.
Having said this, I do believe that we can streamline and improve the
method of teaching of celestial navigation without approaching the
IMO. At the moment the Royal Navy spends far less time educating its
offi cers in celestial navigation than the Merchant Navy does. Time is saved
by removing lengthy calculations and replacing them with computer
software (NavPac). This reduces human error and also the workload on
the OOW when taking sights and fi xing position. If it were to be adopted,
NavPac or similar software would have to become mandatory aboard
UK-fl agged vessels. I doubt this would be a problem, however, as such
programmes are commercially available. In contrast, the carriage of a
sextant on board is not a SOLAS requirement for any vessel; there is
therefore a true disconnect between actual practice at sea and IMO
convention. So are we already setting ourselves up for failure?Will we always need celestial navigation?
Inertial navigation systems are used on board military submarines. They
are highly accurate, but currently too expensive for use in the surface
merchant fl eet. In the future when this technology becomes commercially
available, it is possible that it will provide suffi cient redundancy to actively
monitor the quality of GNSS data, allow users to recognise failure of
GNSS and reliably navigate the vessel to a safe haven in the event of such
failure. In the meantime, it is interesting to note that in 2016 the US Navy
returned to educating midshipmen in celestial navigation, almost 20
years after the subject had been erased from the syllabus.
I take comfort from the fact that during the HCMM Future Skills
Conference, it was the serving seafarers in the room who were lobbying
to retain celestial navigation in STCW, in contrast to those representing
shoreside organisations. We must continue to discuss the future provision
of maritime education and training to fi nd practical amendments and
solutions to today’s issues.Are we prepared to let go of the past?
Over the past 10 years Greig has worked his way from cadet to
Master Mariner. His experience includes buoy tenders, dredgers
and North Sea standby vessels. Most recently he moved from
Chief Offi cer on military support vessels to off shore platform
supply vessels.Chief Offi cer’s column
Greig Laird MNI