As effective evaluation of navigational standards is the key for safe navigation — by Rachit Jain, Safe Lanes
A ship spends the majority of its time underway at sea, where navigation is the principal activity being undertaken. Despite advancement of navigational aids and bridge training, the risk of a navigational incident still remains one of the major concerns for charterers, ship owners and ship managers.
Although the techniques for safe navigation are well known, their execution widely depends on the professionalism of the bridge team, which may alter with changes in navigational conditions. There is no regulatory requirement to assess the effectiveness of the bridge team; however, industry standards such as Tanker Management Self-Assessment (TMSA) require tanker managers to perform various types of navigational audits on board their managed vessels, and this requirement is now becoming more common industry-wide.
How can a company effectively capture the true status of onboard navigation?
A strategic planning of combining navigational assessment with unannounced analysis of VDR data is the key to establishing the true representation of onboard navigational standards.
Statistical analysis of over 1,000+ navigational assessments and VDR analyses highlights that there is a varied difference in the types of findings that arise from these two types of audits. While findings from navigation assessments are inclined more towards record-keeping and navigational practices, findings from VDR analysis indicate bridge team behaviour and master-pilot exchange as common challenges to safety of navigation.
Based on statistics, it is fair to comment that the presence of an auditor on the bridge alters behaviour — critical findings such as situational awareness, teamwork, and leadership may not surface when the bridge team knows it is being observed, but become prominent when the bridge team is operating without supervision.
Combining scheduled navigational assessments with routine, unannounced VDR analysis gives operators a far more complete and honest picture of onboard navigational standards than either method alone.