Collision at Sea in Fog: The Commonsense Approach

Abstract

Recent correspondence in the Shipping Press brings to mind many of the sayings, writings and judgments of the last 10 years and stimulates thought once more in search of some basic weakness in the partnership between the seaman and his radar which, all too often, turns the risk of collision into the fact. Re-examination of the circumstances of some of the better annotated and sometimes more publicized cases is frustrating, partly because of the lack of personal detail in the evidence and partly because some of the conclusions which may be drawn point to failure of bridge personnel to understand the obvious fundamentals and so suggest that there must be undisclosed and more complicated causes. This latter, it is believed, is debatable.