Deck Officers Research Articles

対話型舶用機関運転支援システムの概念設計

A new concept of a support system for marine engine system operation using oral communication and simulator techniques based on the chief engineer's knowledge and his experiments has been studied. In the near future, a deck officer who is inexperience it will operate the marine engine system. The emergency and ordinary start-stop conditions of the engine system easily make the crew operate incorrectly which leads the engine system failure status because of complicated procedures for an inexperienced one. Commonly intellectual automatic control system is introduced to cope with this situation, though it can only operate the engine system for a load change and indicate the troubling parts of the engine system. We have proposed and been developing the Chief engineer system (CE-SYS) which instructs the crew about the preferable operation in each step of the engine conditions. These instructions are made by the CE-SYS, which acts as the chief engineer's behavior using the engine system status simulator and the database of the chief engineer's knowledge.The CE-SYS has some features and merits as follows;(1) The oral communication and the graphics display techniques are adopted to communicate between the crew and the CE-SYS.(2) The crew receives proper instructions of the engine system operation from the CE-SYS.(3) The CE-SYS understands by setting a condition on the engine system status simulator same as the engine system current condition.(4) The crew studies the proper procedures from orders made by the CE-SYS.One of the purposes of the CE-SYS is to train the crew up to expert engineers.It is quite different from the purpose of the ordinary automatic system, which is to operate or to control directory the engine system without the crews operation.

Unrealistic Optimism: Present and Future

Unrealistic Optimism: Present and Future

Sufficient Grounds for Optimism?: The Relationship Between Perceived Controllability and Optimistic Bias

Evidence that perceived controllability is associated with optimistic bias is reviewed. There is sufficient evidence that people are optimistically biased about negative events they perceive to be controllable. More work is needed to establish whether this is also true of positive events. There is evidence also that people often hold beliefs of their personal superiority on control-related dimensions. More experimental studies testing hypotheses about the mechanisms linking perceived control and optimistic bias are required. Future work should also expand the sophistication with which control is treated conceptually and empirically and the range of potential mechanisms examined.

The BP Oil Tanker Structural Monitoring System

BP Oil Company time-charters a fleet of American-flag tankers for the ocean transportation of crude oil and petroleum products to the East, West and Gulf Coasts of the United States. Commencing in 1991, ship response and structural monitoring instrumentation was installed on the four ships of the Atigun Pass-class. These crude carriers are operated in the Trans-Alaska Pipeline Service, or "TAPS" trade, sailing the waters of the North Pacific Ocean and Gulf of Alaska. The structural monitoring systems were designed to measure the effects of subjecting a ship to the typical loads and forces encountered while at sea: hogging, sagging, slamming, hydrostatic pressure, and hull girder springing. Additionally, BP was interested in developing a system that could provide shiphandling guidance to the master or watch officer so that the detrimental effects of prolonged exposure to such loads and forces could be effectively minimized. The paper describes in detail the physical arrangement of the BP Oil Tanker Structural Monitoring System (BPSMS), including the suite of sensors employed to measure ship responses and hull girder stresses. It explains how the response data collected by the sensors is analyzed by the onboard computer located on the ship's bridge and how ship response data are presented back to the deck officers via a family of display monitor screens. These displays provide the officers with a "tool" that can be used to effectively monitor the physical and structural response of their ship to waves, and to quantify, in terms of lowering the wave bending moment and reducing the risk of slamming, the result of an action or actions taken to minimize the risk of incurring structural damage. Onboard ship response and structural monitoring is now an integral part of BP's tanker fleet structural management program. The units have greatly increased the awareness of the ship's officers regarding their role in helping to control the amount of structural damage done to the ships. Data from the units have also helped management make more informed decisions regarding operational requirements placed on the ships.

English in maritime radiotelephony

ABSTRACT: Recent attention on English as the international maritime language has focused on Seaspeak for deck officers, the equivalent of Airspeak for airline pilots. However, Seaspeak is not the only reduced language used at sea, and this study draws attention to the language of the ship's radio officer in the setting up of telephone link calls between the ship and the shore telephone network. Although the format for such communication has to some extent been officially standardized into a reduced language, these procedures do not cover all eventualities, while features of natural language such as elision and varied politeness strategies persist, and unanticipated problems such as communication difficulties also result in departures from the standard procedures. Current trends in shipping policy are leading to a decline in the proportion of native English speakers among radio officers, and even to the redundancy of radio officers in general. This paper argues for the continuing role of shipboard communication specialists, and the necessity for adequate linguistic preparation during their training.

Knowledge Representation and Reasoning in a Real‐Time Operational Control System: The Shipboard Piloting Expert System (SPES)*

ABSTRACTThis paper describes a knowledge representation approach and reasoning implementation in a real‐time knowledge‐based control system (KBCS) for navigating ships in restricted waters. This shipboard piloting expert system (SPES) is being developed as an intelligent node in Sperry Marine's ExxBridge integrated ship's bridge system (IBS) for Exxon Shipping Company tankers. The SPES is intended to provide decision support to ships' navigation officers while piloting large vessels in restricted waters, and to reduce the information overload under which they labor, by incorporating local, transit‐specific, and shiphandling knowledge, and by providing requisite decision support in a timely fashion. As such, the system provides decision support to (1) senior ships' pilots training junior pilots; (2) ships' masters training junior deck officers in the essentials of good piloting and shiphandling; and (3) watchstanding deck officers utilizing the system's on‐line reminder and assist capabilities, or off‐line simulation and contingency planning functionality.

Reflections While Moving On

L OOKING back over one's career from the vantage point of retirement can be a sobering experience. The route can be traveled only once; there is no turning back for another try. One sees so many forks at which one might have made a different choice or a better investment of time and energy, with more fruitful results. But in general I feel reasonably satisfied with a career that I terminated when the time seemed right, when I felt ready for a new direction. That, I believe, is the ideal way to enter retirement. Neither of my parents attended college, but both were caring, energetic, intelligent people who encouraged their children to achieve. As I was endowed with a mind that, at best, was good but not brilliant, whatever I was able to learn as a student in the public schools of Cranston, Rhode Island, was gained by diligent application. In the process I discovered that I enjoyed learning, even though Latin was a struggle and chemistry a near disaster. Quite early I succumbed to the romantic lure of the past, and for a while aspired to a career in archaeology. At Brown University, however, I eventually majored in English with a strong minor in history. By the time of my senior year, having studied under such inspiring historians as Sinclair W. Armstrong, Robert H. George, and James B. Hedges, I decided that I preferred history to literature, but by then it was too late to change the major, so I was graduated with honors in English. That sound training in both literature and composition I have never regretted, for it, combined with my earlier exposure to Latin, has contributed substantially to whatever ability I may have in the writing of readable prose. I enjoyed college so much (even as a townie) and developed such a rosy view of the professoriat, that I simply wanted to go on spending my years in the academic environment. Quite definitely, I had chosen my career. The Second World War intervened, as it did for most of us who were emerging in I942, with the result that I spent nearly four years as a deck officer in the navy. That experience proved to be profoundly memorable for me in a way which I eventually tried to share with others through a personal memoir recently published by the Kent State University Press.' Publicly, I have been at pains to urge others who also lived through that war, especially those who later became trained researchers and writers, to

Analysis of Radar PAD Information and a Suggestion to Reshape the PAD

Potential points of collision (PPC) and predicted areas of danger (PAD) are used in marine radars for assessment of risk of collision and of action to avoid collision. Both are useful concepts for automatic radar plotting aids (ARPA) which lead to a better understanding of collision avoidance. The PAD display, developed by Sperry Ltd, is a graphic form3 alternative to the vector display. More information can be obtained from the PAD display than from the vector display but additional knowledge is necessary for the mariner to correctly interpret and use the information. The IMO Resolution on ARPA Performance Standards emphasizes the need for deck officers to understand the basic principles involved in the use of the equipment. In this paper consideration will be given to the information obtained from the PAD display and a suggestion will be made for possible improvement of the shape of the PAD.

BOOK REVIEWS

Book reviewed in this article:Recent Advances in Planetary Meteorology. Edited by Garry HuntMaritime Meteorology: A Guide for Deck Officers. By C. W. Roberts and C. E. N. FrankcomAurora: the northern lights in mythology, history and science. By Harald Falck‐Ytter with photographs by Torbjörn LövgrenClimatic hazards in Scotland. Edited by S. J. HarrisonQuaternary Paleoclimatology: methods of paleoclimatic reconstruction. By R. S. Bradley

Maritime meteorology—A guide for deck officers, Charles W. Roberts and C. E. N. Frankcom, Thomas Reed Publications Ltd., 1985. No. of pages: 258. Price: £11.50

Maritime meteorology—A guide for deck officers, Charles W. Roberts and C. E. N. Frankcom, Thomas Reed Publications Ltd., 1985. No. of pages: 258. Price: £11.50

Neither Officers nor Gentlemen

Pushed, pulled and nudged by coal-burning tugs throwing out clouds of black, bitter smoke, my very first ship, loaded to her marks with Australian wool, frozen lamb and beef, lumbered into Liverpool's Canada Dock. It was a damp, chill early-morning in January, 1956, and my first trip as an apprentice merchant ship's deck officer had almost ended. This rather old memory does not surface very often but that arrival and a great deal more welled into my consciousness with the stunning discovery that lying now on shelves in the National Maritime Museum's annexe in the old Woolwich Arsenal are pieces of my own history. Excited and incredulous, I recently flicked through an album of group photographs of ship's officers deposited by the New Zealand Shipping Company and it did not take long to find myself with my old shipmates from that trip on the Durham that began in Falmouth in the summer of 1955. A full circle had been turned and I was studying myself, my own experience, as history. The New Zealand Shipping Company had been a subsidiary of the P&O group since the First World War but was operated as an independent company until the late 1960s. The NZS was one of those prideful and paternalist companies which at some time early in the 20th century decided to take 'voyage photographs' and had never subsequently thought to question the habit. Every ship, on departure for Australia or New Zealand, mustered its officers in front of a camera. That this material was kept and is now in a national museum will seem apposite to those of us brought up in the elitist traditions of those elegant and superbly

Structured Evaluation of Computer-Based Training Systems

The U. S. Coast Guard must, under the Port and Tanker Safety Act of 1978, establish standards for “qualification for licenses by use of simulators for the practice or demonstration of marine-related skills.” These standards will involve granting partial credit toward licenses for “approved” simulator training. Research has produced approval guidelines for ship simulator courses for merchant marine deck officers and cadets to become third mates. These documents may also help training designers and/or may be used by industry personnel shopping around for simulator training. The result is a robust, but user-friendly evaluation guide. The basic rationale can be adapted to other specific subject-student categories.

A Critical Review of the Fix Accuracy and Reliability of Electronic Marine Navigation Systems

The Merchant Marine Deck Officer's navigational responsibility is to guide his vessel safely from port to port. He is not trained to be an electronics specialist, nor can he be expected to be a computer expert. Above all, the navigator cannot be required to be familiar with the formidable number of publications which address the subject of Electronic Navigation Systems and their fix accuracies. These publications have been generated around a fundamentally straightforward task, which a few years ago was very effectually accomplished by celestial navigation and prudence on the part of the Deck Officer. Successful navigation then and now is the direct result of the accuracy of the fix. This paper reviews and summarizes operational data as to the accuracy of positions obtainable from Global Navigational Systems (Celestial, Omega, Transit, integrated Transit/Omega and NAVSTAR) and Coastal Navigation Systems (LORAN-C and Decca).

Empirical Investigation of Simulator/Training System Characteristics

A cohesive research program has been initiated by the Computer Aided Operations Research Facility (CAORF) of the National Maritime Research Center to investigate the simulator-based training system. This research program has been focusing on characteristics of the simulator and other training system elements, to evaluate their relative cost effectiveness in the achievement of deck officer training objectives. This joint U.S. Coast Guard/Maritime Administration project seeks to delineate the role of the ship bridge simulator in the mariner training and licensing process. This paper will present a brief overview of this CAORF training research program. Furthermore, it will present the research findings to date at both the master/chief mate and cadet levels. Particular emphasis will be placed on the results of the master level investigation. A major product of this research program will be the development of training system acceptance criteria for use by the U.S. Coast Guard in the approval of simulator-based training programs for meeting some licensing requirements. These will constitute a major product of the current phase of the investigation. The approach being followed to develop this product will be summarized, as well as insight provided into the likely role of the ship bridge simulator in the deck officer training and licensing process in the near future.

The Flight Deck Officer

The Flight Deck Officer

Electronic Navigation Requirements of the Japanese Marine Deck Officer

The authors wanted to analyze the same situation for the Japanese deck officer as used by M.H. Carpenter and W.M. Waldo in their article, Electronic Navigation Requirements of the Merchant Marine Deck Office. For this purpose, the authors prepared the same questionnaire and distributed it to the same number of deck officers, 120. The work of Carpenter and Waldo was completed in 1973, while this research was conducted during the spring of 1975. It is therefore important to take into consideration this time lag of two to three years which has brought about great advances in the merchant marine. It is hoped that this report however may serve to complete the general outline of the deck officers' attitude toward electronic navigational equipment in both the U.S. and Japan.

The Fully Automatic Radar Plotter in the Context of Some Past Collisions—I

In 196 two papers by Captain Wylie on ‘Legal aspects of radar and collision’ were published in this Journal (18, 203, 402). Captain Wylie here reviews some of these cases, and other similar cases, in the light of the further information that might have been available on the bridge had the vessels concerned been equipped with modern automatic radar plotting equipment.The object of this series is to examine the circumstances of a number of collisions, selected at random, to see whether the various encounters would have been likely to develop adversely had either or both ships been equipped with a fully automatic radar plotter (FARP). The argument could of course have been developed using various devised situations, but it was felt that a more convincing result would be achieved against a background of documented disasters. All the incidents chosen have been the subjects of Court Cases or Official Investigations; only in the Andrea Doria–Stockholm collision was there no conclusion, as the case was withdrawn from the New York District Court after the taking of evidence from the deck officers.

Absence attributed to sickness in oil tanker crews.

Absences attributed to sickness were investigated in 1410 deck and engine-room crew members during a period of two years and five months. The mean frequency of absences was 0-23 per man year, with a mean duration per absence of 41 days. The absence frequency varied with both rank and place of work. Altogether 23% of deck officers serving throughout the study and 43% of engine-room ratings had one or more absences. Spells of absence in young officers were five times more frequent when they were on leave than at sea. In the younger officers more than half of all spells that were initiated while on leave occurred at the end of the leave period. The contrasting environments of ship and shore allow the relative importance of effects on absence frequency of the work and home environment and of medical and social factors to be considered separately.

The Course of Navigation

It is commonplace nowadays to assume that modern technology is rendering inevitable the demise of the traditional navigator—in the commercial shipping world at least—and there is much discussion of what this can signify for the future. Yet at the same time there is no little confusion over what is meant, and will be meant, by the term ‘Navigator’. In the context of the Merchant Navy the truism can be made that all deck officers are navigators, and indeed that navigation has been a prime source of satisfaction to many of them; but very few are or ever have been lifetime navigators to the exclusion of all else. Certainly there are the small bands of hydrographers and specific navigators engaged in such fields as offshore work needing a high degree of accuracy, whose prime job in life this is. But they are a select and specialised group whose existence does not negate the view that for the majority of deck officers their navigation is at best part of a wider whole. So to talk of the demise of the navigator is misleading; no deck officers on merchant ships will be out of a job simply because navigation becomes less important. What they will lose is a most interesting part of their work.

Training in Maritime Technology

Reviews the training in maritime technology for deck officers in the merchant service. It does not enter into details about the extent and depth of the training syllabus but attempts to encourage viewing the syllabus as a system with many interconnecting branches and not to see it as a series of separate parallel paths ending in a common output. Fundamental principles come first and should then be applied to particular shipboard situations. Traditional training in many countries is still based on the parallel-paths concept which acts restrictively on self-training and adaptation on board ships when college training periods are past. Gradually, however, a system approach to education is emerging and university-based training and education in maritime technology may assist in adding momentum to this tendency.