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The subject of this paper is the merchant marine user requirements for position fixing systems (a merchant marine with approximately 40000 ships operating). These requirements are varied and can be summarized as follows:(i) accuracy(ii) availability (possible fix frequency)(iii) reliability(iv) coverage(v) user skill and workload(vi) presentation of information(vii) ambiguity(viii) environmental constraints(ix) operational constraints(x) system control(xi) system user costs.These eleven requirement elements should together serve the two basic purposes of merchant marine navigation: (a) provide a service adequate for safety and (b) enhance economic performance/benefit.

For hundreds of years ships have roamed the oceans at random, serving the trades according to the prevailing supply and demand; each vessel taking care of itself, none caring about the whole transport and traffic pattern, but each one willing to assist and save unfortunate brothers in distress. This historic and very individualistic pattern of maritime transport operations, with as little interference, regulation and control as possible, is called by some ‘freedom of the sea’. In the minds of generations of seafarers there is instilled the idea that this utter freedom of operation was in essence the proper interpretation of being master under God. Away from the home port nobody could interfere in the way the ship was managed or the voyage proceeded. Even selling the ship abroad was a possibility on which the master could decide.

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When planning the replacement of an existing shore-based radar advice chain, which may have admirably served the port area under consideration for the past fifteen or twenty years, a number of basic elements have to be reviewed. The review and the ensuing process of analysis should be steps towards the adoption of a basic philosophy for the eventual development of a replacement system; this is necessary to judge requirements in relation to the many possible solutions, ranging from a simple shore-based radar advice service to sophisticated vessel traffic management systems. Elements for consideration include:(i) The area to be served, present and future.(ii) The traffic pattern, present and future.(iii) The technology available or under development.(iv) The other operational and administrative services available to shipping.(v) The quality of manning and manning scales.(vi) The economics of the shipping industry.(vii) The cost of the new system.(viii) The distribution of this cost over shipping and the community in general.(ix) Legal aspects.Besides these factual considerations and their analysis we should develop a philosophy regarding the aims of the system, which could be an improvement in port operation efficiency, in traffic safety, or in vessel turn-around time. The realization of these aims will probably result in economic benefits both for the port and for shipping and these will have to be weighed when investigating the distribution of system cost over shipping and the community in general.

The 1972 Collision Regulations, which came into force in July 1977, strengthen the injunction on all vessels to keep a proper lookout by making it the subject of a separate Rule rather than including it in a general statement relating to the ordinary practice of seamen. The old Rule which laid down that nothing in the Rules would exonerate any vessel from the consequences of (amongst other things) ‘any neglect to keep a proper lookout’ virtually left what constitutes a proper lookout to the Courts. Rule 5 of the 1972 Regulations is much more specific. It reads: ‘Every vessel shall at all times maintain a proper lookout by sight and hearing as well as by all available means appropriate in the prevailing circumstances and conditions so as to make a full appraisal of the situation and the risk of collision’. The Regulations apply in effect to ‘every description of water craft’ although it is reasonable to suppose from their source that the kind of vessel most in mind, unless otherwise stated, is the power-driven ship rather than, say, sampans or dugout canoes.

Marine traffic can be defined as the combination of individual ship movements in a specified area and the ‘quality’ of marine traffic depends in the first place on the human and technical quality of the vessels participating. The second important situation is in the rules and regulations by which the individual vessels are bound. In some areas these two conditions seem inadequate to guarantee an acceptable level of marine traffic safety. An adequate yardstick by which to measure this level of safety is however still lacking.

Perhaps the main concern of the Master today should be to foresee the future and adapt himself to it, but that is true for everybody. The gradual change in his position is apparent. Sixty years ago sailing announcements always mentioned the ship's name and her Master's name together, they formed an inseparable unit; today we may look in vain for the Master's name in such announcements. Such outward signs merely illustrate a gradual decline in the Master's position within the overall shipping company hierarchy, though not in the hierarchy on board. It is the result of totally new involvements of shipping management as our society in general becomes more complex and interdependent.

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Reduce speed, stop engines, navigate with caution. There can be little doubt that there will be very few legal obligations that are so consistently ignored as Rule 16 of the Collision Regulations at Sea. Yet the circumstance to which Rule 16 applies, reduced visibility, is only one of the causes for reducing speed and the factors involved in the decision to accept delay may prove interesting and revealing. It is the purpose of this paper to stimulate further investigation into the subject, an investigation that will certainly require the cooperation of ship owners associations and master mariner organizations and which could well be carried out by the Marine Science Departments of such advanced educational institutions as for example University of Wales Institute of Science and Technology in Cardiff.

beyond the continental shelf is being decided, or by permitting overfishing to continue uncurbed. The readability of the book continues to the end. Such a book, which stands head and shoulders above contemporary popular writing on oceanography, could hardly have been written by an oceanographer. To elaborate upon the proverb, the authors have been able to describe the whole broad scientific and commercial business of oceanography as the airman sees the complex pattern of a great forest, whereas the toiling woodman below sees but a few trees. There are many excellent illustrations and carefully prepared line diagrams to illustrate the text; there is also a very extensive and useful bibliography. That a leading geophysicist who has spent a lifetime studying the structure of the Earth beneath the sea, Sir Edward Bullard, F.R.S., has contributed a Preface is proof enough that the authors have made their deductions from proven scientific fact. G. S. Ritchie

The principles and practice of routing are well established and well known today, 12 years after the conception and 5 years after the introduction of the idea in Western European waters. It is the accelerated rate of change that makes it necessary to review the present situation and consider some permanent form of review, and plan development and improvement when necessary. The changes are technological, social, political and economic. The technological changes seem predictable, are measurable and can be caught in mathematical models, and consequently are ideally suitable for modern research techniques. The econometrist endeavours to do the same with economic changes. The much later application of mathematics to often empirical data is however bound to render results with greater variance in the answers.

A Manual of Routing - Ships' Routeing and Traffic Separation Schemes. Inter-Governmental Maritime Consultative Organization, 10 pages+69 chartlets, water-resistant cover, 1970, 40s. - Volume 24 Issue 1

The collision, in October 1970 in the English Channel, between the Liberian registered tankers Pacific Glory and Allegro may be thought to have brought an element of timeliness to the arguments advanced in this paper in favour of an international disciplinary court of justice and international standards for certificates of competency.Dr. Buzek is both a Master Mariner and a Doctor at Law; Captain Wepster, the Institute's gold medallist for 1970, is with the Holland America Line.In a speech before the seventh meeting of the Cultural Council of Europe, Dr. Mansholt expressed the opinion that in our highly industrialized western world, the time has arrived when environment is of equal importance with economy. On a world-wide scale we need general agreements on acceptable noise levels and pollution, with binding rules for industry, transport and agriculture as well as international control on the observance of these rules.

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Although the merchant navy is one of the earliest users of navigation, it is today by no means the most spectacular user, especially in comparison with present-day hovercraft and the coming supersonic civil aircraft. This absence of the spectacular is, however, not due to lack of imagination or progressiveness, but stems from very natural circumstances. These circumstances are the relatively low-if not the lowest-transportation speed, the application of the laws of Archimedes to obtain the required carrying capacity, and the laws of economics which dictate a delicate balance between investments and net revenue.