SAFETY4SEA Focus - Q1 2018

8 SAFETY 4SEA I issue 01 I Q1 2018 safety4sea.com ARTICLE What may go wrong? 1. Over-reliance. With an equip- ment which is seemingly fool- proof, there is a tendency for navigators to over rely on it. 2. Too much information on screen may cause clutter and can be distracting. The navigator may lose critical minutes on non- important items while decisions should be taken. 3. Complacency due to automatic plotting of position . As positions on paper charts were “past positions” the navigator conti- nually checked them again and again. Now the real time position creates a false safe emotion and the feeling that a last time response will be enough. 4. Wrong settings. Considering that ECDIS is an equipment system, if wrong settings are installed, the information provided to naviga- tor will not be accurate. Just try it by yourself. Put the safety depth to 10m and see the navi- gationable sea area. Then do the same with 20m safety depth. The difference of the area may lead to accidents as the safety feeling is created by wrong pa- rameters. 5. Alarm fatigue. If alarms start going off too frequently, the navigator could end up in the situation of acknowledging the alarm even without checking what it was. Eventually he will run out of luck and there could be an occasion where he might miss out on a critical warning, such as approaching a danger. 6. Too many different systems. Navigation on paper charts was a skill which had to be mastered just once. It was then just routine practice which kept one in tune with things. However, this does not happen with ECDIS. Differ- ent vessels will have different types of ECDIS equipment. Even if the essential features are the same, it still takes a lot of fiddling around until one gets comfor- table with the machine. 7. Lack of ENCs for certain trading areas which require the addi- tional paper charts carriage. C onsidering that most accidents are contributed to the human element, ECDIS has come along in order to try and change the landscape. However, there are many cases which showcase the new technology involves many challenges that cannot be ignored. The improper use of ECDIS can result in accidents; therefore a change in operators’ mindset is required. As goes with all cases, firstly, it is important to identify the risks and not to show over- reliance on this new technology. For that purpose, a close look to the system itself is required. Industry stakeholders have discussed a lot about the pros and cons of paperless navigation concluding that ECDIS does have an edge over the traditional paper chart navigation. ECDIS: A useful tool