Sailed4seas的部落格

Chapter 7

Memory and Experience– Beyond the comfort zone – becoming a Master

Memory and Experience

Memory is not the experience. We have lots of experienced seaman in shipping as the Earth keep on rotating around the Sun as this is where the experience comes through the time accumulated. Whether it is eventful or eventless will not affect the time based experience. 

"When anyone asks how I can best describe my experience in nearly 40 years at sea, I merely say, uneventful. Of course there have been winter gales, and storms and fog the like, but in all my experience, I have never been in any accident of any sort worth speaking about. ...... I never saw a wreck and never have been wrecked, nor was I ever in any predicament that threatened to end in disaster of any sort". Said Captain John Edward Smith of “RMS Titanic” which sank in 1912 and claimed 1490 life lost.  Another quote from Captain Smith:

"I cannot imagine any condition which would cause a ship to founder. I cannot conceive of any vital disaster happening to this vessel. Modern ship building has gone beyond that".

This speech well demonstrated the difference of experience and memory. To captain Edward Smith, he proudly admit his 40 years experience in shipping but never been in a memory of any accident. In his expectation of ship building had beyond any vital disaster could happening to his vessel. However the ruthless facts of foundering of “RMS Titanic” had overturned all his illusions of false sense of security. This is the crude example of how the experience can ruin our career at sea. Experience is something we used for everyday job until the accident/incident happened. We will never know our experience is enough or not. But human nature just assumes nothing happened is nothing threatened at all. The tendency of simplicity is not any one’s lazy bone but the human nature. We cannot rely on our experience only. We should open our eyes to what happened outside our own mind and what are anticipating in the industrial. Sometimes no one in the industrial can has a clear picture of what will happen in their insight which is called normalization. The way up to a captaincy is too long and winding, the attention of what could happen next is lost due to  years experience accumulated. Even the fact is so clear to an outsider one British spiritualist, William T. Stead, “Many lives are lost due to lack of lifeboats.” Stead wrote that in a story March, 1886, "This is exactly what might take place and what will take place, if the liners are sent to sea short of boats". Captain Edward Smith been written in a novel of Stead too in another novel “Old World to the New”1892. In this book, he describes the sinking of a ship in the North Atlantic after striking an iceberg. To add to the irony, the captain of the ship which picked up the survivors was Edward J. Smith -- the eventual captain of Titanic 20 years later. The author himself foresaw this possibility also drowned with “RMS Titanic “while he is invited to the United States at the request of President Taft to address a peace conference at Carnegie Hall on April 20, 1912. Even after the foundering, all newspaper but one reported passengers are all safe and the company's vice-president Phillip Franklin reassured everyone with the following statement:

"There is no danger that Titanic will sink. The boat is unsinkable and nothing but inconvenience will be suffered by the passengers".

Experience in shipping is challenged by new technology and skills.  

In shipping industrial, teams are usually mixed with different age and experience members. By this way, the tradition can be passed on generations in the past. When the resources are few, this practice is important to ensure the tradition is maintained to raise the safety standard. But this tradition is also challenged by modern technology. New generation is equipment with different skill and technology. They are graduated with professional licenses of ARPA and ECDIS. These licenses are good at all weather or weather free as we can said while the manual skill always need visual contact to make certain something important. This is the watershed which divided different generations at sea. By the time I was the third mate on board. I am the only one knows the term of “disk driver” which I paid US$ 300 for a Seagate 128K floppy disk in 1982. Is this a term we must be remembered in the generations to come? Yes. But back to then it is another barrier facing before us while we had struggled to survive at all the cruelties of the sea. The cruelties are no joke due to the limited weather forecast data and knowledge, Some Captain just sailed right on with formidable courage and mental strength to overcome the severity of sea. During my maiden voyage across the North Pacific Ocean, the sulfur vessel ahead us is foundered. Own sulfur vessel (you can always expect some plate already eroded by the sulfur somewhere) had suffered the bad weather too only one day after their casualty. I only realize this incident after finished my apprentice term and return to collage. Have I retreated from this knowledge? No. I joined the vessel again after get my third mate license and a married young wife and a daughter at home waiting.                     

As the first generation of electrical navigator, I had the licenses of RADAR observation and simulation. Before any sea experience accumulated the skill I have on Radar are the only skills I have. Any collision risk evaluation has to be ascertained on Radar screen too, this practice is no contradiction to COLREG rule 5 lookout. Daily practice accumulated as the time experienced. Radar is available on all weather condition and could be the only available means while visibility is limited, our reliance of Radar is unshakable. The problems came when the Radar Echo is too many to be plotted manually each one by one. Then new generation of ARPA comes to solve this problem. The skill of manual lookout and situation awareness are lost without notice.  

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Experience in shipping is challenged by new generation.

New generation won’t challenge experienced navigator. The experienced navigator will doubt of their own skill although it is tested by himself over times and times. Manual lookout skills is a must-be in early days while all available means should be used for proper lookout. COLREG Rule 5 requires that "every vessel shall at all times maintain a proper look-out 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 of the risk of collision.” Why bother to maintain look-out by sight when OOW are confident of the equipments they had and operated. It is only human nature to overlook the complexity of the world. Even the equipments not on board can give the OOW the sense of familiar in a strange harbor. A harbor pilot asked his senior colleague “Why the Cruiser vessel Master said nothing after his first greeting of good morning then alongside the berth without any help from local pilot?” Very smart Captain, Aha. Cruise vessel is equipped with powerful thruster bow and stern of 7000 HP each compared with the slow and powerless conventional tugs you had. Before their assignment on board, they had undertaken many times Ship Bridge simulation course in this Keelung port of yours while he is still in his home town. By that time Keelung harbor is a virtual existence in his simulator and now is what the Captain treat it as the way he used to be at home town ( a virtual Keelung port) with the familiar feeling in operation.            

Another example is the bridge equipped with two OOW seats vessel. Over 90% ship with this bridge layout, Master and OOW will occupy the seat as matter of course. Any rudder or telegraph order from local pilot will need slight movement of his hand on the panel. Master and OOW are still very diligent in their work of docking while the gossip also never stop as each will continue monitor the vessel’s movement over the monitor.

Pilot complained this two seat bridge scenario is not fair to Captain and OOW on board; looking outside the window might get them distracted if both of them are not familiar with this port. They feel comfortable of the simplicity of radar/ECDIS picture, not real world. ECDIS can also give the Captain the invariable and correct layout of own ship bow and stern relative to the strange breakwater light house or the unfamiliar wharf end. Correctly estimate the bow/stern distance to wharf is always the specialty of local pilot only, now we can see it any minute through ECDIS display with precision up to 2.5 meters. Why bother looking outside?         

Situation Awareness in new generations.

The advantage of new technology must have accompanied with some handicaps to overcome. The reflection of daylight on the monitor is one thing. They are not lazy before the monitors; they keep on moving their head position to adjust better sight of the digits displayed. The reason we need to get the feeling of our operation in all maneuvering of the vessel is because the layout of our brain. Like the best calculator operator cannot beat Mental or abacus arithmetic. Our left brain is conscious brain which is capable of handling magical 7 items while right brain are capable of high speed graphical calculation. In routine works we got the feeling to take action to avoid any uncertainty called situation awareness. If we cannot get the feeling of the works we are doing we lost the situation awareness. So there are two kind of situation awareness in this generation, left brain one is aroused by digital change and right brain is aroused by graphic change. Graphic change is immeasurable at the scene and relies on the subconscious feeling a lot. Digital change is explicit at sight but with all necessary items to be aware. Where, when and how the critical element shifted and how to monitor its digital change need a set of standard operation procedures (SOP) to follow. However the SOP is not universal to all ports, different port has different priority in their SOP. Then, this becomes the problem for the master on board.

The graphic display on Radar/ECDIS give Captain a false sense of security. Originally these maneuvering need Captain mental pictures to image where about his ship position, its bow and stern is. Most of the time, these mental pictures are not available for Captain and OOW in any place of the world except his home port. These strange feeling of unfamiliar experienced will give Captain and OOW wider safety margin of their maneuvering.          

When everything goes from reality to virtual captain and OOW no longer feel the proximity of the landscape by eye. The guidance of safety was digitized by ARPA/ECDIS. For collision, the critical digits are CPA/TCPA (not a good set of warning, it should be Distance To Collision DTC). For ECDIS, the critical digits are the setting of safety contour/guard. For both cases in collision and grounding, the fundamental parameter is based on vessel’s turning characteristics, that is 6 times of own ship length. From the track drawing of M.V. Costa Concortia above, we can see the vessel is turning too slowly for vessel bow shifted away from original course line at 21:43:52 after the turning initialed at two ship’s length before at 21:42:48. This vessel will need another 4 times of ship length (from position of 21:43:52) to complete the turn, to settle on new course away from the island. From position of 24:43:52 there are no distance to complete the turn with 4 times ship’s length.(see details explanation of turning maneuvering in”Managing collision avoidance at sea”2007)  6 times ship length distance is the most importance parameter for new generation digital situation awareness, it need to be stipulated on SOP in written form and set up in safety monitor equipment ARPA/ECDIS in digital form and get immediately attention of the OOW in mental form. This simple truth may need another generation to be appreciated. 

Why we need graphic situation awareness?

Digital situation awareness is enough if the parameters are properly set up in ARPA/ECDIS. Why we need graphic situation awareness anymore?  People ask this question might get the answer from human brain evolution. Why we need subconscious activity parallel with conscious mental work? Conscious work is left brain work which is well known as low speed brain with very limited capacity. On the contrary right hemisphere brain is high speed brain which can handle almost infinite data items within a blink of eye. The efficiency of right brain is beyond anyone can image and anyone machinery made by human being. Our human eyes can compensate the light strength difference in fore and farther target to give us a clear picture of all vessels at sight. If we try to identify the target in close range the Radar range have to deduce to give more resolution in monitor. The target in longer distance are lost due to range setting cannot cover their distance (said 8 NM target won’t show on 6 NM range display). When we enlarge the range setting to 12 NM to include more profound target in long range the small target in closer range disappeared. The solution for this handicap is to change the range setting alternatively or use two radar each set in different range ring to give us full picture at sea. However, you don’t need anything like running between radars or waiting each range setting targets pop in and out. Just looking outside the window, with a trained eye every target is in sight, target distance could be decided in a split of second.       It is sole a waste not to use our natural gift while we are capable. In the hot rain forest of Brazil, the native people can predict his blow arrow trajectory as précised as the modern rocket trajectory computer taken all wind and temperature/humidity deviation allowance into account.

Actually ship master of Costa Concortia had noticed the advance distance is not enough for vessel to complete “Hard Starboard rudder turn (which should be finished with 4.5 ship length)”. He hesitated the turn at 21:44:37 to order “Midship”. Then Captain ordered “Port Ten, Port Twenty” and tried to stop the left swing of her stern into the rock at 21:44:43.

The life or death in this incident or all ship’s maneuvering is only two ship’s length away (vessel already had advanced 5-6 times ship’s length in her last stage of turning or vessel had only 3-4 times advance which no side way can be created to avoid the danger). Let’s see how much time this 247.37 M long cruiser (speed 16 Knots) needs to avoid the danger in the last minutes? Two ship’s length is 247.34 M x 2 = 494.68 M ; 494.68 Meter distance sailed by 16 knots vessel needs 1.0016 minutes or 60.1 seconds to travel.

It need only one minute before, for instance in this case at 21:41:40 hour, the incident could be avoided without any human life lost to sea. In the real case, captain only realize his danger at 21:44:21 hours (less than 500 meters i.e. two ship’s length to the rock) when he ordered “Hard Starboard”. The point here is the challenge every captain facing everyday while he receive the call from the bridge asking for immediate help while he just managed to grasp the phone in his sound sleep. They said the Mid Air Collision had only 10 seconds to react. The second you see an airplane in a collision course, 10 seconds later you ended up. Shipping is more mercy said of one minute lapse in the decision making big difference while Captain may have no time to adjust his night vision, check the ARPA/ECDIS digital setting of danger, positive identification of the target in interest, wondering which alarm is sounding now and what meaning the alarm presented ……etc,. We need the situation awareness graphically which can read the scene by eye and help our decision more quickly and efficiently if we had proper training in this already. These training of graphic situation awareness need to be practiced day after day to be part of our intuition and working habit. If we never look outside the window there is no way we can grasp the essentials of the art of ship handling, graphic situation awareness. In another words, digital situation awareness is a skill which could be mastered by non navigator said like a service technician on board during the sea trial. We take the proud as professional seaman graphic situation awareness is something we can not let go.

Beyond the comfort zone,

The experiences of our career can bring comfortable feeling in our work. Case study of casualties in the industrial is not part of our daily life and sometimes stirs our peaceful mind with some fear so deeply embedded in our memory. What the point to bring it up with us? It is OK for we are all human and our brain are also function in a simplified way which constantly reduce all norms to magical 7 only. Long time experiences can generate LT memory. These LT memories become our automatic working habit. Once it becomes a habit, nothing more will be added it. We lost our situation awareness for those scenarios never occurred to him. Life is comfortable in this way. Why bother?

The reason is we need to expect for the unexpected. Something in our sea time may not happen at all but the chance is there. We cannot wait something bad happened and try to find the solution then. On M.V. Costa Concortia case,   

“The Master did not warn the SAR Authority of his own initiative (the warning was received by a person calling from shore) and, despite the SAR Authority started to contact the ship few minutes after 22 00, he informed these Authorities about a breach only at 22 26 02, launching the related distress only at 22 38 (on insistence of Livorno SAR Authority).

However SAR activities had started at 22 16, when Livorno Authority had ordered the GDF Patrol Boat 104, already in the area, to approach the Concordia. From the above mentioned time the following SAR resources were involved: 25 patrol boats, 14 vessels, 4 tugs, 8 helicopters.

Only at 22 54 10 the abandon ship was ordered but it was not preceded by an effective general emergency alarm definitely (several passengers – in fact - testified that they did not catch those signal-voice announcement). The first lifeboats result being lowered at 22.55 and at 23:10 they moved to the shore with the first passengers on board.

Crewmembers, Master included, abandoned the bridge at about 23 20 (one officer only remained on the bridge to coordinate the abandon ship).

At about 24 00 the heeling of the vessel seriously increased reaching a value of 40°. During the rescue operations it reached 80°.

At 00 34 the Master communicated to the SAR Authorities that he was on board a lifeboat with other officers.”

Now when we looking back this history, the biggest vessel ever abandoned by human, the master can have better option to handle this case while vessel is listing 15 degree at 23 20. Instead, master abandon the vessel (we will wonder “does Captain informed the OOW on bridge then”) due to his incompetence in this case never happened to him before. At the same time, the SAR operation started even before the vessel’s Master had announced it distress situation and asking for help from SAR Liverno. The difference of land based and ship board SAR operation activating time is the experience they had. We can not expect have all necessary knowledge and memory on board by ourself. These prices to learn are too expensive to pay by anybody or organizations.

Stepping out of comfort zone which can be summarized as follow:

1. Utilize any topics available in bridge or engine room, to do in-depth research and study, to eliminate monotonous work, maintaining appropriate vigilance and avoid relaxing.
2. Assuming navigational instrument fault situations and find appropriate procedures to overcome, self-training in order to improve the correctness of emergency response procedures.
3. By interaction with other members on the bridge, in order to improve our professional skill and experiences which may not possible to get from any text book.
4. Challenge the correctness of standard operating procedures, standing order or night order. Let other members on the bridge to check your priority in emergency procedures, exchange of experience and your observations.
5. Ask yourself under the circumstances of a particular kind of cross situation, how they will react and rethink what is forgotten in your program, and your expectations for this situation, how to confirm the action, the consequences that might arise, and What methods can be used to resolve the case.
6. Actual avoid fatigue/emotional weakness/disorders/stress. Summoned more help to the bridge either other OOWs or the Master, to reduce the accumulated stress levels.(Macho is also a complacency)
7. Carefully examine your own fatigue, aware of your own alertness and finding appropriate ways to concentrate on the watch.(by a cup of coffee maybe)

While we are tired all dangers seem remote and vague and irrelevant. These will discuss later in task and workload in last chapter.

Becoming a Master : Physical challenge.

Becoming a master of our career need our dedication and devotion. But most important thing is to cultivate correct working habit(LT memory) in our daily work. In chapter 4, we had listed the procedures in a course changing maneuvering for an OOW as below:  

Before the turning maneuvering begin, OOW should direct his attention to remember

• next course reading to steer?      Rank D
• time to arrive next turning point?  Rank C
• time need for turning, what the rate of turn are appropriate?  Rank B
• time and position to put wheel over?       Rank A    

The way to check his working habit is simple by asking in each stage of his turning. Does OOW give the correct answer can help Master decide should he trust this young man in navigation watch. A master is someone who can handle the situation nice and easy. We called him a smart Captain in the old times. To avoid one man show, we don’t call any Captain smart any more. But, the challenge for Master had never been easy although all modern ARPA/ECDIS on board. He may have to face decisions involve change, uncertainty, anxiety, stress, and sometimes the unfavorable reactions of others. For example, the captain received the phone call in his midnight sleep......        

The worry tensed while he approaches to navigational bridge and situation really looked very serious as expected, in this emergency the pressure mounted on Captain who will: 

1. focus attention on the important things he thinks and would ignore other work considered irrelevant.
2. lose short-term working memory and forget some of the details of the work needed.
3. fell his long-term memory is compressed.
4. changes his standard of risk assessment.
5. respond more quickly but not so accurate.
6. need more time to make decisions.
7. lose sense of space to conduct correct judgment.
8. need more details to build a proper response.

These are normal reaction on human physical body if we feel mental pressure intensely, researched by human factor engineering.  For a good decision maker qualities we need him to know when to move quickly and proceed with the available information, versus when to take more time and gather additional information. When pursuing additional information, they must also know when to stop. While lots data may be desirable now, the data gathering process can use too much time, and the vast amount of data can also be paralyzing and take attention away from the big picture or key data points. All and all can be represented by one word: decisive. Unfortunately, from the points list above us can see only point 5 fit for this purpose. Others reactions are only make the case worsen than his original abilities before. 

Also the study of our decision qualities are serious affected by the pressure we felt as the chart above. More pressure tends to make us lost the ability to identify the key elements in our normal job function. The reliability of our memory depends on our skill level as discussion before. For everyone, there is a simple fact “once any pressure felt, the ability of people to deal with complex issues will gradually decrease and when the pressure reaches a certain limit, people's ability to handle the issue will come to an intolerable low stage”.        

Becoming a Master : Emotional Challenge.

Under the pressure situation, other aspect of pressure management is our emotional intelligence.  

A leader’s emotions are contagious which will resonate with others and set the tone for the emotional climate in an emergency. Before you can decide, you must be aware of your thoughts, feelings, and actions. We need emotional self-control. When you have developed this skill, you will recognize your emotions, be influenced by them, but not blinded by them, and be able to calmly and clearly express your decisions to others even when you experience intense emotions within yourself and from others.

Imagine that you were presented with a critical situation and you needed to make a decision and take action right away. You will have a significant emotional reaction, including feelings anxiety, fear, or anger. Unfortunately emotions such as these cloud our ability to make good decisions. We get an adrenaline rush or flight-or-fight response, and short-term survival is the immediate goal. Being in this state is not particularly suitable to evaluate the situation correctly. This is why emotional self-control is so important. A Master is aware of his emotional state and able to manage intense emotions so he can make correct decisions.

Becoming a Master : Decision Making Mechanism .

We already know there are three systems in decision making mechanism:

• System one: done by intuition positive.
• System two : done by intuition negative.
• System three : done by logical inference.

In emergency case (available time are far less than we need), only our subconscious intuitions are available for us in decision making. This is our working habits which is automatic generated from our LT memory. To become a master is to cultivate our correct working habits. We can never know the working habits we had are enough to cover all the risks we will face in the future or not?  The best we can do is to educate ourself by the case study either from the industrial standards or from company’s circulars. How can an expert decide better depend on two factors: situation awareness and working habits. Situational Awareness: In routine works we got the feeling to take action to avoid any uncertainty. Working Habits: Correct working sequence formed to pay each parameter in our routine work.

Master is the one can reach correct decision immediately under extreme time pressure.

Be a Master means he can use his abilities to chunk complex operations into effective categories according to his working habits and assign resources to handle the priority of each category.

As senior seaman he who has the ability to use his mental model/structure to handle almost every complex operations, based on similar trails to take effective chunking (categorizing), and set his priority order to overcome the problem one by one, or ask extra resources to ease the workload. This is the difference between an expert and a novice. Where the mental model comes from and what trails is the dominating factor in particular case and what is the priority measure to take and what resource is in need for current situation ? These are working habits in each individual not only in our career at sea but also in our daily life more or less. Most people will carry out their daily routine without conscious awareness. It is OK for the little thing in life, but not for the daunting and demanding career at sea.

What is a Master idea of priority, effective variables monitoring, job assignments and in what sequences should be carefully studied by all OOW intend to be a Captain. How much allowance we made for the commanding day to come is also the human elements. We cannot get necessary skills by repeating our daily practice.

Not an OOW standing before the mast 10 years can be a Master.

Not a Master standing before the mast 10 years can be a Pilot.   

Not a Pilot standing before the mast 10 years can be a Pilot knows all.

Not an instructor teaching before the class 10 years can get all seaman knowledge.

How can we become a Master ? 

Becoming a master: “We need to challenge and deliberate set ourself into trouble/unfamiliar scenarios mentally to eliminate our ignorance and test our situation awareness and working habits so as to enhance and organize our context memory.  A Master is not only an expert in his career but also an expert knows how to learn necessary skills by himself alone. This term in psychology is Metacognition which is the learning outside the school/training center, informal learning. We know anything learnt mentally is our knowledge only which needs constantly review/refresh to organize relevant case into our context LT memories. We know this is also a process to communicate unfamiliar ourself with professional bodies to eliminate our skill gaps. Then we should not forget the most effective communication skill is asking. Asking who?  Asking you, asking me or asking him. By asking, we can know our context LT memory is enough or not and seek help from others.

Master is someone has enough LT memory to support his decision. As times goes by, he already forget the path he had stepped through each one by one. In any moment, the world he knew already projected on his context. He only needed to retrieve from his LT memory to find out magical 7 items in his conscious to decide the necessary results he needed, other parameters are handled in his subconscious or assign to proper parties to support his commanding. By concentrating on key elements he can focus correctly. Any second of time could be split, any picture of space could be enlarged, now could be eternity and here could be infinite. This is going too far for our topics. In the ancient time one arrow man will train to shoot a melon in the beginning. When the practice time increase the target getting smaller and the arrow man focusing getting better. By the end one piece of grapefruit will look like as large as melon in the trainer eye. In this stage the arrow man will never miss the shooting again. The concentration can give us a sense of secure. By this sense we act more calmly and confidently although the situation still very complicated. In a critical situation, everyone felt the pressure mounting on him, only the one with correct working habits can survive.      

End of chapter 7