Photo: http://www.sailingscuttlebutt.com/
At least Sir Cloudesley Shovell had an excuse, not that he really needed one. He drowned with the other 1,400 sailors in the Scilly naval disaster of 1707. The navigators on the four warships that hit the Scilly’s Western Rocks lacked the tools to accurately calculate longitude. The disaster is credited with inspiring the Longitude Act in 1714, which established the Board of Longitude and offered a large money prize for anyone who could find a method of determining longitude accurately at sea.
Recently, the Team Vestas Wind racing in the Volvo Ocean Race ran aground on the Cargados Carajos Shoals in the Indian Ocean. In a recent blog post, Elaine Bunting in Yachting World asks the obvious question: How is it possible for a yacht bristling with the latest technology to hit a well-known reef, as Volvo Ocean Race crew Team Vestas Wind did, with catastrophic consequences? How can it happen to one of the world’s top navigators?
Obviously, someone made a mistake. To err is human and all that. Fortunately, in this case, no one died. All that the mistake cost was the sponsor’s money. The crew has now been safely repatriated to Mauritius.
There is a larger question here. Do our wonderful high tech electronics systems lull us into complacency? A sextant at seas is usually accurate to within a couple of miles. GPS can be accurate to within 15 meters. Where once a navigator would allow several miles of “sea room” off a dangerous shoal, perhaps the perception of accuracy tempts navigators to be less cautious.
Radar Assisted Collision
It is not just GPS. The collision in fog between the passenger ships Andrea Doria and the Stockholm in 1956 is often described as the first “radar assisted collision.” Both ships had and used the most modern radars available. Because of the technology, officers on both ships knew the location of the other ship, yet using their electronics, both ships steered into each other, killing 51 passengers and crew. Would the ships have collided without radar? Quite possibly. Ships have been colliding in fog for all of time. On the other hand, the over confidence resulting from being able plot the other other ship on radar, led to very bad decision making, with tragic consequences.
GPS Assisted Collision
One of the more famous “GPS assisted groundings” occurred when the cruise ship Royal Majesty hit the Rose and Crown Shoal about 10 miles east of Nantucket Island in 1995. No lives were lost and the damage to the ship was relatively minor. The question raised at time was “how could a ship equipped with GPS, Loran C, and radar run aground on a well charted shoal in a heavily trafficked seaway?”
The answer was that the GPS antenna on the Royal Majesty failed, yet the officers navigating the ship continued to rely of GPS. The GPS had shifted to a “dead reckoning” mode, which did not account for wind or current. They could have caught the error if they had consulted either their radar, Loran C, or used visual bearings. When they ran aground, they were 17 miles off the track predicted by the faulty GPS.
Innaccurate Charts
Even if all electronics are working, there is no guarantee that the islands and shoals are where they are indicated on the charts. In the 2101 Clipper Round the World Race the yacht Cork was wrecked on the Gosong Mampango reef in the Java Sea. (Yes, the only yacht to sink on any of the Clipper Races was named “Cork.”) The reef is roughly a half mile off where it is shown on the chart. Whether a half mile is sufficient sea room to put between a boat and a dangerous reef is a separate question.
On the night of January 17, 2013, the Navy mine countermeasures ship USS Guardian ran hard aground on Tubbataha Reef in the Sulu Sea. The ship was a total loss and was later broken up on-site and hauled away. Fortunately, no one was injured but the ship did considerable damage to the reef. The reef is part of the Philippines’ Tubbataha Reefs National Park. In 1993, the UNESCO declared the Tubbataha Reefs National Park as a World Heritage Site as a unique example of an atoll reef with a very high density of marine species.
Although there were accurate charts aboard the ship, the electronic chart being used at the time of the grounding had an eight mile error in the position of the reef. Even with this error it is still unclear why the Guardian was anywhere near the reef. The waters around the reef are a restricted zone which is off-limits to ships without prior approval. Nevertheless, the Navy investigation found that the voyage plan, referred to as the “Plan of Intended Movement (PIM) [passed] over the northwest corner of the South Islet of Tubbataha Reefs, nearly the exact location where USS GUARDIAN ran aground. The PIM also passed through the middle of a clearly depicted Restricted Area encompassing the Tubbataha Reefs.”
Why the ship intentionally steamed through the restricted area so close to the reefs is unclear. The commanding officer of ex-Guardian, the executive officer/navigator, the assistant navigator, and the officer of the deck at the time of the grounding were all relieved of their duties. The statement by the Navy says, in part, “USS Guardian leadership and watch teams failed to adhere to prudent, safe, and sound navigation principles which would have alerted them to approaching dangers with sufficient time to take mitigating action.” No other insight is provided into why the questionable navigational choices were made.
Trust & GPS
The underlying problem is that we all seem to place more faith than we should in the magic of GPS. GPS provides the illusion of precision, which makes the independent confirmation of one’s position seem superfluous. Old concepts like maintaining adequate sea-room seem antiquated and unnecessary.
Dr. Chris. W. Johnson of University of Glasgow; Dr. Christine Shea of ESR Technology Ltd, Cheshire, UK; and Dr. C. Michael Holloway, NASA Langley Research Center, Hampton, VA, wrote a fascinating paper titled, The Role of Trust and Interaction in GPS Related Accidents: A Human Factors Safety Assessment of the Global Positioning System. In their conclusions they note:
“The availability of accurate real-time navigation systems is no longer viewed as an additional enhancement to existing operational practices. Instead, these applications can be seen as capacity enablers. Users will erode safety margins providing that they can call upon the information provided by GPS technology. They will travel faster at closer distances from known hazards. This exposes operators and members of the public to even greater hazards when problems do occur with positioning systems….
It seems clear that trust in the services provided by navigational systems contributes to a form of over-confidence. Many accident reports describe the sense of surprise that operators express when they realise that there may have been a problem with navigation systems…”
Elaine Bunting, writing about the Vestas Wind grounding for Yachting World, echoes these conclusions. She ends her comments succinctly: “The biggest danger is certainty.”
Volvo Ocean Race 2014-15: Team Vestas Wind aground in Indian Ocean
This is important in light of the fact that Celestial Navigation is no longer taught at the US Naval Academy or at King’s point. How are these 21st century sailors going to navigate if their precious satellites get knocked out of space ? Too much reliance on technology will lead to catastrophe.
I was at a lecture last week about Pacific navigation and the numerous errors in for example Fiji. They are all known and passed about the cruising community but I wonder if there is a central website or databank cataloguing them?
What it also highlights is that with existing technology, and not a lot of cost, the civilised world could very quickly correct these errors to the benefit and safety of many because, like it or not, many navigate by GPS and vdu with a fraction of the experience aboard Vestas Wind and few will hit the limelight as they did.
On a lighter note, I hope some enterprising fishermen gets a new Volvo engine complete with saildrive.
During my days we travelled the world with a sextant only. Coastal navigation used the echo sounder, radio direction and when all was clear visual bearings. The advent of Decca and Loran was distrusted and always confirmed with the sextant….maybe I am getting old but we never ran aground anyplace!
Ed, I agree. The lack of training in use of a sextant is disturbing.
Peter, the Navy uses a Digital Nautical Chart database. One such chart, however, had an 8 mile error when the USS Guardian ran aground. The error had been known for at least five years but had not been corrected.
Captain Taylor, the problem with GPS seems to be the reliance on a single source of information. As you note, navigating along the coast used to entail checking the RDF, the depth, and any lights, horns, bells or whistles nearby. Finding a position using multiple inputs requires the mariner to pay more attention to the surroundings rather than just focusing on the single dot from the GPS.
as a recreational sailor and sailing school owner, I’ve many, many GPS or chart plotter aided groundings and almost groundings. Just one example: Heading in to Anegada in a rain storm with just enough visibility to find the channel, we motored down the center of the channel.. The chart plotter showed us 50 yards onto the reef. had the visibility been worse, and we relied on the chart plotter, we would most certainly fetched up on the reef. I train my instructors to provide their students at the cruising level to have a healthy suspicion of the chart plotter in bad visibility.
Rich Jepson: So what did you and your students do, heading into Anegada in that rain storm? Thanks, Don
The mention of Anegada reminds me of the last time I was there more than a decade ago. As I recall we needed special permission from the charterer to allow us to visit. The day was clear and we ran a compass course between the entry buoys and an inner mark. To refresh my memory I Googled “entering Anegada” and noted the following warning on the Navigating to Anegada web site:
Note: If you have CYC, Maptech, or C-MAP charts (paper or electronic), be aware that the Anegada entrance channel as charted on these charts is incorrect. The channel shown on those charts is the entrance channel prior to 1992. In 1992, new channel markers were placed and the channel was set slightly farther to the southeast. Click here for a snippet from the CYC/Maptech/C-MAP chart showing the correct Anegada entrance channel. The position of the green inner buoy (northernmost green buoy) as charted on the CYC chart is actually at the shallow area noted above!
Note: If you have Garmin BlueChart electronic charts, be aware that the Anegada entrance channel as charted on the Garmin BlueCharts is incorrect. That segment of the BlueChart is derived from British Admiralty chart #2008, which is out of date for its survey of the Anegada entrance channel. Click here for a snippet from the Garmin BlueChart showing the correct Anegada entrance channel. The position of the green inner buoy (northernmost green buoy) as charted on the v6 BlueChart is actually at the shallow area noted above!
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