[BITList] Fwd: Lloyd's List: Send to Colleague

[Michael Feltham]

The second article

Mike
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Begin forwarded message:

From: enquiries at lloydslist.com
Date: 16 February 2009 12:26:26 GMT
To: mj.feltham at madasafish.com
Subject: Lloyd's List: Send to Colleague


The below article was sent to you from Mike Feltham (mj.feltham at madasafish.com 
) with the following message: I thought you might be interested in the  
article below.

Who needs lighthouses?
Monday 16 February 2009

I SUPPOSE we should be unsurprised at the present clamour among  
shipowners to beat up the three General Lighthouse Authorities that so  
competently maintain our seamarks around the British Isles.

It is not their fault that lighthouses and other navigational aids are  
funded by light dues, rather than the central exchequers of England,  
Scotland and Ireland; it is history and the three have to make the  
best of a bad job.

The three have bent over backwards to co-operate with each other and  
make major efficiencies over the years. Their new ships have been  
built with a great deal of thought to interoperability. In the design  
of modern lights, and lenses, in buoy design and maintenance, the GLAs  
are world leaders, and they remain at the cutting edge of navigational  
safety.

None of which seems to impress the owners and those who (perhaps  
understandably) grudge paying anything for the use of navigational  
aids they profess are, for their purposes, redundant. They have so- 
called “state of the art” navigation equipment, which means that the  
friendly beam of a lighthouse is merely of passing interest, rather  
than the vital confirmation of dead reckoning it once was.

I think rather too much is made of the reliance on sophisticated  
navigation equipment, which if we are to believe the chief inspector  
of the Marine Accident Investigation Branch, may well lead to  
complacency. I just think of all those dim bulbs of modern navigators  
programming their identical software with identical waypoints all  
around these shores, so that the “optimum” route is followed, and  
every ship takes the same stupid course and they are always bumping  
into each other, and frightening each other with near misses.

I remember the aftermath of the Tricolor sinking, when the only thing  
that prevented about three dozen more collisions was the ring of  
Trinity House buoys and a guardship around the wreck, as all these  
‘navigators’ peered at their satnavs and integrated navigation  
displays and never looked out of their windows. And while it may not  
happen very often, the satellites do slip and navigators will be  
thrown back on the important visual aids at which the owners and their  
lobbyists now sneer.

Maybe it is unfair, when the shipping industry is counting the  
pennies, but I think there are better targets for shipowners’  
organisations to pursue than three organisations that are a byword for  
efficiency and operational excellence. They are proud of their history  
too, and that makes them a target for those accountant-infested  
levelling folk who despise our maritime heritage and have presided  
over the destruction of their own. Let us not forget that the GLAs are  
dedicated to marine safety, of which there has been rather too much  
eroded over the years, all in the name of expediency and the operation  
of ships on the cheap.

rjmgrey at dircon.co.uk

Sign up to the FREE Lloyd's List Daily News Bulletin at http://www.lloydslist.com/bulletin

Articles remain the copyright of Informa UK Limited

Please note that incorrectly addressed emails are returned to a  
Lloyd's List bulletin board and that copies may be taken for  
administrative purposes


-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.bcn.mythic-beasts.com/pipermail/bitlist/attachments/20090216/4ad0eac6/attachment.shtml