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AUS-M500-Y-L2.2

Command navigation

As a watchkeeper you executed a passage plan. You were expected to notice if it was wrong, and to call the master. As a master you are the one being called, and there is nobody behind you.

Entry & progression

Command navigation is one of the three approved training areas for this certificate. It is not more navigation. It is navigation done by the person who answers for it.

The passage plan is yours

The turning circle

Four stages, and the oral examiner will expect all four in order:

  1. Appraisal — gather everything relevant. Charts, publications, notices, weather, tides, currents, draught, air draught, the vessel's manoeuvring characteristics, the crew's actual competence, the guests' actual plans.
  2. Planning — build the plan berth to berth. Courses, distances, no-go areas, abort points, contingency anchorages, wheel-over positions, parallel index lines, clearing bearings, under-keel clearance, points where the pilot boards.
  3. Execution — brief it, then sail it. Adjust for what the day actually gives you: the ETA that will not work, the traffic, the fog, the tide you missed.
  4. Monitoring — fix, cross-check, and never trust one source. The plan is a hypothesis; monitoring is the test.

Position, and not believing it

GNSS is very good and it is not the truth. A master who has only one method of fixing has no method of fixing. Cross-check by whatever is available and independent: visual bearings, radar range and bearing, parallel indexing, echo sounder against charted depth, transits, a horizon sight if you still can.

ECDIS is mandatory training at this level for a reason. It is a magnificent tool and it will confidently draw your ship in the wrong place if the datum, the safety contour, the safety depth or the scale is wrong. Know your settings. Know what CATZOC means. Know that the chart's survey data may be a century old under a hull that cost thirty million.

Under-keel clearance and the yacht problem

Yachts go to places ships do not. Shallow bays, unsurveyed anchorages, marinas that were dredged to a depth somebody remembers. The charts are frequently poor. The guests want to be there anyway.

TIP — Set the abort point before you need it An abort point is a position, decided in advance and marked on the plan, beyond which you are committed. Decide it in the chartroom, in daylight, with a coffee, before the pilot is aboard and the owner is on the bridge wing and the wind is up. The purpose of the abort point is to make the hard decision at the moment you are most capable of making it — which is never the moment you have to act on it.

Bridge resource management

The master is a resource on the bridge, not the sole processor of it. The most dangerous bridge is the one where nobody will contradict the man in the chair. Say out loud what you intend, invite challenge, and mean it. A mate who calls you wrong and is wrong has cost you ten seconds. A mate who will not call you wrong has cost you the ship.

When to take the con

Write your standing orders so the officer of the watch knows exactly when to call you: reduced visibility, traffic in doubt, deviation from the plan, failure of equipment, deteriorating weather, anything the OOW is unsure of. Then answer the call without making them regret it. An OOW who is punished for calling you will not call you next time, and next time will be the one that mattered.

Practice questions

5 questions
recallcore

recall · core

The four stages of passage planning, in order, are: (a) Planning, appraisal, monitoring, execution (b) Appraisal, planning, execution, monitoring (c) Appraisal, execution, planning, monitoring (d) Planning, execution, appraisal, monitoring

recallcore

recall · core

An abort point is: (a) The position at which the vessel must anchor in an emergency (b) The point at which the pilot disembarks (c) A position decided in advance, beyond which the vessel is committed (d) The last position at which the engines can be stopped

recallcore

recall · core

A master whose only means of position fixing is GNSS: (a) Is adequately equipped, provided the receiver is type-approved (b) Effectively has no means of position fixing, because there is no independent cross-check (c) Need only cross-check when in pilotage waters (d) May rely on it entirely if the ECDIS safety contour is set correctly

recallcore

recall · core

Standing orders should tell the officer of the watch to call the master: (a) Only when a risk of collision exists (b) Only when the master's night orders specifically require it (c) Only when the vessel deviates from the passage plan (d) In reduced visibility, traffic in doubt, deviation from the plan, equipment failure, or whenever the OOW is unsure

recallcore

recall · core

The greatest risk on a bridge where the master is present is that: (a) The OOW is under-employed (b) Nobody will contradict the master (c) Too many fixes are taken (d) The passage plan is followed too closely

AI-drafted catalogue content pending SME review. Sea service and course requirements change; verify with AMSA before relying on this for a career decision.

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