New Zealand Company of Master Mariners

The old boys club of the what is now the College of Maritime StudiesUniversity of the Solent is the Warsash Association.

Captain Denis Mason of Whangarei has been delegated the job of locating all those in New Zealand who attended the college, either as cadets or senior students, in order to make a comprehensive database.

Denis would like to hear from anyone who has information on any old boy either living or deceased.

His address is:  3/179 Maunu Road, Whangarei, 0110

email [email protected]

The Warsash Association website is www.allhandsonline.co.uk.

At the Shaw Savill Reunion held in Wellington in October 2008, the above plaque was unveiled on the Wellington waterfront by the Deputy Mayor of Wellington Ian McKinnon. 

Three members of the Wellington Branch at the Shaw Savill Reunion.

l to r. Peter Attwood (Immediate Past Warden), Warwick Thomson (On Deck Editor and Wellington newsletter editor), Jim Glyde (Past General Secretary).  

Lloyds List – Friday 24 October 2008

ACOUPLE of hundred years ago, ships were frequently blown out of their anchorages on to a lee shore and lost in violent weather. The truth was that the old anchors were not that good and were little more than a last resort in such circumstances, if there was no other chance of clearing the land.

Scroll forward to the present and it is worth asking whether we have advanced very far. Ships are still being blown out of their anchorages in wild weather, notably ships that offer a great deal of windage. Bulk carriers seem particularly prone, as the terminals like them to be made available with as little ballast aboard as possible.

But anchors seem to have barely advanced in holding power or efficiency over the past century, and questions need to be asked about their fitness for purpose aboard big, modern ships. There have been remarkable advances in other areas, notably offshore, where the equipment supplied on board semi-submersible rigs is light-years better in terms of efficiency. Why cannot some of these advances be imported into the shipping industry? Yachts, for goodness sake, have taken these advanced anchors on board, literally.

Shipping likes to stay with what it knows when it comes to something like anchors, which ostensibly do not contribute to the earning power of the ship. It is said that the highly efficient offshore anchors would be too cumbersome to deploy over the bow of a ship.

It is suggested that they would be too big and heavy, and that it would be impossible to stow them satisfactorily in housings that would prevent them being damaged with the ship under way.

There will be mutterings about the costs, and the fact that the financial basis of shipping is different from offshore, where money rarely seems to be a barrier to technological progress.

But the fact is that industry has never tried to design arrangements that would enable such anchors to be deployed. Until we try, we can never find out whether it is possible. Who knows, we might then no longer see big red bulkers on Australian beaches, or carnage on the Rock of Gibraltar. 

Michael Grey – Lloyds List 27 0ctober 2008 

MORE than half a century ago, I had been accepted as an apprentice with a celebrated British shipping company. My career had been decided. The indentures, with their archaic language about “not frequenting taverns and alehouses, except upon the said Master’s business”, had been duly signed, sealed and witnessed.
I was awaiting the appointment to my first ship, which I understood would be in about six weeks. I thought it would be prudent to acquaint myself with something of my chosen profession, as my textbooks were still to be ordered. I had however, a very old copy of The Admiralty Manual of Navigation, obtained from goodness knows where, and I diligently applied myself to this, starting at the beginning.
It was all about the principles of navigation, and it was like a fascinating new language, full of new terms and concepts, that were hugely enlightening, although it did give a Grey Funnel Line view of the navigational world which was not entirely applicable (as I was to discover) to merchant ships.
But I was grateful for this few weeks of introduction to this wonderful navigational world, which made the business of actually sailing on my first ‘real’ ship rather less bewildering.
Navigation is less of a mystery these days, what with friendly satellites hovering in space. It is also a much more ‘universal’ activity, with mobile telephones providing Google Earth maps and TomToms adhering to car dashboards. The average yachtsman can leap aboard his or her boat and determine its position on the surface of the earth to a heartwarming degree of accuracy, without actually doing very much, other than pressing a few buttons.
There are orienteers and hikers on Dartmoor who, by virtue of their hand-held Garmin satnavs, might be thought of as followers in the footsteps of Captain Cook. Navigation, once the mysterious craft of the professional navigator, has been demystified and made accessible to the masses.
So in the face of this popularising and simplifying of a craft once seen as the business of professional specialists, is there much need for an understanding of the principles of navigation? If somebody with the numerical skills necessary to work a cash register or an adding machine can accurately determine a ship’s position, is navigation such a big deal these days?
To answer this question, it is probably useful to determine the number of casualties which, despite all this electronic assistance, has obstinately refused to diminish and mostly are attributed to poor navigational practices. For my part, I was greatly impressed by a conversation with the commander of a Trinity House lighthouse tender, who suggested that despite all the manifold aids to navigation, which are available on the average merchant ship bridge, navigators kept running over buoys, denting beacons and generally causing maritime mayhem in the sealanes, requiring much more than changed lightbulbs to put right.
And it was caused, said this acute observer of the maritime scene and man’s abusive treatment of machinery , by the basic reluctance of these electronically astute experts to look through the wheelhouse windows with their Mk.I eyballs.
Is it still necessary to understand the principles of navigation, when the end product can be portrayed instantaneously on a screen, electronic chart or readout? Well, I don’t mean to be a spoilsport about all this populist navigational accessibility, but I think that you really do need to know what you are doing.
This question occurred to me as I wrenched open the wrapping paper parcelling up the 10th edition of The Admiralty Manual of Navigation Vol.1, which, as it did in the past, all those years ago, covered these selfsame principles of navigation. This book has been published by The Nautical Institute and authored by the Royal Navy, being released to the navigational community, exactly one century after the first of these useful volumes hit the street, about the same time as the first Dreadnoughts were terrifying the other great powers.
It cannot have been easy to produce such a volume and the author Alan Peacock is greatly to be commended. You might say that principles are principles and not to be trifled with. But we are operating ships with very different navigational outfits aboard them, ranging from the basic to the highly sophisticated integrated systems. Can the navigational principles remain valid throughout this spectrum of complexity? Commander Peacock, who already has produced the Admiralty Manual on astro navigation, has produced a volume that is true to navigational principles, and will not, most importantly, be rendered out of date by technical innovation in a year or two. So, while the book covers satellites and the electronic chart, it provides the reader with a solid background in navigational techniques along with the essential understanding that goes with this.
The old Admiralty Manuals were overtly ‘naval’, with no real attempt to provide information for the merchant mariner or those studying navigation for its own joys. This volume is much less military, and these principles can be transferred to the chartrooms and bridges of merchant ships without tremendous intellectual efforts. We all need to know the principles that govern safe navigation, which surely predates the arrival of sophisticated navigational equipment. Understand these principles and so much becomes infinitely clearer.
There is a huge amount in this book, which is a manual in every sense of the word. Ranging from positions and directions on the earth’s surface, to hydrographic surveying, through chartwork, sailings, position fixing and coastal navigation, the volume provides much practical instruction for both the navigational specialist and the generalist who need to know how to keep a navigational watch.
It is a book that inculcates the best procedures and practices, the importance of planning if one is not to be surprised by the untoward, along with the essential tenet that more than one position finding method needs constantly to be employed.
There is much useful advice on practical ship handling in coastal waters and narrow channels, safe anchoring and blind pilotage techniques. It has an excellent section on tides and tidal streams. It is a book that provides solutions to operational problems and in doing so encourages real professionalism.
If anyone believes that navigational principles are some sort of optional extra in the new dispensation, they need to study the regular publications of the Marine Accident Investigation Branch. So many of these reports into accidents point to navigational complacency as a major contributory factor. We make assumptions about what we think we are seeing on our instruments. We take the easiest option, because it is easier. Then things go wrong and there is no available escape plan. Contingencies were not considered, because the emergencies were not thought sufficiently probable.
The need for what might be thought of as ‘layered’ defences against bad navigational consequences may not occur aboard the lean manned merchantmen, even though it is something that “ought” to be provided. But so often accidents occur when the participants are clearly ‘winging it’, in an unplanned fashion in a waterway, where the problems come crowding in.
Failure to operate an adequate bridge management system is a further reason for casualties which seems to appear at regular intervals. This also seems to demonstrate an ignorance of navigational principles. The warship, with a properly manned bridge, properly planned navigational strategies and competent communications seems light years ahead of what often happens aboard lean-manned merchantmen. But why should it be? Should not navigational safety be universal?
Much of what happens is so predictable, so avoidable. You have masters and pilots who cannot, or won’t communicate with each other. You have the emergence of what amounts to dual control, with the pilot thinking he is in charge, with the master quite simply undermining the expert, or refusing to accept his advice. There are helmsmen who cannot steer, or, even if they can, are unable to understand the helm orders because they speak no known language. And there are regrettably schooner rigged operations where masters are quite literally conning their ships in crowded waters on their own, with every other available hand committed elsewhere.
There are pilots who feel that giving away any details of their plan is akin to conspiracy, masters who cheerfully acknowledge the helm and engine orders of the pilot but apply their own interpretations, with their hands on the controls. Teamwork it ain’t. And if you think that I might be exaggerating, talk to the Suez Canal Authority, where the inability of seafarers to steer has become a major point of contention.
There is much to be said for naval ways of doing things, if there is a plethora of manpower, and carefully planned procedures. The naval way in which the ship is handled by the navigator, with the captain in a position of complete oversight has much to commend it, but may be difficult to transfer to a commercial shipping situation, where the master finds himself with the con, and much else besides.
The manual offers a whole range of practical hints about shiphandling, but I guess does make certain assumptions about the adequacy of the manning arrangements and the competence of those doing the navigating. But there again, if you do not have the manpower to practice the principles, perhaps there is something else that is seriously wrong.

 The committee of the Warsash Association have undertaken a project to revitalize interest in the Association.
 
To do this they plan to:–
1) overhaul our web-site at www.allhandsonline.co.uk 
2) re-establish contact with Warsash graduates around the world.
 
The first objective is partially under way now with upgrades and additions to the present site, however early next year we expect to launch a totally revised site, professionally designed, which will feature, among other options, a series of interactive forums in which we can communicate with one another.
 
The second objective is slowly emerging through contact and networking with existing members to publicize our efforts and to encourage Warsash graduates to investigate what we are doing and decide if it is sufficiently interesting for them to participate.
In this respect  they ask that any members of the New Zealand Company of Master Mariners who are Warsash graduates to visit their web site (listed above) and make contact.

First published 2008 by The Bush Press for the author, this hardback book of 350 pages has 14 illustrations, and 14 line drawings of ships. It contains an extensive index of 2000 entries to assist reference. 
Have you ever wondered what these expressions mean or where they come from?  ‘All hands and the cook’  ‘Going like a fiddler’s elbow’  ‘Worse things happen at sea’.  
Many books have covered nautical language and customs, but this is the first that explores the little-known colloquial language of Britain’s Merchant Navy, when Britain was a great maritime nation with ships trading to almost every port in the world. 
It’s not, however, just another book of professional nautical terms. Rather, this book preserves the everyday vernacular unique to merchant seamen — and describes the social customs and institutions around the world that helped shape their working life.
Covering the hundred years from 1875 to 1975, it is a fascinating work of social history as well as a reference book for seafarers past and present, libraries, writers of fact and fiction, researchers of maritime history, etymologists — anyone interested in the working language of those colourful men, and latterly women, who spent their lives at sea during the heyday of British shipping. 
It’s an ideal present too for wives and sweethearts for their seafaring menfolk and to all with an interest and love of ships and the sea.
 
‘I am completely and utterly impressed by the range and depth of knowledge that the book contains. I am sure it will be an invaluable source of information’.
Captain J.M.R.Sail, MNI National Chairman of The Merchant Navy Association.

‘The British Merchant Navy had a great and proud history. The author has ensured that its everyday customs, language and expressions have been admirably recorded before they are lost forever with the steady decline of the Service. This book will bring back memories of a way of life that has long gone’.
Rory Smith. Retired Commodore P & O Cruises.

Obtainable by post.

In the UK. £18.50 plus £3.00 P & P.   Cheques payable to: M.D.Rushan

Captain M.D.Rushan,

17, The Croft, Bishopstone

Salisbury, Wilts. SP5 4DF     E-mail: [email protected]

In New Zealand: NZ$49.95 incl. GST plus $4.75 P & P.  Cheques payable to C.B.Thompson

For postage to Australia: Add NZ$6.25

Captain C.B.Thompson

2/126 Selwyn Avenue

Mission Bay, Auckland. 1071     E-mail: [email protected] 

Recently Captain Barry Thompson, Deputy Warden of the Auckland Branch, visited the memorial Arboretum at Alrewas, north east of Birmingham

The maritime section of the arboretum is a wood planted with oaks: one tree for every Allied ship lost in WW2. The wood is known as The Merchant Navy Convoy. In the centre of this wood is a small clearing with a number of benches, including the one gifted by the New Zealand Company of Master Mariners.

Barry reports that the bench looked resplendent and is well placed in that locality.

A short report of the meeting held on 14 August 2008 at which the Master was present.

All ports with the exception of Otago, have submitted risk assessments to Maritime New Zealand, 15 have been approved. 5 ports have had navigation Safety Management Systems approved and one, Taranaki, is due for the first mid term audit by Maritime New Zealand shortly.

With regards to the Port and Harbour Marine Safety Code, the Ministry of Transport has recommended to Cabinet that the Maritime Transport Act 1994 be amended as follows to:-

a)         require the operators of port facilities to take all practicable steps to ensure that their operations do not pose a danger to any ship;

b)         ensure that MNZ audit and inspection powers may be applied to port facility operations;

c)         extend to the Director of MNZ power to impose conditions for safety and marine environment purposes;

d)         extend the Minister of Transport’s rule making power to provide for matters relating to the safe management of ports and harbours;

e)         specify that navigation control, including harbour safety management, is a function of regional councils;

f)          establish explicit harbourmaster functions, to make it clear that the harbourmaster has the function of managing navigation safety, including harbour safety, together with any function conferred on the harbourmaster by any other legislation;

g)         require every regional council to appoint a suitably qualified harbourmaster;

h)         provide that a navigation bylaw may not duplicate the subject matter of a maritime rule relating to navigational safety;

i)          provide for regional councils to issue infringement notices

It is hoped that the bill will be on the legislative program for 2009. The select committee stage provides further opportunity for submissions/considerations.

Some ports have identified in their harbour risk assessments the provision of functional radar or radio based vessel traffic service (VTS). If a regional council decides to establish a VTS, there is a requirement that operators must be qualified and trained in accordance with international standards and the service equipped according to those standards. It is possible that no port in New Zealand needs a VTS, especially in view of the proposed amendments to the Maritime Transport Act.

The harbourmasters representatives are working on qualifications of harbourmasters, which will ensure that they hold qualifications at least to the standard required on the largest ship that uses the port. Some would say that, in addition, they should have pilotage experience in that port as there are cases now in New Zealand ports where pilots are more experienced than the harbourmasters. It would also re-instate a career path for older pilots. If nothing else the proposed provision will ensure that the local “rat catcher” can not become harbourmaster.

The Chief Examiner of Master and Mates presented a plan, jointly developed by Australia, in which future pilots will join a port company and be target trained from start without any pre sea service. After 2½ years they can continue with piloting, or change to surveying or port management. At the end of 5 years they will have the academic equivalent of master foreign going and will have spent time at sea on a number of selected ships. This is to minimise an anticipated shortage of trained pilots in the near future. Some applicants for harbourmaster positions are ex navy officers however their experience, even with command, does not always reach the standard of master foreign going in all fields, such as ship stability.                

LINZ reported that the first electronic navigation vector charts to be produced in New Zealand are being trialled on the Cook Strait ferries. Over the next two years, electronic navigation charts will be released to cover the whole of the New Zealand area. Future surveying work includes the shipping lane around East Cape, all explosive dumping grounds, Tasman Bay, Milford, Thompson, Doubtful, Breaksea and Dusky Sounds, Wellington harbour entrance, Great Barrier Island, Stewart Island and areas in Tonga and Samoa.

The Director of Maritime New Zealand announced a new structure for the management of Maritime New Zealand which will have the following divisions:- Corporate Services, Strategy & Communications, Safety and Response Services, Maritime Operations, Maritime Safety Systems, Monitoring and Compliance.

Investigations will come under the Monitoring and Compliance Manager and in future concentrate more on investigations where it is clear that there has been a breech of the Maritime Transport Act and which it is thought that a prosecution will be sought. The Director agreed that this was a change from recent practice.

There was some discussion on the future focus of the committee. Prior to its formation in 2003 there were a number of groundings and near grounding of large merchant ships within or in the approaches to NZ ports. It was subsequently identified that there was a lack of national standards, there was no clear allocation of responsibility and accountability and that the regulatory structure permitted short term economic incentives to influence safety related decisions.

The key structural weakness was that the principal navigational safety officer (the harbourmaster) was a middle level manager within an organisation (regional council) that was generally principal shareholder in the organisation generating most risk (port company), or within a port company marine operations team (where there has been a delegation of the harbourmaster function).  This limited the influence of the harbourmaster and created the potential for conflicts of interests.  

Presently the committee has representatives from Regional Councils, Port Companies, Harbourmasters, Insurance Council, Maritime Transport Association, Nautical Institute, Land Information NZ, Council of Trade Unions, Maritime Pilots, Shipping Federation, Ministry of Transport and Maritime New Zealand. Given the uncertainties about the timetable for legislative changes it was considered that the committee continue for the short to medium term and to increase membership to include overseas ship-owners, if this is possible.

Capt J A Brown MNI

24 August 2008

Lloyds List – 15 August 2008

ALTHOUGH the phenomenon of parametric roll was first recognised many years ago, the increasing size of containerships and stack heights on deck, and the nature of modern, capacity-optimised designs has placed the issue back in the spotlight.

Parametric roll is of concern to various types of vessel, but its effects seem to have particularly worrying consequences for boxships.

Initiatives to help reduce the likelihood and onset of such motion have been spurred by cases involving large-scale damage to weatherdeck-stacked boxes and the loss of units overboard. ABS has been quick to address the situation through extensive research, the preparation of a design support guide, and the development of a class notation specific to parametric roll.

“Parametric roll is one of those destructive phenomena that depend on a set of coincidences so finely balanced as to make the occurrence seem nearly impossible,” said ABS in a recent issue of its Activities newsletter. “The ship’s geometry has to have certain characteristics; its length has to be comparable to the wavelength of the sea conditions through which it is passing; and its speed must bear a certain relationship to both the wavelength and the vessel’s natural rolling frequency,” said the society.

In what is believed to be an industry first, three new containerships operated by Hyundai Merchant Marine have been awarded the special, optional notation known as PARR C1. This has been conferred on the 4,700 teu Hyundai Forward and the 8,600 teu vessels Hyundai Faith and Hyundai Force, built by Hyundai Samho Heavy Industries.

The notation was issued against criteria contained in the ABS Guide for the assessment of parametric roll resonance in the design of container carriers, which provides analysis measures to determine if a particular vessel is vulnerable to parametric roll and the potential magnitude of the roll motions.

The society claims that this amounted to the first class criteria addressing the subject to have been firmly based on ship motion analysis supported by extensive simulations.

Research was jointly conducted by ABS and Hyundai Samho Heavy Industries.

By applying the criteria, designers can determine if a ship may be vulnerable to parametric roll in worst case scenarios.