 Running your boat at night can be a wonderful experience, or, under other circumstances, can be downright scary. If you're planning a cruise at night, the easiest way to avoid problems is to confine your route to open water offshore. Shipping lanes should be avoided. Inshore waters and intercoastal waterways present the most hazards when boating at night.
You may not be able to visually observe unlighted daymarks and buoys. Another problem is that lights ashore can make identifying lights for aids to navigation very difficult. So can lights on other vessels. Also, running aground in shallow water, or running into obstructions, is several times more likely to occur inshore than offshore. On many of our waterways, especially those that are heavily traveled, there are many things that you can hit in the darkness. But just as important, there are many things that can hit you. So the first consideration, of course, is to make sure that you can see well enough, and that others can see you.
Spotlights are always a good item to have aboard, if used properly. If not, they can cause problems for you as well as other boaters. If you're looking ahead into the path of a brightly lit area of water, your side vision will be affected.
Your ability to see in the dark, or night vision, is not very good under these conditions, and you may not be able to spot red or green lights of another boat or a buoy. A spotlight also can temporarily blind other boaters. Unlike the headlights of an automobile, spotlights point in any direction, and traffic can come from any direction. Even if you're using your spotlight to, say, read the numbers on a buoy, using it temporarily affects your night vision. So it's a good idea to have someone who is not operating the boat to use the spotlight for such things.
Some are well-lighted, and some are not. If you haven't done so, check your helm lights out after dark, prior to a scheduled night departure. Most gauges, such as tachometers and fuel gauges, have built-in lights, so make sure they're working. Ideally, you want to be able to see the instruments easily without the lights affecting your forward vision. Too much light at the helm can blind you when you're looking ahead.
Charts needed for your night voyage should be readily accessible but stored in a dry place. A light to see them, whether built-in or handheld, is of course very necessary. If possible, avoid having to hold the flashlight while using the chart, especially if you must run the boat at the same time.
If at all possible, avoid running the boat while you're looking at a chart. If you can get assistance, use it. Looking at a brightly lit chart and then looking ahead into the darkness can be dangerous. It takes time for your eyes to adjust to the change. It's just not a good idea to read a chart and run a boat at the same time. But if you must, slow down and continue to look ahead, especially if you're in close quarters or traffic.
The lights you use to read charts should be red-filtered. This will help you keep your night vision. Other lights on board, such as deck lights, may be useful in moving about the boat, but they should never interfere with a skipper's night vision or be confusing to another vessel when observing the navigational lights.
Before departing on a night cruise, there's a lot of preparation to be done. In addition to the normal checklist of items for any cruise, night conditions require other special considerations. Navigation lights, running lights, anchor lights, and special purpose lights, they should all be tested. They tell other people something about your boat, whether you're running under power or in a rowboat or sailboat. They also indicate you're anchored if you choose to do so. Remember, technically, you are underway if not anchored or tied up on the shore somehow.
Navigation lights on your boat also tell others in what direction you're headed in relationship to their position. And, since sound signals also play an important role in boating at night, it's a good idea to check your boat's horn. A backup horn or sound signal device would be advisable. The need to sound a warning signal may be more prevalent at night than during daytime operations.
 When we lose situational awareness, we increase the potential for human error. Warnings that situational awareness has been degraded include ambiguity, distraction or preoccupation, general feeling of uncertainty, break in communication, departure from voyage plan, violation of rules, regulations, or standard operating procedures, improper con or lookout, and complacency or overconfidence. The complexity of operating a modern day vessel and the interactions within and outside the bridge team provide the opportunity for errors.
There are three types of human errors. Failure to adequately plan for events, failure to know and follow established procedures, and failure of the members of a group working toward a common goal to adequately communicate with one another. Accidents are rarely caused by a single event.
It is usually a sequence or chain of events that cause an accident. Breaking an error chain or error trapping is essential to preventing accidents. All bridge team members must be able to identify error chains and be empowered to take corrective action and ABs should be encouraged to speak out.
Communication is the exchange of information, thoughts, or feeling. To be effective communicators, the need to understand the various types of communication is imperative. The most effective type of communication is face to face.
This enables you to receive visual as well as spoken information. Verbal communications include all types of radio and telephone communications. It is important to choose your words carefully and speak them loudly, clearly, and concisely due to the lack of visual stimuli.
The least effective communication is written. An effective communication process includes the sender, the message, the receiver, and the feedback. The sender should be conveying information necessary for the mission accomplishment.
He or she must be proactive in making the receiver understand the message. The message should consist of correct terminology and be clearly sent to the receiver. The receiver should be active in the communication process and give message feedback.
Feedback can include acknowledgement, repeating, or paraphrasing. Once the receiver has given feedback, the communication process is completed when the sender acknowledges it. In understanding the relationship between stress and performance, it is important to first consider the effects of stress on the body.
There are three stages associated with stress. The state of alarm, resistance, and exhaustion. The initial state of alarm takes the body by surprise, and the ability to cope with the stress is reduced.
 As the body fights or resists the original source, the symptoms gradually disappear. The body adapts to the higher level of stress, but the ability to cope with other stress begins to fade. Eventually, we are unable to cope with the original stress, and exhaustion sets in.
Exhaustion occurs when the body's resources have been depleted. Not all stress is bad. Studies show that the body performs best when under moderate stress.
Too little stress causes boredom or complacency, while too much diminishes situational awareness and causes panic. Good bridge team leaders will not only deal with stress within themselves, but will perceive and accommodate stress in other team members. This includes reducing an individual's workload or assigning tasks based on ability and experience.
Fatigue is defined as weariness or exhaustion from work, overexertion, inadequate sound sleep, or the cumulative effects of poor sleep over several days. Fatigue slows visual perception, decision making, mental arithmetic, and impairs memory recall. Signs of fatigue are errors of omission, slower task performance, decreased morale and motivation, poor communications, and sleeping on duty.
Two strategies for fatigue countermeasures are the preventive and the operational strategies. Preventive strategies are used before and between duty periods. This includes getting the best possible sleep before reporting on board.
You should begin operations as sleep-satiated as possible, getting eight hours of sleep in any 24-hour period. Trust your own physiology. If you feel sleepy and circumstances permit, then sleep.
A basic rule is if you wake spontaneously and cannot go back to sleep within 15 to 30 minutes, you then get up. Strategic napping and good sleep habits are also part of the preventive strategy. Studies show that effective naps can improve performance.
Naps before any duty period should be limited to 45 minutes. Naps at other times should be more than two hours. Good sleep habits include a pre-sleep routine, possibly utilizing relaxation techniques.
A dark, quiet room with a comfortable temperature is also important. Regular exercise will improve your quality of sleep. Because the ship schedule does not always allow these preventive strategies to be followed, it is important to discuss operational strategies.
The following can be used to increase alertness while on duty. Physical action, conversations on professional topics, strategic caffeine consumption, balanced nutrition, and staying well hydrated. The promotion of bridge resource management is based on the concept of synergy.
Synergy is described as the total of the individuals in cooperation is greater than the sum of the individuals taken by themselves. The best leaders share their information, communicate openly, and encourage participation. The respect of others and the ability to share workload are also traits of a good leader.
Maintaining a constructive and positive attitude and keeping a receptive atmosphere coupled with honesty are necessities of productive leaders. Decision-making is an essential skill for operational team leaders. Team members participate in the problem-solving process by contributing timely and valuable information to the team leader.
In order to make a positive decision, information must be gathered and cross-checked. Alternatives and contingencies must be identified so that possible solutions may be explored. And, if the aforementioned processes are implemented, the goal to safer and more efficient vessel operations through bridge resource management will be well underway.
 AIS, standing for the Automatic Identification System, in its latest enhanced version allows identification and tracking from other ships and also from shore stations. A broadcast AIS improves safety and solves the limitations of radar because of its ability to see a ship behind a bend in a channel or behind an island and to identify it.
It also helps the commander to predict the exact position of a meeting with other ships in a river or archipelago and to avoid meeting at a narrow river bend for instance. Autonomous and continuous AIS means that two or more vessels coming within reach of VHF radio range automatically transmit all the AIS data to each other. The equipment is the same for both ships and shore stations and the system can handle several thousand AIS messages per minute.
The AIS transponder consists of a GPS receiver giving position, speed and time information to a computer. The computer then uses a VHF radio to exchange the information data with other AIS stations. This technique is called self-organized time division multiple access and needs only one radio channel for sending and receiving.
A unique method is used so that the messages won't become garbled. An AIS transmitter uses a time slot of only a few hundredths of a second to send its own data. At the same time, it reserves another time slot for the next message.
All AIS equipped ships and shore stations repeat the same procedure. AIS technology which was partly developed and tested in Sweden is now an approved international standard. The Swedish coast will be covered by more than thirty shore stations.
The information provided by the AIS will include call sign and name, length and beam, type of ship, location of position fixing antenna on the ship, ship's position with accuracy indication, time and universal time coordinated UTC, course over ground, speed over ground, heading, navigational status for instance at anchor, ship's draft and hazardous cargo if required by the authority concerned, and destination and estimated time of arrival.
 All of us live in countries where there are laws and governing bodies telling us what we can and cannot do. However, 70% of the world is ocean, where there are no countries and, consequently, no governing bodies to tell people what is right and wrong. That is why maritime law exists.
Let us start with a hypothetical: a baby is born on a cruise ship sailing in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. What nationality does he or she take? On the picture the coast of some fictional place in some fictional country governed by some fictional government is shown. From the white line, which is the water line at the lowest low tide, every country is allowed 12 miles of territorial waters. In the past, it used to be 3 miles – the distance a cannon could shoot off shore, but that has since changed.
Those twelve miles are the property of a country. They can do pretty much whatever they please in it and all domestic laws apply. Foreign ships are, however, sometimes allowed into these waters under the principle of innocent passage. If ships have innocent purpose – which does not include fishing, polluting, weapons practice or spying – they are allowed to pass through territorial waters of a foreign nation without permission as long as they do so quickly and without stopping on ashore.
 Every now and then we hear yet another story about a nighttime collision at sea, maybe between a ferry and a yacht or even between two large ships. Either way, the same question always comes up – why did not they see each other?
Sure, if it is nighttime, it is harder to see things, as you must have noticed it yourself when driving at night, you need headlights to stand a chance of seeing anything. Yet, when you look at a ship at night, they do not have headlights.
But why? If the headlights work fine for car, why not for ships? Well, think about what a headlight actually is. It is just a source of light, designed to emit photons which can bounce off objects and return to your eyes. Your brain then interprets them and tells you what you are seeing.
Simple enough but you need a light powerful enough to illuminate the area you are looking at. The power from the light is dispersed across the full width of its beam. Then, when the light hits an object, small bit of its beam that hits the object is reflected back, but it is again dispersed, meaning that only a tiny fraction of the original light gets back to you.
That is fine in a car, you want to narrow the area right ahead of you extending out far enough that you can take action to avoid the things that you see. Even at motorway speeds around 100 meters should be enough. You are probably starting to see where I am going with this.
With a ship 100 meters may not be enough to see your own bow, let alone to see far enough ahead to take any action. A large cargo ship, for example, needs more than a mile to stop. With two such vessels approaching each other, you are looking at needing at least two miles visibility to take action in time. You know how bright a car’s headlight is. Just think how much brighter a ship’s headlight would need to be to have the same effect!
Imagine two ships approaching each other at night. We have already established that they do not use headlights to see each other. So, what do they use? Well, they still use lights, but they are called navigation or nav lights instead. Every seaworthy vessel is fitted with nav lights the idea is that they are arranged in a standardized distinctive way so that other vessels can not only see you, but also identify how you are moving. As nav lights are fitted to the target vessel, their power only needs to be sufficient to be seen by other vessels.
If you have a light fitted as shown on the picture, rather than just relying on a tiny portion of reflected light, you can see how much easier it will be to see compared to using a headlight.
But what about identifying their movement? Let us take this cargo ship as an example. She would show two masthead lights, the aft one being higher than the forward one. These immediately tell other ships in which direction she is moving. But she also shows sidelights. These are the colored lights that you probably know about – red for port and green for starboard. Again, it reinforces, which way she is traveling.
But the lights can tell us even more than that. If we are looking at the vessel’s port side and she turns towards us – as the masthead lights come in line, you can start to see both sidelights. You know the other vessel is heading straight for you. Take the look from above and you can see that the only angle where you would see all those lights is from right ahead. The observant among you will spot that these lights do not go all the way around either. Instead, we have a single white light filling in the sector of the stern, as shown on the picture. What this means is that if you spot a single white light, one of the things it could be is a power-driven vessel viewed from a stern.
If she turns a bit you can come on the cusp of viewing her sidelights and mast headlights, too. Looking from above, the only thing where this is possible, is along the white line shown – it is two points of 22.5 degrees above the beam – the very definition of overtaking we took straight from COLREGs.
Of course, we just looked at a power-driven vessel here but there are countless variations on this arrangement. You can  add extra mast headlights to indicate you are towing or show only side lights to indicate you are sailing. You can even modify your status by adding two all-round red lights to show you are not under command, or three all-round red lights to show you are aground or make the middle one white to show that you are restricted in your ability to maneuver.
See, nav lights tell you so much more that headlights ever could. They accomplish the basics making the vessel show up against the dark sky. But, in addition, they allow you to identify the vessel type, work out its aspect, and see which way she is moving – all vital information when it comes to applying the collision regulations, and working out which of you needs to give way to the other.
 It is very important to understand the importance of the shipboard communications at all levels in order to achieve safe and efficient ship operation. What is communication? Here is one possible definition – transferring signals and messages from one person to another with the purpose of creating an understanding, a particular meaning or a certain reaction from the other person. If no reaction is received, we are talking about one-way communication.
According to statistics, as much as 70-80% of incidents and accidents at sea can be traced back to some kind of communication problem including those between personnel on the bridge because of different culture, native language, age, experience etc., between bridge and engine personnel, ship and tugs, ship and VTS, ship and ship owner/operator, ship and authorities.
 Have you noticed how boats, both large and small, tend to be painted a different color under the water? Most often, it is red but actually nowadays you can get any color you like. The reason for it goes back to the earliest days of sailing ships. Back in those days wooden sailing ships would slowly plot around the world. A combination of their slow speed and rough hull made them an ideal breeding ground for underwater growth. Just take a look under a pier and you will see the sort of marine growth these ships used to suffer. We are talking barnacles, worms, seaweed, and things like that, so that is the issue.
Well, all of these things have negative impacts on ships over time. You get the obvious of things like damage to the hull itself due to worms and the actual growth; then you get issues like the additional weight that they have to carry around and reduction in maximum speed due to the extra drag. Of course, on sailing vessels that drag-on weight would impact their ability to sail upwind which would yet further reduce their efficiency. What you need is a way to stop marine life from growing on the bottom of the hull and this is where antifouling comes in.
Antifouling is just a system designed to reduce fouling by animal and plant life on the underwater sections of a boat or a ship. Early solutions were to place copper sheets on the hulls of ships. The “Cutty Sark” is a great example of this. The primary purpose of the copper sheets was actually to stop worms eating their way through wooden hulls. A secondary benefit is that the copper would reduce the growth of plant life.
Of course, as wooden hulls were replaced by iron, worm issue did reduce but they have never been eliminated. Just look at the leisure industry today and you will still see a plenty of wooden hulls around, and of course regardless of its construction materials we still have the same old issue of drag caused by the growth of plant life is probably more important now to keep that under control, considering the costs of fuel and efficiency savings on long passages.
We still need antifouling to stop a combination of worms, barnacles and weed from growing on the underside of the hulls but instead of using the old technique of copper sheets we now use a form of paint. The subject paint works on the same principle and actually still uses copper as a biocide though it is mostly cuprous oxide mixed with the paint rather than copper sheets.
It is the natural red color of those copper oxides that has led to the traditional red color of antifouling. Modern antifouling systems can be broken into two broad categories – hard and soft. Soft coatings are designed to wear off over time continuously exposing  fresh biocides as the outer layer of the paint wears off. Hard coatings, on the other hand, are designed to be lot more durable. They are meant to last a lot longer. As the biocides are released the durable layer of paint remains but the biocides contained in the outermost layer do get used up.
Both systems work on the same principle. They gradually release biocides commonly based on the chemical element copper. The difference is that the soft coatings allow the paint to flake off as well. As you can imagine, there are environmental considerations – antifouling releases biocides and possibly paint into the environment. That is one reason a lot of ports do not allow cleaning the hulls. They do not want the extra dose of biocides and paint released by the rubbing process.
One of the other options is to use the normal hardware and paint on the other side of the hull but that will result in a lot of aquatic growth. That is fine on a small boat that you can pull out of the water and clean quite often, but is not so great on a container ship running around the world. What would happen if, for example, container ship picked some weed in Asia and carried it into the Baltic Sea where it takes hold and overtakes some of the native species? Similar things have happened and do actually continue to happen though it is not so much from hull growth because antifouling is more of an issue for the ballast water.
So, aside from just using no antifouling, what could you do? There is a talk of systems that slowly use some sort of jelly from the hull. The theory is that as the growth attaches to the hull, the jelly seeps off and takes the growth with it. There are also some silicon based paints that make it hard for barnacles to stick to the hull. Unfortunately, these do not actually stop the growth but it makes it easier to clean off.
As said above, most ports do not allow cleaning anyway not only because of the historical antifouling issues but also they do not want to clean off species that are not native to the harbor itself. The last thing they want is to be overcome by some sort of invasive weed from the other side of the world.
 Bridge resource management is such a vital part of the ship safety that it is requirement of the STCW convention and the ISM Code. It is a method which uses all resources available to conduct safe and efficient vessel bridge functions. These resources include both equipment and personnel. It takes both traditional skills to operate the equipment as well as managerial skills to use personnel resources to their potential. In order to best utilize personnel o board your vessel, you must understand the human factors involved. These include communications, situational awareness, stress, fatigue, leadership and decision making, and group dynamics and integration.
The NTSB has determined that human factor contributed to 75-80% of all marine casualties. That is why the STCW has made a requirement that all shipboard officers must demonstrate an understanding of the concepts which constitute effective Bridge Resource Management. Note that it is important to establish good vertical communication including making sure to include unlicensed personnel.
The bridge personnel’s performance is essential to the safety of the vessel. In order to achieve a sound and efficient bridge organization, defined procedures including Master’s standing orders are essential. Procedures shall be established to ensure duties are clearly defined and assigned to certain individuals. Effective procedures will minimize the risk that an error by one person will have disastrous and irreversible consequences. No one should be assigned more than they can handle, and no duty should be re-assigned without notifying the watch officer.
A visual lookout should always be maintained. In good visibility, it is good practice to periodically undertake collision avoidance routines in order to be fully prepared if difficult situations subsequently arise  and reduce visibility.
To cope with the workload and risks, specific watch conditions should be established for restricted visibility, heavy traffic, and pilotage conditions. It is important to make sure that all equipment needed is available and functioning. If equipment is not functioning, its limitations and errors should be correctly applied. Pilots are valuable addition to the bridge team; there must be a good exchange of information between the pilot and the bridge team so each is aware of the other’s intentions.
In assigning duties, careful consideration should be given to the ergonomic layout of the bridge. The concept of the zones and responsibility takes this into consideration and duties are assigned so that personnel are not interfering with each other but can share critical information. Checklist should be used but not treated as a substitute to the thorough knowledge of the ship or procedures. Checklists have many benefits, such as focused attention at the task at hand, helping to establish priorities, serving as an aid against failure of human memory, helping to balance the workload, and eliminating guesswork by instituting standard procedures. The STCW convention requires that new crew members be given familiarization training prior to assuming any duties, and Masters and mates have knowledge of Bridge Teamwork Principles.
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