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Heavy traffic, extra Look out posted, hours of darkness. Suddenly the GPS is gone !!! Ever experienced this ?
Believe me when it happens, you start doubting each and every equipment. Even the ones which may be working fine at that moment.
Is the gyro giving correct heading ? Is the echo sounder showing correct depth ? You will doubt everything !!! That’s not good.
You will loose the sense of direction. And you would have tiny amount of time to regain the sense and act in a way that is right.
The entire navigation depends upon knowing the position of the ship. This is one of the most important task of a navigator.
But when I say position, I do not only mean GPS position. There are many other ways of plotting the ship’s position. And as with the situation of GPS failing, we must be ready to switch to other methods of position fixing.
Before we proceed with discussing these methods, I must discuss a term which is so much a part of passage planning. The term is “position Fixing Interval”.
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About Capt Rajeev Jassal
Capt. Rajeev Jassal has sailed for over 24 years mainly on crude oil, product and chemical tankers. He holds MBA in shipping & Logistics degree from London. He has done extensive research on quantitatively measuring Safety culture onboard and safety climate ashore which he believes is the most important element for safer shipping.
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