New Prospects—The Structure of Sea Lanes

Extract

There has been considerable progress within the last three years in the evolution of various traffic procedures in coastal and waterway areas. Society at last seems to be awakening to the need for some order and conformity as a means of protecting the marine environment. And sea people have accepted that communications—like steam—have altered the face of the Earth. Learned societies and professional institutions have each played their part on the new frontiers of sea affairs and we have between us not been backward in promoting our ideas as to what the new order could be. We begin to acknowledge that we belong to our times.

We have used the bones of Torrey Canyon and her more recent successors in the Dover, Magellan and Malacca Straits to climb out of an age of obstinate rejection into one of enlightened self-help. Modern life does not tarry with yesterday, and the headlines of past accidents are not necessarily the right titles for future remedies. But they are very useful pointers along the way. Perhaps at last we have understood the nature of the traffic question and can now begin to seek the answers with a broader base of consensus.