The Principles Underlying the Collision Regulations

Abstract

A great deal has been written, especially in the last few years, on the subject of collision at sea. The increase, however, in the speed of ships and in the density of traffic so magnifies the complexity of the problem that even closer and more earnest study is still called for. Three fields of inquiry demand our attention: technical advances, procedure, and the human factor. Of these, the widest and most promising might seem to be the first. Its importance is undeniable, and I am by no means the only one to have pointed out that with the new difficulties it raises it supplies also the appropriate solution. Even wider, however, and more complex is the field of human study; this covers both the others, for in this the final objective is to enable men to master what they have won for themselves, and this they cannot do—here we meet the familiar problems of philosophy, ethics and religion—unless they first learn to master themselves.

Compared with these two fields, the technical and the human, that of procedure must at first seem quite insignificant. Can one seriously imagine that there is in fact some new method of avoiding collisions, so abstruse that no one has yet been able to discover it? In my small book on the use of radar I wrote: ‘The Regulations envisage two ways of avoiding collision:

1. A movement carried out in concert with the other vessel.

2. A reduction of speed, if necessary to zero.