With the generous permission of Smiths Industries research is now being undertaken within the Department of Maritime Studies at the University of Wales Institute of Science and Technology, under the supervision of Captain C. H. Cotter. This has led to a study of information theory and its interesting links with entropy; information, as a result of work done, reduces randomness and introduces orderliness just as, in another context, housework reduces random dust and introduces cleanliness.

Modern marine navigation is experiencing a more drastic change than ever before; automated systems are being introduced extensively in various parts of ships at various levels, inertial navigation systems are on the verge of introduction, the Navy Navigation Satellite system is now open for civilian use, and parallel with these developments modern data processing systems armed with electronic computers are being used at sea. In the processing of data, the application of modern statistical methods such as Kalman filtering should be noted.

When geophysical measurements are made from the air, it is important to know the position of the aircraft. The position at any time is usually known from a combination of position-fixing and dead-reckoning systems. In-flight optimization of this combination is a well-studied subject. When post-flight track plotting is required for geophysical survey, use can be made of both the initial and terminal position fixes to correct the dead-reckoning track and hence improve on the in-flight version. This technique is applied to compute the track of aircraft conducting ice thickness measurements in the Antarctic, and the effect of certain errors is evaluated. The algebraic results are equally applicable in parts of the world where better navigational aids are available. A relation is derived between the track plotting errors and die errors in the geophysical measurement such that the precision of one is not degraded by errors in the other.

Increasing traffic movements, size of aircraft and congestion of large buildings around modern civil airports, particularly those involved in major international operations, together with the predicted operation of STOL and VTOL types of aircraft, have led to an intensive review of the future needs for new approach and landing aids.

This paper was presented at an Institute meeting held in London on 15 December 1971, with Mr. H. E. Smith, Chairman of the Technical Committee, in the Chair. Mr. Wood, who is the United Kingdom member of the I.C.A.O. All Weather Operations Panel, reviews the whole situation broadly, with emphasis on operational requirements, present and future possibilities of the v.h.f./u.h.f. ILS guidance system and the effort, both national and international, to establish a new approach and landing guidance system which will satisfy future requirements.

A symposium on The Application of Computers to Ship Operations was held at the Department of Navigation, Liverpool Polytechnic, on 1, 2 and 3 March 1971.

The symposium was introduced by the Head of the Department, Captain F. L. Main, who briefly reviewed the revolution in world shipping over the past twenty years involving great increases in tonnage, speed of vessels and traffic congestion, accompanied by a progressive reduction in manning scales. This had been made possible by automation and one of its logical consequences was the use of computers both at sea and in port administration. The aim of the symposium was to explore the potential of the digital computer in these fields, to define its possible limitations and to emphasize the need of adequate training for the personnel involved.

Of the nine papers presented, four more directly concerned with the application of computers to navigational systems are printed below. Other papers dealt with the application of computers to cargo handling, ships' accountancy and port administration with particular reference to the recent experience of the Mersey Docks and Harbour Board. Captain Holder and Captain Jones are both in the Marine Operations Research Unit at the Liverpool Polytechnic.

For a number of years ship's equipment has included automatic steering, off-course alarms, speed and distance logs, &c., all of which make use of separate electronic or electro-mechanical devices. The digital computer has meanwhile come into use for a large number of control systems, mainly ashore, and has improved in reliability and cost. The question therefore arises whether ships could be operated more efficiently and safely by making use of the rapid and accurate calculations which the digital computer can perform. Data loggers may produce such a profusion of information that it becomes an embarrassment and we may not see the wood for the trees. The ability of the digital computer (or processor) to edit and analyse information, as well as to store it, makes it a logical step in developing optimum performance.

At present all ports operate some form of traffic regulation within their limits. Harbour masters and port authorities may limit the passage of vessels either out of, or into, the port and special light or shape signals indicate to a vessel that such control is in operation. Dock and lock masters decide the priority of vessels through the entrance to closed systems. In channels outside the closed systems pilots and regular port users have developed standard patterns of behaviour for their mutual safety and convenience. Evidently this regulation is acceptable and as its development has been spontaneous it must have been considered necessary.

One might well begin with the conclusion: ‘It is quite obvious that computer systems are rapidly being accepted on Norwegian ships’ although shipping opinion is still divided into two camps, the believers and the agnostics. The believers foresee a single large computer or several smaller systems covering most functions on board, the doubters think that computers are a passing fancy. There has certainly been too much talk about computers as if they were an end in themselves—the computer is an aid; in Noratom-Norcontrol we look on it as a component which enables us to solve certain system problems we were unable to tackle before, or to solve them better.

Radar was fitted to merchant ships after the last war in the belief that, amongst other things, it would help to reduce collision casualties. However, by the early 1950s people were talking about ‘radar assisted collisions’ and today, in spite of improved radar equipment and training facilities, we read all too often of collisions between radar equipped ships. The question remains why such collisions occur; in part the answer lies in the fact that modern merchant ships have limited manpower so that the officer of the watch is often the only man on the bridge for long periods, and plotting ships' tracks from radar information is a time consuming business. The result is that, although radar provides the information required to avoid a collision, it is not in a form readily assimilated by the operator and incorrect interpretations can occur. The obvious solution is automatic extraction and processing of the radar information so that it can be presented to the operator in a form which will enable him to assess the situation rapidly. This would eliminate the tedious process of plotting, but retain the information normally obtained from a plot.

In this paper which was presented at an Institute meeting in London on 17 November 1971, Mr. O'Hagan describes a system for advising cooperating ships in a Surveillance Area. The system includes accurate position sensing through on-board equipment, high frequency telephonic communication, a general survey of all shipping and other hazards in the area based on primary radar, analysis of the data by computer, and the employment of an experienced Master Mariner ashore to assess the situation and offer advice to the cooperating vessels.

The discussion was opened by R. H. Farrands, Vice-President of the European Maritime Pilots' Association. The Chair was taken by the President of the Institute, Rear-Admiral G. S. Ritchie, C.B., D.S.C.

An automatic collision warning system for use at sea, using present-day lower power techniques and capable of handling up to 250 ships at a time is described. The equipment does not involve expensive computer facilities.

During the past twenty years I have sailed my ketch Mara (12 tons) in the English Channel and have been involved in several close-quarter situations with large merchant ships, fortunately without accident. Any competent navigator is aware that if the bearing of the other vessel remains constant, there is a risk of collision. In Mara's case, moving at a fast walk, the threat on 090° coming at 20 kt. may pass ahead or astern. If the threat signals her intention by one or two blasts there is no problem; it is the ship that holds her course in blind silence that gives the yachtsman a cause for heart failure.

Prompted by a recent paper, in which a brief reference is made to Piri Reis (the Turkish term ‘Reis’ is a title corresponding approximately to ‘Naval Commander’), I am persuaded to bring to the notice of readers of the Journal—many of whom perhaps are unacquainted with the name of Piri Reis—the following brief account of the life and work of a brilliant sixteenth-century Turkish admiral.

Graduating error distributions by families of curves has a long and distinguished history. In seeking a class of frequency distributions which graduate navigational data, Anderson and Ellis are motivated by the well-known shortcomings of the normal distribution which so often fails to do justice to the data in the tails of the distribution. They generalize the one parameter (σ) zero-mean gaussian family to a two parameter (α, β) family which is in fact the Pearson Type VII class. They then observe that this class graduates published navigational distributions very wells.

The following comments on Captain C. H. Cotter's note (this Journal, Vol. 24, page 569) on the use of addition and subtraction logarithms in navigation may be of interest. Captain C. Carić was not the first to introduce gaussian logarithms to navigators, since their use was advocated, at least to Portuguese navigators, in 1920 by Admiral Gago Coutinho (see my review of Precision Astrolabe by Francis M. Rogers, 25, 135), and actually used by him on his pioneering transatlantic flight in 1922. They are included in several collections of nautical tables, including Tábuas Náuticas by Fontoura and Coutinho, as well as those of Friocourt and Hoüel; but I have been unable to obtain the dates of their first inclusion. However, it is most unlikely that either Coutinho or Carić, who incidentally used quite different basic formulae, were the first to advocate the use of addition and subtraction logarithms, or possibly to publish methods and tables. They were in use to a small extent in astronomical calculations, and to a somewhat larger extent in surveying. Dr. L. J. Comrie, the computer and table-maker, who was Superintendent of H.M. Nautical Almanac Office (N.A.O.) from 1930 to 1936, was an enthusiastic advocate and designed many computational forms incorporating their use.

In his Presidential Address Admiral Ritchie referred to the two series of charts in 79 small-scale sheets which 16 member states of the International Hydrographic Organization have undertaken to produce; some of them will be published this year. This new development, and how it will affect mariners who now use our Admiralty charts, may be of some interest.

The two small-scale charts for ocean and offshore navigation require a comparatively limited effort and with the enthusiasm and interest shown by all participating nations it is expected that both could be completed within a reasonable period, probably before the end of 1974. When these charts are published it will be possible to withdraw many small-scale Admiralty charts, some of which were originally published more than a century ago and have subsequently received only partial correction, and much criticism as being out-of-date. But it will not usually be possible to replace them chart for chart as each individual new International Chart is published, because replacement of existing charts can best be made when the whole scheme or at least a complete regional area has been completed. This applies not only to the United Kingdom but to all the world charting authorities and will result in their still having to maintain many existing charts until the new coverage is complete. This problem of ‘block’ replacement, rather than individual chart replacement, will assume serious proportions in the subsequent larger-scale stages of the International Chart.

An accurate knowledge of the service speed of a merchant vessel is becoming increasingly important. Service speed and average speed (the former traditionally implying a long-term average, the latter a short-term average) are both derived by dividing the sum of a number of observed distances by the relevant time elapsed. In this way fluctuations in observed distances arising from random fix errors and the effects of change of draught, weather and variable currents are smoothed. Service speed may be used as a basis for determining log errors, engine efficiencies, hull surface condition, liner schedules and charter party speeds. It is therefore relevant to consider possible systematic errors which may be introduced in the calculation of these speeds.

It has become increasingly apparent that there is a pressing need to amend the Collision Regulations with special regard for the requirements of high-speed vessels. My experience as a Commander of a hydrofoil on a scheduled passenger service, in an area of high traffic density, has led me to write this paper and to add weight to the argument in favour of an early alteration of the existing Rules.

There are more and more types of vessel today capable of speeds in excess of 40 and indeed up to 60 or more knots. In the Solent area alone, there are two hovercraft services and a hydrofoil service. In addition there are the experimental craft of the National Physical Laboratory, the Inter-Service Hovercraft Unit and several manufacturers use the area as a testing ground for their vessels. There are all types of high-speed vehicles proceeding in all directions, at speeds which 10 years ago would have been considered impossible.

King's observation that a false impression could be gained from long-term savings that do not take account of the time value of money is no doubt true if all aspects and factors of comparative projects are taken into account. However, he must think readers a little naive if he offers his Fig. 3 as a full interpretation of the possible savings from installing the various levels of shipborne automation explored in my recent article. An examination of Section 8 (Cost Equations) will show that the DCF technique was deliberately discarded in order to simplify the argument. In fact, there was an additional note—deleted by the Editor through lack of space—which observed that the appraisal could be based on the assumption that the discount rate was equal to the escalation rate of the savings occasioned by taking into account the rise in wages, victualling, &c. over the equivalent project period.

After studying Captain J. S. McKenzie's very interesting paper on the above subject (Journal24, 174), and recognizing the need for an improvement in the safety of navigation, it would seem worthwhile considering whether safety could be improved while still reducing costs.

Using Captain McKenzie's assumed costs, and his Table III as a model, the accompanying table shows the costs and savings for two versions of an all officer bridge manning scheme.

The Man/machine interface. People who design motor cars also drive them, but whoever heard of a radar design engineer who also had a Master's ticket? Of course, the designers of marine instruments do go to sea occasionally, but not for longer than they can help; sea-time is apt to interfere with the weekend. So it happens that the people who make marine radars are rather remote from those who use them, and from the environment in which they work, the sea. The engineer might argue that no two seamen ever seem able to agree on what they want, so the easiest thing is to decide for them, and that, in any case, it is only a matter of ergonomics. On the other hand, it may be that the people who write books on ergonomics have not been to sea either. Radars are used in the dark, as are motor cars, but the darkness of the bridge is not the same as night driving.