Integrated electronic marine systems are becoming part of the numerous screens which are to be found on ships' bridges and in wheelhouses of fishing vessels. This paper continues previous work which has focussed on perceived safety aspects of integrated electronic marine systems, in particular, a small study completed within the last two years which showed that some fishing skippers had negative perceptions of integrated electronic marine systems. This present study uses semi-structured interviews with skippers in the United Kingdom fishing fleet to show that integrated electronic marine systems can be perceived as increasing safety as well as being of good value in terms of need and cost. It is possible that such perceptions are dependent on experiencing the use of integrated electronic marine systems within off-shore trawling.

Integrated electronic marine systems have been put forward as one way of reducing information overload for officers of the watch and other personnel who work on ships' bridges or in fishing wheelhouses. It may be that such systems will improve safety records which, in the case of fishing, are amongst the worst in the world. This article builds on previous work about issues for the systems designer by using a small study of fishing skippers to ascertain their perceptions of using integrated electronic systems in the wheelhouse. Semi-structured interviews were used with 11 skippers from one port who were all familiar with integrated electronic marine systems but did not use them on their vessels. The main reasons for this were a perception of unreliability of both the hardware and the software, together with concerns about data integrity and user control.

Marine accidents have many causes but a recurring theme is poor watch-keeping often caused by weak bridge management. Information overload is sometimes blamed for accidents and attempts to reduce information overload may include electronic systems which have been produced for integrating information from various electronic sources so that information is concentrated on fewer screens. This article explores some of the issues facing the designers of such systems. While acknowledgement is given to some of the technical problems, the article concentrates on those issues associated with the user of such systems, in particular, domain knowledge, screen design and user control. Available Marine Accident Investigation Reports for 2004 are used to highlight that, in that year, only one passenger vessel incident was attributed in part to poor data from electronic aids. However, it is accepted that a much wider study of such reports is needed before any firm conclusions can be drawn.