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.
