Seamanship is the art, knowledge and competence of operating a ship, boat or other craft on water. The Oxford Dictionary states that seamanship is "The skill, techniques, or practice of handling a ship or boat at sea."
A navigator is the person on board a ship or aircraft responsible for its navigation. The navigator's primary responsibility is to be aware of ship or aircraft position at all times. Responsibilities include planning the journey, advising the ship's captain or aircraft commander of estimated timing to destinations while en route, and ensuring hazards are avoided. The navigator is in charge of maintaining the aircraft or ship's nautical charts, nautical publications, and navigational equipment, and they generally have responsibility for meteorological equipment and communications. With the advent of satellite navigation, the effort required to accurately determine one's position has decreased by orders of magnitude, so the entire field has experienced a revolutionary transition since the 1990s with traditional navigation tasks, like performing celestial navigation, being used less frequently. Using multiple independent position fix methods without soley relying on subject to failure electronic systems helps the navigator detect errors and professional mariners are still proficient in traditional piloting and celestial navigation.
The term logbook or log book originated with the ship's log, a log of important events in the management, operation, and navigation of a ship.
The United Kingdom Hydrographic Office (UKHO) is the UK's agency for providing hydrographic and marine geospatial data to mariners and maritime organisations across the world. The UKHO is a trading fund of the Ministry of Defence (MoD) and is located in Taunton, Somerset, with a workforce of approximately 900 staff.
An electronic logbook is a computer-based software program for recording (logging) states, events or simply conditions used for complex machines like aircraft, nuclear plants, particle accelerators, various areas on board ships replacing paper-based logbooks, etc.
A chief mate (C/M) or chief officer, usually also synonymous with the first mate or first officer, is a licensed mariner and head of the deck department of a merchant ship. The chief mate is customarily a watchstander and is in charge of the ship's cargo and deck crew. The actual title used will vary by ship's employment, by type of ship, by nationality, and by trade: for instance, chief mate is not usually used in the Commonwealth, although chief officer and first mate are; on passenger ships, the first officer may be a separate position from that of the chief officer that is junior to the latter.
A second mate or second officer (2/O) is a licensed member of the deck department of a merchant ship holding a Second Mates Certificate of Competency, which is issued by the administration. The second mate is the third in command and a watchkeeping officer, customarily the ship's navigator. Other duties vary, but the second mate is often the medical officer and in charge of maintaining distress signaling equipment. On oil tankers, the second mate usually assists the chief mate with the Cargo operations.
Chartering is an activity within the shipping industry whereby a shipowner hires out the use of their vessel to a charterer. The contract between the parties is called a charterparty. The three main types of charter are: demise charter, voyage charter, and time charter.
A dive log is a record of the diving history of an underwater diver. The log may either be in a book, locally hosted software, or web based. The log serves purposes both related to safety and personal records. Information in a log may contain the date, time and location, the profile of the dive, equipment used, air usage, above and below water conditions, including temperature, current, wind and waves, general comments, and verification by the buddy, instructor or supervisor.
The Climatological database for the world's oceans (CLIWOC) was a research project to convert ships' logbooks into a computerised database. It was funded by the European Union, and the bulk of the work was done between 2001 and 2003. The database draws on British, Dutch, French and Spanish ships' logbook records for the immediate pre-instrumental period, 1750 to 1850.
A sea captain, ship's captain, captain, master, or shipmaster, is a high-grade licensed mariner who holds ultimate command and responsibility of a merchant vessel. The captain is responsible for the safe and efficient operation of the ship—including its seaworthiness, safety and security, cargo operations, navigation, crew management, and legal compliance—and for the persons and cargo on board.
Unmanned Surface Vehicles are boats or ships that operate on the surface of the water without a crew. USVs operate with various levels of autonomy, from simple remote control, to autonomous COLREGs compliant navigation.
Passage planning or voyage planning is a procedure to develop a complete description of a vessel's voyage from start to finish. The plan includes leaving the dock and harbor area, the en route portion of a voyage, approaching the destination, and mooring, the industry term for this is 'berth to berth'. According to international law, a vessel's captain is legally responsible for passage planning, The duty of passage planning is usually delegated to the ship's navigation officer, typically the second officer on merchant ships.
Vessel Monitoring Systems (VMS) is a general term to describe systems that are used in commercial fishing to allow environmental and fisheries regulatory organizations to track and monitor the activities of fishing vessels. They are a key part of monitoring control and surveillance (MCS) programs at national and international levels. VMS may be used to monitor vessels in the territorial waters of a country or a subdivision of a country, or in the Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZ) that extend 200 nautical miles (370.4 km) from the coasts of many countries. VMS systems are used to improve the management and sustainability of the marine environment, through ensuring proper fishing practices and the prevention of illegal fishing, and thus protect and enhance the livelihoods of fishermen.
A Yachtmaster qualification is a certificate of competence of the ability to handle either a sailing boat or motor boat in certain prescribed conditions. Three different titles are specified; Yachtmaster Coastal, Yachtmaster Offshore, and Yachtmaster Ocean which specify the level of competence required and the area of operation certified.
A marine sandglass is a timepiece of simple design that is a relative of the common hourglass, a marine (nautical) instrument known since the 14th century. Sandglasses were used to measure the time at sea or on a given navigational course, in repeated measures of small time increments. Used together with the chip log, smaller marine sandglasses were also used to measure the boat speed through the water in knots.
Shipwrecking is an event that causes a shipwreck, such as a ship striking something that causes the ship to sink; the stranding of a ship on rocks, land or shoal; poor maintenance; or the destruction of a ship either intentionally or by violent weather.
Ship Management - as the name implies, deals with the management of ships. The vessels under management could be owned by a sister concern of the ship management company or by independent vessel owners. A vessel owning company that generally has several vessels in its fleet, entrusts the fleet management to a single or multiple ship management companies. Ship management is often entrusted to third parties due to the various hassles that are involved in managing a ship. For instance, ships could be considered as large factories that travel across seas under various weather conditions for several days at a stretch. These vessels are equipped with several types of machinery that require appropriate maintenance and the associated spares on board. In the scenario of a vessel lacking adequate maintenance, this could lead to the breakdown of the equipment in the middle of a voyage at sea. A breakdown could be an expensive affair. A second scenario would be – a vessel is continuously on the move or under some sort of activity and hence requires to be manned by a competent crew. The documents of the crew need to comply with international regulations, their transportation to and from the vessel must be arranged for, their competencies must align with the requirement of the vessel and must complement the skillsets of the existing onboard crew. Hence several parameters must be considered which is a tedious job. In order to ensure such scenarios are considered for and to provide adequate attention to the vessels, ship owners outsource the management. Several management companies provide the owner with a crew on board. When the ship comes out of the shipyard shipyard the management company takes it over providing technical management to the owner. Most Management companies also offer other services like inspection prior to purchase, supervision during building, crew management and supply and ship lay-up solutions.
A pilot logbook is a record of a pilot's flying hours. It contains every flight a pilot has flown, including flight time, number of landings, and types of instrument approaches made. Pilots also log simulator time, as it counts towards training.
Bridge OperationsQuality Assurance is a methodology utilised in shipping and which originates from the similar FOQA/FDM concept in aviation. BOQA is a methodology with which ship owners/operators, ship Captains, and other associated shipping stakeholders can automatically and systematically monitor, track, trend and analyse operational quality of (seagoing) vessels. The main target with BOQA is to provide a non-punitive platform for proactive analysis of vessel data to enable the enhancement of maritime safety. The BOQA methodology can be used in both conventional manned ships and in autonomous or unmanned vessels providing that adequate data sources are available.
