IN the last ten years, general interest in deep-water navigation has exceeded that shown in piloting on soundings. The “new” navigation is treated in at least six books by as many different authors, while pertinent matter on piloting is offered in only one and a half pamphlets compiled as grounding cases by the Bureau of Navigation. A casual observer may gauge the relative importance of these two subjects by material printed about each. From this comparison alone, he concludes that the new navigation is sine qua non for the future safety of our vessels. This deduction is contrary to an analysis of the grounding cases. Not one of the fifteen grounding cases would have been prevented by the most profound acquaintance with the new navigation methods.
The new navigation, certainly, must possess some quality that commended it for general acceptance. A navigator in the fleet, besides being occupied with other duties, is often pressed for precious minutes in determining the ship’s position. Time to him is a vital factor. Naturally, he finds some relief in the new navigation giving a quicker solution for his sights. Nowadays, in naval use, the time sight is obsolete, and the old-fashioned navigator, content with the Marcq Saint-Hilaire method, lags behind those using the faster systems.
However, the new navigation does not insure greater accuracy. In fact, some methods eliminate labor by yielding to a slight loss in exactness. Fundamentally, all methods deal in the relation to each other of the sides and angles of the astronomical triangle. Improvements have been made in reducing Napier’s rules to simpler form, in cutting down the tables, in handling logarithms, and in devising other minor arrangements. All methods depend for their accuracy primarily on the solution of the same astronomical triangle.
If there is no gain in accuracy, the new navigation contributes little to the actual safe conduct of a vessel. Sometimes, listening to a discussion by an enthusiastic advocate of a system, one’s sense of perspective is warped. As far as the underlying i principle goes, the Marcq Saint-Hilaire or, cosine-haversine method is as reliable a shipmate as ever. The astronomical triangle still controls the situation.
Yet the unseasoned navigator is apt to draw incorrect conclusions about the weight to be given each branch of navigation. Various fleet letters and instructions require the junior officer to do a day’s work. Celestial observations are emphasized. In comparison, piloting seems to have been neglected in the education of the embryo navigator.
The correctness of this statement becomes apparent upon analysis of the grounding cases. In the following paragraph, each case is listed but once under what is believed to have been the most serious fault uncovered by the subsequent courts of inquiry. Contributory mistakes such as incorrect deviation tables or additional hazards such as fog are not indicated. Only one main error, which might have avoided the disaster if it had not been made, is considered. Case 10 is disregarded entirely, as the salvaging of the stranded submarine was a question of seamanship and navigation.
(a) Lights not properly identified or used 6
(b) Improper dead reckoning in fog 4
(c) Courses not allowing for set of current 4
Thus it is found that the single, most serious failure in these groundings was the improper identification or use of lights. In four cases lights were not definitely recognized and in two cases the bearings of lights were not plotted on the chart to obtain the ship’s position.
What steps were taken then to identify these lights? Certainly, lights are given distinct characteristics to tell them apart. They are described by the relative time of light or darkness as fixed, flashing, or occulting. The main and coast lights are white, while harbor lights or those designating a dangerous sector may be green or red, respectively. Then when the characteristics are definitely determined the name of the light can be picked out of the light list.
Yet, disastrous confusion has resulted because the above procedure was worked backwards. Courses were laid down and the time and bearing estimated that a light might be expected to be sighted. Its characteristics might be picked from the chart or light list. But when a light was sighted it was assumed that the expected light was made without unmistakably establishing its identity.
In one case, a light was seen across an island and mistaken for a light to the northward. The position of the ship was plotted from the northern fight while bearings were actually taken on the fight to the southward. The result was that when the ship turned she ran into the island instead of into clear water to the northward.
In another case, a back set of some forty miles during the night made one fight visible in place of another expected to be sighted about that time. The course was changed on the assumption that the correct fight had been sighted. The incorrectness of this procedure proved costly when the bottom was ripped open by bouncing over a ledge of rocks.
What ally might have prevented such a misfortune? What device might have advised the mistaken identity? The little stop watch suggests itself. It will challenge a light to prove whether it is a friend or a dangerous enemy.
The trouble is that the services of the stop watch have been neglected. The name of the fight picked out of the light fist may have been uppermost in the navigator’s mind instead of the distinct periods of time between brightness and darkness of the beam of fight. The wish was father to the thought.
It may be advisable for the navigator to develop dual personalities. He may laud enthusiastically the merits of any method of the new navigation. In his advocacy he may exude the assured air of the now discredited customers’ man of the stock broker’s office. Buoyant spirits and reflected confidence have their place.
But in checking fights, the navigator must be a different personality. He must be wary. He cannot be the optimist trying to impose the predetermined characterise tics upon the fight sighted. Caution is called for. The fight must be suspiciously treated on its merits alone.
There is an analogy in Italian law. There, I understand, the accused is considered guilty until he proves his innocence. Take a page from the Italian book. The navigator is too prone to consider that the fight visible is the proper one. Assume that every fight sighted is an improper one until its innocence or identity has been established beyond doubt.
There is another case where “the officer of the deck was a young ensign who wore glasses.” It was midnight. The wind was high. Heavy rain squalls tended to blind the alert officers and lookouts whose eyes searched the darkness for a lighted buoy. At 0014, the officer of the deck reported a flashing fight broad on the starboard bow, and a course laid to pass it close aboard. At no time did anyone else sight the fight. At 0041 the ship grounded.
The officer may have seen a reflected fight in his glasses from the binnacle or some other source. Or again, he may have had “staritis.” Officers who have spent time looking for submarines know that one’s eyes get to a certain state where one sees periscopes popping up all around. It really is a mental image converted into an optical illusion.
Again on one midwatch, the officer of the deck of a transport did not expect to sight a light until 0230. When a light was picked up earlier, he assumed it to be the flare-up of a small vessel, although he testified that the light seemed to grow in intensity and diminish, and that performance continued. Proper precautions were not taken in identifying the light, and the discovery was not made that the ship was miles to the northward of her dead-reckoning position. As a result, the ship grounded on the sand.
In two more cases, the ships grounded because the bearings of the lights were not plotted on the chart, and the position obtained from the run between bearings. The ship’s clock time of these bearings should have been noted in the log. The stop watch could have been used as an additional check in directly reading the elapsed time.
Perhaps the operation of the stop watch is so simple that its value as an important navigational aid has been overlooked. Sextants, bearing circles, and other navigation instruments seem to have progressed more because of inventive attention. Yet the stop watch could have prevented more disasters than all the other devices combined. Certainly, it requires little or no skill. An apprentice seaman can become proficient in its use in a few minutes. The only knowledge of mathematics required is to know how to tell time and count.
On the other hand, it takes months if not years wrestling with the complexities of spherical trigonometry, before the astronomical triangle can be solved. But the grounding cases show that some of our deep-sea navigation literature could be spared in favor of the subject of piloting. Navigation book treat, but do not emphasize sufficiently, the practical aspects and dangers of establishing the ship’s geographical position near shoal waters.
In closing, a story remembered from early school years seems pertinent. It points to the moral that small matters, if neglected, may cause serious results. A nail was loose in a horse’s shoe, but the horseshoer was on leave, and nothing was done about repairs. In turn, the shoe became loose and fell off. Now, this horse was under way, full speed ahead, most of the time, and with no shoe the horse naturally became lame. The rider, therefore, didn’t reach point “O” according to plan. A lot of riders never do that, but this rider happened to be a king. It seems that in former days, soldiers could not fight without their royal leader, and as a result the army was badly routed. So, for the want of a nail a kingdom was lost.
This parable brings to mind a nautical paraphrase, for the want of the use of a watch a ship may be lost.