By Malcom MacKenzie

The ‘International Regulations for Preventing Collisions at Sea’, the ‘Rules’, are widely accepted by the concerned public, including ship owners and managers, as being the standard by which collisions at sea should be avoided. Any number of senior ship managers and marine surveyors will convincingly argue, based on long experience, that compliance with these Rules is the way to avoid accidents in the belief that they have been the law for so long that they are proven and the inevitable solution to the avoidance of collisions. Sadly, this is a mistake as seamen no longer study the Rules in any detail.

Today’s masters and watch officers, in general, do not know the ‘Rules’ and can not apply them in any detail thoigh they have a broad outline. When I started my mariner apprenticeship in 1955, I was informed by our ship’s chief officer that I should not be allowed ashore in any port until I could correctly quote another of the ‘Articles’, as we called the Rules in those days, prior to arriving off each port of call. We were on the Northern Europe to Australia and New Zealand trade routes, so we made two round voyages a year with some sixteen port calls on each round voyage. As we spent eight months of every year, loading and discharging in some 16 ports every voyage, this prospective ban on going ashore needed to be taken seriously. I learnt all the Articles word perfectly. It involved a year’s concentrated effort. I never had my shore leave withheld. For my 2nd Mates oral exam I had to quote six of the Articles; I managed it easily; I passed. And the examiner remarked, as he passed me, ‘You certainly know your stuff’. I suppose all of us who took the exam in those days knew their Articles.

Today’s bridge watch apprentices are taught to follow Rule 2(b). It is known as the ‘general prudential’, it reads:-

‘In construing and complying with these Rules due regard shall be had to all the dangers of navigation and collision and to any special circumstances, including the limitations of the vessels involved, whuich may make a departure from these Rules necessary to avoid immediate danger’

This satisfies today’s masters and mates as they believe they can fully comply with the ‘Colregs’ by recognising that the approach of any ship involves an element of danger and, this being so, they may make a departure from the Rules to take any action to avoid that danger as they deem best. Their concern is the avoidance, at all costs, of a collision. This they manage so well that hull and machinery costs have fallen in the last twenty years by 75% and the P&I Clubs are awash with surplus funds obliging them to consider refunding their members.

Of course, many other factors have reduced the accident statistics including such import matters as drug and alcohol testing, the use of double hulls and the introduction of inert gas but the willingness to overlook the Colregs is, quite self -evidently, a helpful and contributory element,

Whereas of old, we watched the bearing of an approaching ship with our magnetic compass azimuth mirror and then, if the bearing was steady, we thoughtfully reflected on the applicable Rule by which we would most strictly abide; collisions were not so uncommon.

Today bridge watch keepers behave quite differently. They have their radars, in constant operation at sea, to warn them of the approach of any ship. Then they interrogate their radar to identify the target ship’s closest point of approach with its time and its closest distance of approach. If it is within two miles in the open sea, they call the other ship by VHF radio and inquire for the other ship’s intentions; then they will discuss a proposition involving both ships altering course slightly, whilst still many miles apart, so they will not pass within two miles of each other, a standard safe avoiding distance routinely written into many ship managers’ Safety Management Systems’ and masters’ Standing Orders to Bridge Watch Keepers’.

There are ship managers and shipping administrations that issue standard guidance to conning officers to avoid the use of the VHF for collision avoidance as the equipment has been developed and supplied as the standard equipment for ship-to-shore communications with traffic controllers, pilotage offices, harbour tugs and berthing masters. However, to day, the VHF is routinely used by conning officers for almost every passing ship that threatens to come too close.

Concerns exist that the other ship may decline to answer a message or reply to a prospective close quarters inquiry by insisting that the ‘ColRegs be followed’. But such a negative response is unusual and one a watch keeper can handle by taking his own decisions. Sometimes the two watch keepers involved lack a common language and this can be a problem, but English is becoming increasingly popular; virtually all watch officers understand ‘red-to-red’ as a requirement for both ships to alter course to starboard and go well clear.

Another official concern is that if two ships communicate by VHF they may inadvertently be speaking to another – a third – ship to create confusion; however, this ought not to be a problem as ships now have AIS system in their radars whereby ships are identified by their names, unique IMO numbers and national flags and these details can be used in making initial contact to eliminate the prospect of mistaken identity or even doubt.

The Rules, as we now know them, were initially drawn up under a Government initiative in the 1840s based on the recommendations of the Trinity House in London. These consolidated recommendations, the Rules, reflected the practices adopted by ship owners in the main ports around the country who were concerned that collisions were becoming too frequent. Whilst the Trinity House Rules have been amended over the years for dracones, radar, wing-in-ground aircraft, sea planes and some significant accidents, they are basically unchanged.

The Rules still require ships meeting end on to both alter their courses to starboard. This works well. But in every other approach, by two ships threatening the danger of a collision, one ship is designated as the ‘stand on’ ship to keep her course and speed and the other ship is instructed to ‘give way’, preferably by altering her course, slowing down, stopping or even going astern. It was probably the only sensible course when ships could only communicate by sound signal, flashing lights, displaying flags or sending an officer in a rowing boat to talk things over. In poor visibility, the sound signal was the only practical means of communication though it was unreliable; it could even be misleading.

Today the concept of one ship having to ‘give way’ and the other of having to ‘stand on’ is objectionable. The ‘stand on’ ship will want to give way every bit as soon as the ‘give way’ ship may consider its anti-collision action to reduce the threatening danger of a collision. Then no ship wishes to slow down and stop as it means adjusting the settings of the main engine and resetting them once full speed is resumed. Then any loss of speed might equate to a loss of time with all its consequences.

So, seamen have come to accept that, if ever a collision threatens, it should be discussed by the two conning officers involved when a mutually acceptable avoidance strategy can be worked out whereby both ships alter course a little whilst still many miles apart to allow them to pass without ever coming close. It works well. The insurance costs and accident statistics reflect it.

The trouble is that, if watch officers follow Rule 2 (b) and ignore the remaining Rules, in any official tribunal, following an accident, they may be found to have been at fault and deemed to have been negligent, grossly negligent or even exposed to a charge of manslaughter with the consequences of punishment by a gaol sentence or the suspension of or even loss of their certificates of competency denying them a return to a sea going career as a conning officer and their chosen livelihood.

Thus, I feel the Rules should be amended to bring them into line with current seagoing practice reflecting how well ships are equipped to communicate with each other, to determine the consequences of their anti-collision plans and intentions and to reflect on the success of these Rule 2 (b) anti-collision practices even though they are not recognised by the body of the Rules.

Accordingly, I submit that it is now time for IMO to debate the Rules, in the light of these widely adopted practices, to amend the Rules as they stand today to provide for inter-ship collision avoidance VHF communication and mutually acceptable measures to prevent ships getting too close. The essence is the current tendency of conning officers to talk things over in good time or at least at the earliest opportunity and to thereby recognise a prospective problem and then to decide on mutually acceptable actions to eliminate the danger.

Of course, when ships are already close, in dense channel and harbour traffic, advanced communication and planning is difficult as time may be short and the ships already close. Even then though, the earliest communication may be better than none. Obviously, exchanges should be, as ever, crisp and positive.

I write in this way having lived in Athens for over 25 years and spent almost the entire time partly employed as a lecturer to masters and mates on this and related matters, as a DPA, QAR and as an ISM, ISO and accident consultant for a variety of shipping companies in supervisory sea-going and office management roles. Thus, I have had a long and an ongoing exposure to the current practices of masters and mates.