Trip to the wilds of Nesodden

 

An adventure for the Båtlab gang

It all started about two years ago when two of our colleagues, Charlotte and Camilla, announced that they would not be around the Norwegian Maritime Museum for some time, as they were involved in a large project to move all the cultural items stored in Ekeberg to a new storage location near Drøbak.

This was very sad for us, as with Charlotte we had learned a lot on traditional clinker-built boats by working with the boat builders on the reconstruction of Norwegian boats. In fact, 4 boats in total.

With Camilla, we learnt much on the conservation of cultural artefacts, especially boats, rubber gloves included.

 So, they disappeared and then later, we had an invitation from Camilla for an orientation tour on a new warehouse, located in the countryside around Nesodden. This would be exciting as we had spent some time working with Charlotte and Camilla in the caves of Ekeberg and anything had to be a better working environment than that.

 

We were four experienced navigators so expected no difficulty in driving down to the warehouse. three in one car and the fourth driving from another town It didn't turn out like that though.

A pleasant drive south with the three navigators towards Drøbak was suddenly shattered when we realised, we had passed the recommended turn off for the warehouse. Not to worry, said navigator 1, we have GPS in this new car.

He duly typed in the address given to us by Camilla. The computer-generated map instructed us to take the next turning and head towards Drøbak. Problem solved, we thought, and we proceeded along country roads for some kilometres, passing a local church in the countryside. This did not seem right, so we turned round, and our wonderful computer immediately gave us another route and we should turn into a narrow lane skirted by several houses and a farm. Our second navigator, very experienced in the navigation of ships, pointed out that often these lanes deteriorate quickly and so it did. First the asphalt disappeared to be replaced by a gravel surface. So long as we do not get grass in the middle of the road, we should be OK as it means that the road is well used, said our second navigator. A few kilometres on grass appeared in the middle of the road. This does not look too good, said the third, navigator from the back seat, a little confused being more used to navigating by sun and compass.

 It will be OK, said Navigator 1, so long as we do not meet a road barrier. At that moment, the GPS screen showed the road ended in a barrier! So, we must turn around and return to the Church Road.

Completely disorientated, the 3 experienced navigators counselled that the wise thing to do was to go back until we saw a sign for Drøbak. This we did and we reintroduced the address into the GPS which seemed as confused as us by constantly wanting us to turn back toward Drøbak.

Three times we arrived at the same roundabout only to be instructed to take the road back to Drøbak. Time for a radical solution. Out with Google Maps on our mobiles and Navigator 3 in the back seat confirmed he had our position plotted and could give verbal directions to navigate to our goal.

 After several missed turns we finally arrived at our destination, somewhat bewildered and a little subdued that the combined might of many years maritime navigation could not solve this challenge. Our excuse could be that there was no sun in evidence, we lacked a sextant and had no compass!

However, we had arrived at the new warehouse for the Norwegian Folkemuseum, better late than never! Surprisingly our fourth navigator had already arrived and wondered why it had takes so long as he had no such navigation challenges. The moral of the story is never to travel with three navigators in the same car!

Camilla was there to welcome us, and we entered this new HUGE building, met the rest of the conservation team and started our orientation tour.

First impressions were WOW, three floors for artifacts, offices seminar room,

kitchen and offices and even toilets. What a difference to Ekeberg. But the first surprise was the sheer size of each floor, possibly 2 football fields in area they were light air-controlled spaces with plenty of room to move around and work with objects, even had lifts between floors! The third navigator was heard to state “fantastic” multiple times!!

It soon became apparent of the scale of the move from Ekeberg. Some 3500 artifacts must first be identified, registered in a database, cleaned and set in a logistics plan for moving. Only then could the items be transported. At the new site a completely new system of storage was built with racks and pallets and wheeled cradles for the 70 odd boats.

Each of the items had an ID , a location and a barcode providing its history where known.

No wonder we did not see Charlotte and Camilla for 2 years.

The result is a breathtaking new modern warehouse for cultural artifacts of the Museum. Many thanks to the team down there and especially to Charlotte and Camilla.

PS. We all made it back to Oslo without incident!

 

Maritime situational awareness

One of the critical competencies a seafarer needs is situational awareness, being alert to his or her environment and being able to analyze the situation and make informed decisions.

A formal definition:

The term situational awareness can be defined as how elements are viewed within their surroundings, relative to time and space, and how to foresee or predict the occurrence of events by understanding trends and patterns.[1]

Lack of this competence can lead to navigational errors that can be disastrous.

A survey of practising seafarers using a bridge simulator found that over 50% of them failed to recognise a navigational fault even when there were audio and visual cues[2].

A report by the Norwegian Maritime safety authority into a recent collision between a Norwegian warship and a tanker off the Norwegian coast had several safety recommendations. One of these (Marine No 2019/06T) stated:

«The navigator in charge did not pick up on the signals of danger or that the navigator’s own situational awareness was inaccurate. A more experienced navigator would have been better equipped to realise this. »[3]

 

So what is situational awareness? Let’s use a deck officer on watch as an example.

Many scholars break it down into three levels in sequence.

1.      The perception of the elements in the current environment means that a navigator can identify ships and objects around him or her, can identify alarms or signals on the bridge.

2.      Comprehension of the situation meaning that the navigator understands the situation and the likely risks involved.

3.      A decision-making phase where the navigator acts in response to the perceived risk.

An example helps clarify the principles.

It is nighttime and the navigator is in maritime traffic and identifies a ship approaching. Either by radar or visually he ascertains that there is the likelihood of a collision. The classic «end on» scenario. Once understood it is the navigator’s responsibility to make a decision following the International Collision regulations and alter course to starboard to avoid the oncoming vessel. That way the risk of a collision is averted.

This is a simplified version and there can be many factors that can make the situation more complex such as limited manoeuvrability, fatigue or lack of competence of the navigator. Nevertheless situational awareness practice is central to the operation and inability to understand what is happening around the navigator is a major cause of human error accidents at sea.

The navigator is not always alone on the ridge but works in a team utilising the tools of bridge resource management where situational awareness is a key component.

[4]There is another dimension to situational awareness that should not be discounted. Ones senses. It may be that as Captain in your cabin on an ocean crossing you hear a change in the background noise of engine, wind and waves. This alerts to a new situation, either planned or not. The change in motion of the ship would be another source of concern. Differentiating the sound of one alarm from another can be critical in decision-making.

So the senses also play an important role in situational awareness.

 

References

‘2019-08 KNM Helge Ingstad Og Sola TS Eng (1).Pdf’, n.d.

Chan, Jevon P., Rose Norman, Kayvan Pazouki, and David Golightly. ‘Autonomous Maritime Operations and the Influence of Situational Awareness within Maritime Navigation’. WMU Journal of Maritime Affairs 21, no. 2 (1 June 2022): 121–40. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13437-022-00264-4.

Knudsen, Anne. ‘Bridge Resource Management (BRM/MRM) | Definition’. NaviMinds (blog), 6 December 2023. https://naviminds.com/bridge-resource-management/.

 

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[1] Chan et al., ‘Autonomous Maritime Operations and the Influence of Situational Awareness within Maritime Navigation’, 4.

[2] Chan et al., page 138.

[3] ‘2019-08 KNM Helge Ingstad Og Sola TS Eng (page 148).Pdf’.

[4] Knudsen, ‘Bridge Resource Management (BRM/MRM) | Definition’.