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Sensemaking in Practical Design
concluded that “ The drive to improve safety at sea by the introduction of electronic
navigational equipment to enhance situation awareness and assist the watchkeeper
has unwittingly compromised safety standards by reducing the core competences
that were demanded of previous generations and engendering the undesirable human
trait to select the easiest option”.
Furthermore, de-skilling continues, now the ECDIS itself has become too complicated. In the foreword of the UK Maritime Accident Investigation Board’s ( MAIB)
report after the Ovit grounding in the English Channel 2013, the UK Chief Inspector of
Marine Accidents wrote “ This is the third grounding investigated by the MAIB where
watchkeepers’ failure to use an Electronic Chart Display and Information System
( ECDIS) properly has been identified as one of the causal factors.” ( MAIB, 2014. P.1)
However, although the observations that the de-skilling amongst professional
navigators are undoubtedly true, the safety and reliability of modern shipping keep
improving from year to year. To provide a perspective, it is interesting to note that
in the 3 years 1833–1835, on average 563 ships per year were reported wrecked or
lost in the United Kingdom alone ( Crosbie, 2006). The world fleet of tankers, bulk
carriers, containerships and multipurpose ships, which have risen from about 83,000
ships in 2011 to more than 98,000 in 2020 ( UNCTAD, 2020). The global number of
reported total shipping losses of over 100GT declined during 2019 to 4 1 – the lowest
total this century and a close to 70% fall over 10 years ( Allianz, 2020). So, although
automation has led to de-skilling, it has also led to safer shipping. The question now
is, can the same argument be made for technology in leisure navigation? I would
say yes and argue that a simple, automated tool, warning leisure mariners against
grounding, will potentially result in fewer accidents if properly developed in the process of going from prototype to product.
CONCLUSION
Sensemaking in small and fast leisure crafts works differently than in the protected
environment of slower and lager boats. In this study, a simple, s martphone-based
safety application was developed and tested. Leisure boaters often have a limited
knowledge of navigation according to accident statistics, and the application was
designed to be easy to use and understand without prior knowledge. It worked in two
ways: ( 1) In a “ turned off” mode in the pocket, the phone would give an alarm 30 seconds before the boat entered into “ dangerous waters” ( depth less than 3 m). The boat
owner was then expected to immediately stop the boat. ( 2) Picking up the phone, the
owner could look through the application’s camera view and see red “ NoGo Area”
polygons overlaid on the camera image. By looking around, he or she could then
detect navigable water and continue the voyage.
The application contained a high-resolution map of the 3-m depth contour
extracted from a nautical chart. This map was then projected on the camera image’s
“ egocentric view” of the surroundings, thus bypassing the potentially cumbersome
mental rotations a human navigator has to do when comparing a traditional exocentric map with the world around. This would facilitate use by inexperienced boaters.
The application was tested on a small group of six Norwegian, all male, all experienced, leisure craft mariners. The size and configuration of the test group limits the
Sensemaking in Practical Design
concluded that “ The drive to improve safety at sea by the introduction of electronic
navigational equipment to enhance situation awareness and assist the watchkeeper
has unwittingly compromised safety standards by reducing the core competences
that were demanded of previous generations and engendering the undesirable human
trait to select the easiest option”.
Furthermore, de-skilling continues, now the ECDIS itself has become too complicated. In the foreword of the UK Maritime Accident Investigation Board’s ( MAIB)
report after the Ovit grounding in the English Channel 2013, the UK Chief Inspector of
Marine Accidents wrote “ This is the third grounding investigated by the MAIB where
watchkeepers’ failure to use an Electronic Chart Display and Information System
( ECDIS) properly has been identified as one of the causal factors.” ( MAIB, 2014. P.1)
However, although the observations that the de-skilling amongst professional
navigators are undoubtedly true, the safety and reliability of modern shipping keep
improving from year to year. To provide a perspective, it is interesting to note that
in the 3 years 1833–1835, on average 563 ships per year were reported wrecked or
lost in the United Kingdom alone ( Crosbie, 2006). The world fleet of tankers, bulk
carriers, containerships and multipurpose ships, which have risen from about 83,000
ships in 2011 to more than 98,000 in 2020 ( UNCTAD, 2020). The global number of
reported total shipping losses of over 100GT declined during 2019 to 4 1 – the lowest
total this century and a close to 70% fall over 10 years ( Allianz, 2020). So, although
automation has led to de-skilling, it has also led to safer shipping. The question now
is, can the same argument be made for technology in leisure navigation? I would
say yes and argue that a simple, automated tool, warning leisure mariners against
grounding, will potentially result in fewer accidents if properly developed in the process of going from prototype to product.
CONCLUSION
Sensemaking in small and fast leisure crafts works differently than in the protected
environment of slower and lager boats. In this study, a simple, s martphone-based
safety application was developed and tested. Leisure boaters often have a limited
knowledge of navigation according to accident statistics, and the application was
designed to be easy to use and understand without prior knowledge. It worked in two
ways: ( 1) In a “ turned off” mode in the pocket, the phone would give an alarm 30 seconds before the boat entered into “ dangerous waters” ( depth less than 3 m). The boat
owner was then expected to immediately stop the boat. ( 2) Picking up the phone, the
owner could look through the application’s camera view and see red “ NoGo Area”
polygons overlaid on the camera image. By looking around, he or she could then
detect navigable water and continue the voyage.
The application contained a high-resolution map of the 3-m depth contour
extracted from a nautical chart. This map was then projected on the camera image’s
“ egocentric view” of the surroundings, thus bypassing the potentially cumbersome
mental rotations a human navigator has to do when comparing a traditional exocentric map with the world around. This would facilitate use by inexperienced boaters.
The application was tested on a small group of six Norwegian, all male, all experienced, leisure craft mariners. The size and configuration of the test group limits the