ECDIS Route Monitoring and Alarms
An ECDIS alarm is only as good as the settings behind it. How the safety contour, the look-ahead cone, and cross-track limits keep the watch off the ground.
Navigation & ECDIS
Where is the ship, and is the water ahead safe? That question is the whole of navigation, and the modern bridge answers it with ECDIS, satellite position, and electronic charts. These guides cover the systems and the seamanship behind them: chart setup, safety settings, route checking, position fixing, and passage planning.
Passage Planning: The Four Stages
A voyage that ends badly rarely goes wrong at sea. It goes wrong days earlier, in a plan never properly made. Here are the four stages that turn a passage into decisions already taken.
ECDIS Route Planning Step by Step
A good route plan is thinking done in advance, so it does not have to be done at the wheel-over in the dark. Here is how to plan a passage on ECDIS — and run a route check that is actually honest.
ECDIS Safety Settings: Contour, Depth, and Height
ECDIS does not know what “safe” means for your ship until you tell it — and its default guess is dangerous. Here is how the safety contour, depth, and height settings really behave.
Generic vs Type-Specific ECDIS Training
An officer can hold a valid ECDIS certificate and still be unfit to keep watch on the system in front of them. Here is why ECDIS training comes in two parts — and which one actually gets ships detained.
AIS Explained: What It Tells You, and What It Can’t
AIS hands you every ship’s name, course, and intentions before they come into sight. The trouble is how much of it is typed in by hand, and how far to trust it.
Radar Basics
A working guide to marine radar: how it builds its picture, how to read motion and risk of collision from it, how to tune it, and where it goes blind.
Dead Reckoning vs GPS
They are not rivals. GPS gives where the ship is; dead reckoning gives where she should be. How the fix, DR, and estimated position fit, and why both still run today.
ECDIS Explained: What It Is and How It Works
The electronic chart has replaced the chart table as the heart of the modern bridge. Here is what ECDIS is, how it works, and how to make it the anti-grounding tool it was built to be.
Buoys and Markers: How to Read the IALA Buoyage System
Learn how to identify and understand buoys and markers, including lateral marks, cardinal marks, danger marks, and navigation aids essential for safe seamanship.