Watchkeeping Handover: What to Pass On
Two minutes decide whether the next four hours start with a clear picture or a gap nobody has noticed yet. What to establish, what to pass on, and when not to take the watch at all.
watchkeeping
Navigation Lights: Rules and Recognition
The lights are a language with a fixed vocabulary. Learn the arcs, the ranges and the patterns, and a distant vessel tells you what she is and where she is going.
Bridge Resource Management: Running the Bridge as a Team
Most accidents at sea trace back to a breakdown in teamwork, not equipment. Bridge Resource Management is the discipline that keeps a bridge team sharp, honest, and safe.
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.
Anchoring Procedures
Holding a ship in place is more than dropping a weight. How crews choose the ground, lay out enough cable, set the anchor, and keep watch against a drag.
COLREGs: The Rules of the Road at Sea
No lanes, no traffic lights, just one ruleset that decides who gives way and who holds course. A working guide to the COLREGs and the judgment behind them.
Watchstanding Basics: What Every New Seafarer Must Know
Keeping a watch is the first responsibility most seafarers carry. What it demands: a proper lookout, knowing when to wake the master, and staying sharp through the quiet hours.