Page 22: of Maritime Reporter Magazine (November 2014)

22 Maritime Reporter & Engineering News • NOVEMBER 2014

GOVERNMENT UPDATE

M ariners do best when they avoid the edges of the sea – the shoals, rocks, and other hard spots. Coming into contact with the edges of the sea at other than a slow walking speed can ruin an otherwise pleasant voyage.

Unfortunately, though, vessels have been making hard contact with the edges since Noah’s Ark grounded on Mount

Ararat, rendering the Ark unseaworthy.

For a while, it was thought that the leadline would reduce groundings, but one can’t be swinging the leadline con- stantly.

Lighthouses were another early means of identifying hard spots by means other than direct contact. Lighthouses, though, couldn’t be erected everywhere and sometimes the light was extinguished or otherwise not visible. On other occa- sions, the light was misinterpreted.

The ? rst electronic aid to navigation – the radio direction ? nder or RDF – was seen as a means of providing vessels and their navigators with improved position- ing information, thus lowering the risk of coming into contact with the edges of the sea. Faith in the RDF was proven to be misplaced on 8 September 1923 when seven US Navy destroyers, travelling at full speed, grounded in the fog on chart- ed rocks at Honda Point near the north end of the Santa Barbara Channel. Due to poor visibility, the ships, transiting as a squadron from San Francisco to San

Diego, were utilizing dead reckoning. A radio signal from a new RDF station was received but misinterpreted. Twenty- three sailors died in the grounding. Two Avoiding the

Edges of the Sea

BY DENNIS BRYANT

As predicted by Rudyard Kipling in 1935, we have reached the point where technology has instilled a false sense of compla- cency in many mariners. Technology only performs its designed tasks if properly programmed and utilized.

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