A gCaptain reader forwarded the following National Public Radio appearance by our friend Kelly Sweeney, author of the book “From the Bridge, Authentic Modern Sea Stories
Captain Kelly brings up some excellent point so be sure you get your pen ready, you’ll want to take notes.
NPR Show Notes:
A congressional hearing into the cause of the San Francisco Bay oil spill begins today at the Presidio in San Francisco. We’ll talk to a ship captain who says that kind of spill could happen in Puget Sound too.
Guests:
Captain Kelly Sweeney is a Master Mariner, the highest Captain’s license the Coast Guard issues to commercial mariners. He has captained commercial vessels through San Francisco Bay and Puget Sound and writes a column for Professional Mariner. He is based on Whidbey Island.
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4 responses so far ↓
1 David Hindin // Nov 23, 2007 at 1:50 pm
In the referenced radio interview, Captain Sweeney raised three major contributing factors to the incident: crew competence, foreign language barriers, and the role of the traffic monitoring system. Two of the three arguments are cogent. In his discussion of traffic monitoring, he targets the (AIS) technology as archaic and unreliable. I have previously noted his torturous use of language on the technical issues when he was quoted in the San Francisco Chronicle. It doesn’t get much better when he is speaking directly. In this piece, he was apparently referring to the new initiatives for long range tracking. The potential AIS enhancement/replacement for long range tracking has no application to the current situation. At the end of the day, this incident will not be attributed to a failure of AIS. AIS “bashing” in this context is counterproductive, a poor use of the “bully pulpit” he has been provided.
2 gCaptain - Maritime News and Tools RSS Mashup // Nov 24, 2007 at 4:10 am
[…] Preventing Future Cosco Busan Type Incidents - NPR Audio […]
3 Preventing Future Cosco Busan Type Incidents « Capdiamont’s Weblog // Nov 24, 2007 at 1:13 pm
[…] blog. Now rather than give in to fear, of what could happen, in general, and to Humboldt Bay, see his article, and the NPR audio on the subject. No Comments so far Leave a comment RSS feed for comments […]
4 Proposed Bill Mandates An Increase Of VTS Authority | gCaptain.com // Dec 4, 2007 at 8:56 am
[…] topic I’ll point you to audio from Captain Kelly Sweeney’s recent interview with NPR (CLICK HERE). Boiled down he states that we as mariners love AIS, ECDIS and other technology that keep us safe […]
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