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Your thoughts

Splash readers are never shy espousing their opinions

This is your pilot speaking

As ever when a pilot gets the blame for any shipping incident, our readers pile in. News that the pilot of the Ever Forward, which grounded in Chesapeake Bay in March (pictured) had had his licence suspended over way too much use of his mobile phone had many of you writing in.

‘Daton’ maintained mobile phone usage by pilots is a “big problem”, not only in the US.

“Pilots in US have a tendency to be arrogant and non-touchable. If you attempt to take them off, then you get threatened with big delays, loss of turn, and so on,” our reader claimed.

Solutions are at hand, argued Robert Gordon. Preventing recurrence requires a dramatic mindset change from the current pilot and master/bridge team hierarchal relationship, he argued, pointing out that Carnival Cruises have borrowed an airline industry Navigator (pilot) and Co-Navigator (master/ bridge team) system which focuses on roles, not ranks. It obligates full communication of Navigator intentions and mandates immediate challenge by the Co-Navigator if there is a deviation from the passage plan.

All things green

It feels like another busy quarter in terms of green legislation news with COP27, the European Union and the International Maritime Organization’s Marine Environment Protection Committee all deliberating on the matter. But is shipping being unfairly singled out?

Reader Phil Mortimer had this to say: “The shipping sector seems to have been the target for draconian emissions interventions. In reality road transport (cars, vans, buses and trucks) are much larger emitters but governments are either unable or unwilling to take action to constrain this major source of pollution. Car owners have votes. Shipping is invisible and does not have much political clout.”

Scrubber controversies

Finally, we might be nearly three years into the global sulphur cap, but the scrubber debate still ticks off many readers.

On calls for a Baltic scrubber ban this autumn, Pieter Melissen hit out at what described as the “cynical nature” of the shipping industry.

“If we can’t pollute the sky anymore, we will just dump it into the sea,” Melissen wrote, adding: “Only a global ban on open loop scrubbers seems to be the only solution. A proposal to do so will of course be met by complaints of shipowners and dozens of maritime layers will be ready to defend the case of the shipowners, delaying urgently needed new measures by a much longer period than the sea is able to cope with.”