UK Club Live Webinar (Series 18): Bridge Watchkeeping
This video is also available on the UK Club Vimeo page.
The UK P&I Club recently held a webinar on the subject of bridge watchkeeping. The webinar received overwhelming response with over 1800 registrations from 78 countries. The webinar also saw the highest number of attendees to date.
The panel
The webinar was hosted by Capt Anuj Velankar, Regional Loss Prevention Director of the UK P&I Club. On the panel were Capt Mark Bull, Author of the Nautical Institute book on bridge watchkeeping and Capt Vincent Fernandes, author of the book “ECDIS Blues” and Vice Principal at the Samundra Institute of Nautical Studies.
Topics discussed
The webinar focused on two main aspects of bridge watchkeeping and safety: First, with Capt Mark Bull, it looked at the various best practices that exist in relation to bridge watchkeeping and also the recent developments in the field. A particularly illuminating part of the talk was when Capt Bull demonstrated with the use of two videos how a bridge team could effectively use their equipment to effectively navigate through constrained or high traffic waters.Secondly, Capt Vincent spoke on ECDIS and in particular the magnification function available on ECDIS. The talk covered various pitfalls of extreme magnification that a bridge watchkeeper may be tempted to do for a misleading sense of security, either in passing navigational dangers or in heavy traffic situations.
As part of the webinar both panellists gave short presentations, followed by an interactive Q&A session based on the questions asked by the audience during registration and also picked from the issues raised by the live audience. The questions ranged from interesting issues such as navigational issues with large vessels to managing the alarm functions on bridge equipment such as ECDIS.
A recording of the webinar is provided and will be of great interest to both seafarers out at sea as well as marine and technical teams who wish to know more about the subject.
The "After-Hour"
As a bonus session an "After-Hour" with the industry was held following the webinar. The panel consisted of shipmanagers, lawyers and technology experts who discussed the more practical and legal aspects of bridge watchkeeping, as well as the new technologies entering the bridge and how this could affect the future of watchkeeping.
Watch the bonus “After-Hour” session.
To register yourself for future webinars from the UK P&I Club, write to our Loss Prevention team who will be happy to answer any questions and add you to the invite list.
