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BOOK REVIEW
From Professional Mariner Issue no. 102 February/March 2007 p. 64 www.professionalmariner.com Shipboard Bridge Resource Management By Michael R. Adams Nor’easter Press Eastport, Maine Pub. Sept. 1, 2006 182 pages Reviewed by Ray Brown |
| A master mariner and retired Coast Guard commander, Michael R. Adams has written a timely textbook on properly managing the pilothouse, particularly in narrow seas. Accompanied by a CD-ROM to assist the instructor, the book is written in a fluid manner that makes for interesting reading on what is an essential subject for any prudent mariner. Shipboard Bridge Resource Management does not really break new ground, which is a great strength. The tried-and-true lessons are cogently presented, replete with real-world incidents from the past quarter century, most of which will be familiar to the reader. Particularly welcome is that Adams does not fall prey to “technopoly.” He makes it quite clear that people still count, not in spite of all the modern wonders of computers and communications, but because of them. Adams covers the following subjects in order: human factors; voyage planning; standardized procedures; situational awareness and voyage monitoring; stress, complacency, and distraction; communications; fatigue; pilot integration; teamwork; and error chains. Each chapter ends with technical questions for discussion or reflection and a list of sources for further study. Similarly, the index is quite complete. Where charts are needed to support the narrative, they are printed on the appropriate obverse page. Adams was well known in the Coast Guard as a superior ship handler, and his long experience, at sea and as a writer, is put to good use in this text. Two things the reader might wish to consider further are in the presentations on communications and fatigue. In discussing communications, Adams talks about the many internal and external failures that forestall effective transmission of orders, responses, and reports, whether written or oral. However, it is also important to think about information control. In military ships, with sometimes too many people and too much communication, and in civilian ships, sometimes with inadequate numbers to handle all means of transmissions, there can be many dangerous distractions. Noise sometimes overpowers signal. Too much communication is itself a danger, something Adams’ “shared mental model” perhaps can be used to avoid. The discourse on fatigue factors is also quite good. But the resilience of shipmates is another thing that needs to be evaluated. One size does not fit all with respect to related planning factors. Nor’easter Press is a relatively new publishing house. It will be interesting to see if more titles as useful as this one are forthcoming. Copyright © 2007 by Navigator Publishing LLC All rights reserved. Republished by permission. |
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