ship-navigation-incident-report

Incident Reporting & Response — Ship Navigation

Respond to, record and learn from incidents involving ship owners, crews and port authorities in ships' bridges. The deliverable is a factual incident report and a lessons-learned action list. This skill is written for a ship's navigation officer working with ship owners, crews and port authorities in ships' bridges.

When to use

• You are a ship's navigation officer preparing, delivering or reviewing this part of your work in ships' bridges.
• You need a defensible, repeatable approach that produces a factual incident report and a lessons-learned action list.
• A colleague, auditor or client asks how this was done and what evidence supports it.

Key Concepts

Term	Meaning
ECDIS	the electronic chart display and information system
Passage plan	the complete plan for a voyage from berth to berth
COLREGs	the international rules for preventing collisions at sea

Workflow

1. Step 1 - Make the situation safe first; attend to people before paperwork, and escalate if groundings and collisions is still live
2. Step 2 - Record facts while they are fresh: what happened, when, who was involved, what was observed — in voyage plans
3. Step 3 - Notify the people and bodies who must know, within the timeframes that apply in ships' bridges
4. Step 4 - Support those affected, including honest communication with ship owners, crews and port authorities about what happened and what happens next
5. Step 5 - Analyse causes without blame, agree preventive actions with owners and dates, and track them to closure

Profession-Specific Components

Component	Details for Ship Navigation
Core documentation	voyage plans; log books; chart corrections; watch records
Core tools & equipment	ECDIS chart systems; radar; gyro compasses; communication equipment
People involved	ship owners, crews and port authorities; the ship's navigation officer; colleagues and other services in ships' bridges
Primary record	voyage plans — keep it current, dated and attributable

Output Format

Context: [Situation in ships' bridges] | Objective: [What this must achieve] | Audience: [ship owners, crews and port authorities and other stakeholders]

The finished output is a factual incident report and a lessons-learned action list, structured as:

1. Summary of position and evidence
2. Detail, following the workflow above
3. Decisions, actions, owners and dates
4. Review point and escalation route

Action Plan

1. Immediate: Confirm scope, consent and the evidence available in voyage plans.
2. Short-term: Complete the workflow steps and record outcomes against voyage plan compliance.
3. Medium-term: Review results, close actions, and update local procedures in ships' bridges.

Success Metrics

Metric	Target	Method
voyage plan compliance	Agree a local target and track the trend	Measured from voyage plans and reviewed on a set cycle
near-miss reports	Agree a local target and track the trend	Measured from voyage plans and reviewed on a set cycle
chart correction currency	Agree a local target and track the trend	Measured from voyage plans and reviewed on a set cycle
watch handover quality	Agree a local target and track the trend	Measured from voyage plans and reviewed on a set cycle

Guardrails & Quality Checks

• Never let this happen: groundings and collisions.
• Never let this happen: outdated charts.
• Never let this happen: fatigue on watch.
• Work only within the competence and authority of a ship's navigation officer; escalate or refer anything beyond it.
• Record facts and observations, not speculation, and keep records confidential to ships' bridges's rules.
• Verify names, dates, figures and measurements twice before anything is issued or signed off.
• Use only real, verified information from the case in hand — never invent results, credentials or evidence.

Example (illustrative)

A ship's navigation officer in ships' bridges applies this workflow for ship owners, crews and port authorities: they open voyage plans, work through the five steps using ECDIS chart systems, and close by recording the outcome against voyage plan compliance and agreeing the next review date. (Illustrative example only — replace with the real details of the case in hand.)