Ship Routeing

[Mantaforce]

I'm just going through the syllabus for OOW level and it says under Topic 1 - Navigation (Plan and Conduct a Passage Including Position Determination) 'the requirements of ship routeing and mandatory reporting systems'.

Am i right in thinking that by 'ship routeing' they mean Traffic Seperation Schemes or is this more to do with weather routeing in passage planning?

Thanks

[Hatchorder]

There are different types of ship routing. As you say - Traffic separation Schemes are Mandatory routing schemes adopted and monitored by member states. However there are other types of ship routing that can be Weather based and even company specified. For example, we used to cross from Cape Town to Melbourne and we used to use a Composite Great Circle because the company specified we were not allow to go South of a specified Latitude, depending on season. You will find the same sort of restrictions for Winter North Atlantic sailing because of the danger of icebergs in spring etc. Although this is less of a problem now for obviously reasons! There are other ones, such as specific routing for different classes of ships and different sizes in some coastal waters, even down to restrictions on transit times during darkness, but these are usually all under the umbrella of Mandatory routing.

Regards

Ian

[Steve]

In this context it is TSSs and other routeing measures (http://www.imo.org/ourwork/safety/na...srouteing.aspx). Weather routeing would be covered in the meteorology section, though I don't recall if that is covered at OOW.

[size4riggerboots]

When passage planning, as well as following any company requirements, as Hatchorder has said, you should also refer to both the IMO routing guide, much of which is a detailed list of all the TSS's in the world, and NP136 Ocean Passages of the World. As well as the appropriate coastal pilot books. Within these you will find references to any reporting schemes that you must adhere to (such as AUSREP) Further details of what stations to call them on and what information is required by specific reporting systems is found in the ALRS.