A Note on Manning Reductions and Navigation

controlled ? Pilotage is obviously impractical and should be unnecessary. The masters concerned know the area all too well, but they do not know so much about routing or radio control. Nor are they always particularly amenable to instruction or advice when they get it, for the control system would have to be extended to such crafts as fishing boats, whose present habits in congested waters leave much to be desired. It seems probable that some sort of licensing for masters and skippers now serving would have to be introduced, with oral examinations on routing and traffic control. Ultimately this could become an extension of the masters' or skippers' certificate of competency, and it should be made law that if the route arrangements, collision regulations or traffic flow instructions were flouted, the licence could be withdrawn with consequent loss of job. Due to the flagrant disregard for the rules all too often shown by the local users, stringent measures of this nature would be necessary; they have brought it on themselves. Ships operating locally with licensed masters would have to be suitably equipped to operate under routing control, and ultimately, if not so equipped it could be necessary to require that they take pilots.