I have not been on the bridge of a merchant vessel. But on a warship, there is a navigation brief, and the people involved in the transit gather to walk thorou

I have not been on the bridge of a merchant vessel. But on a warship, there is a navigation brief, and the people involved in the transit gather to walk thorough the whole evolution. Every single turn is discussed and visualized. No matter how boring and routine the transit. "We are on this course at this speed for this long. We are shooting this navigation aid from the pelorus. We put on this much rudder for this much time to come to this course. We have shoal water off the starboard bow here. The channel does this." And so forth. Even on a merchant vessel, which has an order of magnitude less crew than a warship, the COLREGS[1] will tell you that "Thou Shalt Not Jack It Up". The costs of screwing it up, in an RMF[2] vein, are astronomical. Hence my skepticism at the newsreader glibly stating that the vessel "missed her turn". These media people can spaz out for days over an apparent 9 hour gap on an official phone record with zero real-world effects. Now, how about committing an act of journalism and getting a preliminary reading. Did the helmsman have a seizure and throw the rudder over? What? [1] https://www.imo.org/en/About/Conventions/Pages/COLREG.aspx https://www.imo.org/en/About/Conventions/Pages/COLREG.aspx [2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Risk_Management_Framework https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Risk_Management_Framework