I think there are a lot of take home messages here that are applicable to many different situations. 1) Have a plan and try to stick to it. Rapid changes (hard

I think there are a lot of take home messages here that are applicable to many different situations. 1) Have a plan and try to stick to it. Rapid changes (hard port/hard starboard) without having a heading is dangerous. 2) Relying on local pilot/expert knowledge is important, but the captain knows their ship better. The expert should be considered an advisor and shouldn't be giving direct commands (especially without rationale). Experts can be wrong, so don't blindly follow their recommendations. 3) Communication is critical. The language barrier between the pilots and the ship's crew was pointed out repeatedly in the report. If you can't understand the rationale for a decision, blindly following it puts you at risk. It is important that everyone is communicating in a way that the whole team (pilot + ship crew) can understand. 4) The strong, changing winds were a known entity before the ship started the canal transit. Sometimes the risk isn't worth risking the whole ship and delay is warranted. Related -- don't be afraid to ask for help. Tug assistance would probably have made this crossing much less eventful. I very much view this incident through the lens of the XY problem[1] ... don't ask me how to do a solution. Instead, tell me the problem or what you are trying to achieve, and then we can figure out the best solution to a problem. In this case, the pilots kept telling the helm to steer hard to port/starboard. This made it difficult for the ship's crew to achieve the actual goal -- keep the ship in the middle of the canal. [1] https://xyproblem.info/ https://xyproblem.info/ It should also be noted that this is the Panama Maritime Authority's report (the country the ship is registered in). The Suez Canal Authority had their own assessment and didn't participate in this one at all. The initial SCA comments blamed weather and visibility for the grounding. Later they blamed the captain entirely (for too many commands, ironically). There is a lot of money at stake here, so reader beware.