4 ms·

I'm not a mariner but from what I've seen on boats and motoryachts the controls are typically transferred with the engines in neutral. This step ensures that th

I'm not a mariner but from what I've seen on boats and motoryachts the controls are typically transferred with the engines in neutral. This step ensures that the person who takes control positively knows the state of the engines and avoids having to do some kind of synchronisation with the current state. Perhaps this is problem on a destroyer or they imagined the controls being routinely moved around the bridge. On most vessels it's in the same place for the whole passage and for docking or departure you chose which station to use. Idling the engines for a minute while you have isn't an imposition as anyone prudent would be doing propulsion and steering tests before entering a confined area at that point anyway. I can only think the imagined the controls being passed about on a regular basis and because they didn't need to synchronise the physical position with the current state they skipped that step. Why transferring one engine at a time made sense I have no idea.

kmoser 2y ago
It seems to me that the checkbox, and even the UI, is the least of the issues. Even with the most intuitive manual controls, this problem still could have easily happened simply because the transfer of control from one station to another is fraught with potential misunderstanding of what state the different parts of the ship are in (rudder, engines, etc.) and who has control of each at any given time. Lack of sleep will exacerbate it tremendously. More training will only help so much; I'm guessing, they probably already train on this a lot. My armchair assessment is that these ships should be controlled 99% by computer, which decides the best combination of thrust, rudder, etc. to move the ship where the navigator directs it (whether by joystick to indicate direction, or touch-screen to indicate where on the map you want the ship to go, as well as what speed), and the individual controls (engines, rudder, etc.) should only be overridden in the most dire of circumstances. I'm sure there's much more to it than that, but the general idea remains the same: this is too complicated to be left to humans, whose time is better spent thinking about other parts of the mission.

kmoser 2y ago

It seems to me that the checkbox, and even the UI, is the least of the issues. Even with the most intuitive manual controls, this problem still could have easily happened simply because the transfer of control from one station to another is fraught with potential misunderstanding of what state the different parts of the ship are in (rudder, engines, etc.) and who has control of each at any given time. Lack of sleep will exacerbate it tremendously. More training will only help so much; I'm guessing, they probably already train on this a lot. My armchair assessment is that these ships should be controlled 99% by computer, which decides the best combination of thrust, rudder, etc. to move the ship where the navigator directs it (whether by joystick to indicate direction, or touch-screen to indicate where on the map you want the ship to go, as well as what speed), and the individual controls (engines, rudder, etc.) should only be overridden in the most dire of circumstances. I'm sure there's much more to it than that, but the general idea remains the same: this is too complicated to be left to humans, whose time is better spent thinking about other parts of the mission.