Passage Planning Flashcards
What is passage planning?
A passage plan is a comprehensive, berth to berth guide, developed and checked by a vessels bridge team. It is used to identify the most favourable route and highlights potential hazards along the route, to ensure the safe passage of the vessel.
What are the stages of passage planning?
There are four stages:
- Appraisal
- Planning
- Execution
- Monitoring
What consideration should be taken into account before making a passage plan?
Technical - Does the ship have up to date charts? Is all the navigational equipment in working order?
Personnel - Manning levels, bridge team experience
Environmental - Weather conditions, tidal conditions
What is the appraisal stage?
The appraisal stage is the gathering of all the available information, from all relevant sources, which concerns the voyage berth to berth.
What is the planning stage?
The planning stage is where the bridge officers create the route (berth to berth) on a paper chart or ENC. They will use the relevant information from the appraisal stage, it will be checked by all officers and then finally approved by the master.
What is the execution stage?
This stage is where ETA’s can be calculated and local information can be added to the approved route, e.g. local weather, tides and manning levels. The bridge team will also be briefed on the passage plan.
What is the monitoring stage?
This stage of the passage plan is where the ship’s progress is continually checked against the route, by methods of position fixing. If the route is changed from the original all officers must be informed.
What are the sources of publications for passage planning?
- Chart Catalogue
- Navigational Charts (Paper + ENC)
- Mariners Handbook (NP100)
- Ocean Passages for the world (NP136)
- Routing Charts
- Admiralty Sailing Directions
- Admiralty List of Radio Signals (Vol’s 1-6)
- Admiralty List of Lights and Fog Signals
- Admiralty Tide tables
- Tidal Stream atlas
- Notice to Mariners
- Ships Routing Guide
- Admiralty Distance Tables
- Masters standing orders
- MSN’s, MGN’s and MIS’s
- NP5011 Chart Symbols
- NP5012 ENC chart symbols
- Previous passage plans
- Maritime security chart
- IAMSAR volume 3
What would you expect to see plotted on a paper chart or ENC?
- No-go areas
- All navigational hazards highlighted
- Safe water identified (considering draught, UKC, HOT and squat
- Waypoints (including names)
- The planned track (including alterations of course)
- Cross track distances (XTD)
- Wheel over positions
- Position fixing features
- Parallel Index lines (PI’s)
- Routeing and reporting points
- Contingency plans
Who signs off on the final route plan?
The Master has the final say on the route, this should be done before sailing and will also include a briefing for all watchkeeping officers.
Passage Planning
What if the route needs to be amended?
If the route is amended, then all watchkeeping officers will need to be informed and what has been amended to clearly highlighted.
