How sailing inspired global change towards a circular economy
What do you learn when you sail around the world on your own?
When solo sailor Ellen MacArthur circled the globe – carrying everything she needed with her – she came back with new insight into the way the world works, as a place of interlocking cycles and finite resources, where the decisions we make today affect what's left for tomorrow.
She proposes a bold new way to see the world's economic systems: not as linear, but as circular, where everything comes around.
Using information from both satellite and in-situ observations, the Copernicus Marine Environment Monitoring Service (CMEMS) provides state-of-the-art analyses and forecasts daily, which offer the capability to observe, understand and anticipate marine environment events. CMEMS is brought to you by Mercator Océan International.
The CMEMS Viewer (My Ocean) allows you to explore most of the CMEMS catalogue online with multi-projection maps as well as graphs vs. time, elevation and/or distance.
From The Economist The government takes advantage of a UN ruling to extend the country’s territorial waters
Argentina’s president, Alberto Fernández, has plenty to worry about: a soaring covid-19 caseload and a depressed economy. So it must have been delightful for the government to change the subject on September 21st by issuing a map showing that the country’s territory is nearly double its former size. It illustrates the effect of a law Mr Fernández signed in August, which expands Argentina by 1.7m square km (650,000 square miles), an area three times the size of metropolitan France. Argentina now bestrides South America and Antarctica, from the Tropic of Capricorn to the South Pole. Its territory includes some of the world’s richest fishing grounds and possibly oil and gas. The Falkland islands, which Argentines call the Malvinas, lie within it.
This is not entirely based on fantasy. In 2016 the un’s Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf (clcs) issued a ruling, based on the un Convention on the Law of the Sea, that fixes the edge of the vast shelf that juts out from Argentina’s coast. There the seabed is shallow enough—less than 2,500 metres deep—to count as an extension of Argentina’s mainland. The effect of the ruling is to extend Argentina’s territorial waters beyond the normal 200 nautical miles (370km).
Mauricio Macri, Argentina’s then-president, a conservative, celebrated the ruling in 2016 as a diplomatic victory but did not write it into law. His priority was friendly relations with the rest of the world, including Britain. In 1982 Britain fought a war to expel Argentina’s armed forces, which had invaded the Falklands that year.
Mr Fernández, a left-leaning Peronist, is more assertive. The law he signed in August, and the borders on his map, take in far more than the area to which clcssaid Argentina was entitled. In sending the territorial-expansion bill to Congress this year, Mr Fernández insisted on “Argentina’s claim to the Malvinas”, which has long been part of its law and is endorsed by nearly all Argentines.
Argentina EEZ in the GeoGarage platform
The new official map shows South Georgia and the South Sandwich islands (also British), as part of Argentina, too, and adds areas that had it not claimed in law before. The British are mainly interested in the water’s riches, Argentina’s government thinks. That explains the “stubbornness of British colonialism”, suggested Daniel Filmus, the government’s secretary for the Malvinas, Antarctica and South Atlantic. The map asserts Argentine sovereignty over the Antarctic peninsula, an ice-cream cone poking into the Weddell sea, which is also claimed by Chile and Britain. In fact, the un commission avoided taking a position “in a case where a land or maritime dispute exists”. The areas it awarded Argentina are a fraction of the country’s claim.
Argentina does not plan to try to reconquer the islands, but it does hope to use its interpretation of the commission’s ruling to press Britain to negotiate. “The un is saying that the Malvinas is a matter of dispute,” contends an adviser to the president. “The British always try to say there is no dispute over the islands.” Argentina’s foreign ministry put out a video calling for “dialogue” under un auspices. Britain is unlikely to agree.
So Mr Fernández may have to be content with smaller satisfactions. Argentine oceanographers are now in demand from other countries. They are being consulted by specialists from Brazil, Germany, Denmark and even Chile, despite the peninsular dispute. Schoolchildren will be taught that Tierra del Fuego, Argentina’s southernmost province, is now the country’s centre. The country’s population of emperor penguins and leopard seals has greatly expanded. In tough times, that may cheer Argentines up a bit.
In February 1941, a British cargo ship known as SS Politician was grounded and wrecked on a submerged sandbar off the coast of Eriskay, one of the islands in Scotland’s Outer Hebrides.
On board were trade goods ranging from cotton to biscuits, en route to would-be customers in Jamaica and New Orleans. If, however, there was a marquee item among the ship’s inventory, it was surely the whisky—264,000 bottles of it.
Eriskay with the GeoGarage platform (UKHO nautical chart)
There was so much whisky on board that—following an initial rush among locals to rescue what they could from the foundering ship—freeloaders would still be recovering bottles nearly half a century later, even after the ship’s hull was blown up and sunk to discourage more salvage (that is, looting). Some washed up on local beaches, and others were brought up by divers.
One of the latter, found by professional diver George Currie in 1987, is now up for sale at Scotland’s Grand Whisky Auction, where bidding will close on August 10, 2020. At press time, the bottle was already going for nearly $8,000. Though the auction house warns unequivocally that the “bottle is not suitable for human consumption,” the winning bidder will also be treated to a diving helmet and bricks from the ship itself.
Divers, including George Currie (bottom left), pose with lucky finds in 1987.
When SS Politician ran ashore it was wartime, rationing was in effect, and resources were scarce. It’s not hard to imagine, then, how excited locals were to descend upon the wreckage and retrieve as many bottles as they could—“by any means necessary,” explains Beau Wallace, director of the Grand Whisky Auction. According to a historical account in Scotch Whisky magazine, some men wore their wives’ clothing as they scavenged, so as not to stain their own with telltale spilled fuel. Others reportedly traveled from as far away as the isle of Lewis, over 100 miles to the north, to get in on the action.
Less enthused were British authorities, who had not only lost a vessel but also the revenues (and duties) from the cargo on board. Seeking restitution, they sent officers into villages to locate some of the missing goods, and some individuals were penalized. A comic, fictionalized version of the events serves as the basis of Compton Mackenzie’s 1947 novel Whisky Galore, which was also made into a popular movie in 1949, and again in 2016. The bottle currently on sale, says Wallace, represents “such a unique piece of history,”—or, at the very least, a unique piece of spirits history. “Every Scotch drinker knows about Whisky Galore,” he says.
The SS Politician foundered off the coast of Eriskay, in the Outer Hebrides.
The story didn’t end, of course, with the hull’s destruction, or with the cinematic makeover. There’s surely still some cargo floating around the Hebrides, and another diver had found eight bottles of his own, also in 1987. (A pair of those sold for more than £12,000 in 2013.)
Currie never expected to discover his bottle. It was just “a lucky dive,” he says—all the luckier considering that the blasting of the ship was intended “to smash all the bottles.”
This bottle—and, indeed, this spirit—represents just one aspect of the legacy of SS Politician. For years following the wreck, there were reports of water-damaged banknotes—10-shilling Jamaican bills held in the same area of the ship as the whisky—turning up ashore and changing hands in banks.
According to Scotch Whisky magazine, some 290,000 of these notes were on board before the wreck, worth more than $9 million today. After the notes showed up in Liverpool, London, and even the United States (among other places), the government announced in 1958 that 211,267 of them had been accounted for. That leaves tens of thousands that, for all we know, are still just drifting about.
According to The Swedish Club, navigational accidents made up 30% of claims by type and 33% of claims by cost between 2014 and 2018. Between 2013 and 2017, lack of situational awareness was cited as the most common cause of collisions (45%), and the second most common cause of the most expensive claims (27%). But why is this?
If you’ve never stood a navigational watch, the bridge watchkeeper’s job appears straightforward: don’t hit anything. However, as any bridge watchkeeper will tell you, it’s rarely that simple.
Many bridges are poorly designed, with incompatible equipment installed in inconvenient positions. Watchkeepers have to break their visual lookout to refer to their equipment. I’m sure many watchkeepers have fantasised about a unified system after a busy watch spent trying to match digital information with the view from the window.
What if AIS and automated radar plotting aids (ARPA) information were floating in a bubble above other ships, and the course line, buoys, shallow patches and no-go zones were visible in the real world? Well, those systems exist: it’s called augmented reality (AR) navigation, and it’s here.
What’s augmented reality?
AR overlays digital content on the real world, either on a screen or using AR glasses. Unlike in virtual reality (VR), AR can anchor digital information to real-world objects, even if they’re moving. For example, rather than constantly cross-referencing radar and AIS, information about a target vessel can be displayed in an AR bubble near the target when you look out of the window.
If you know the smartphone game Pokemon Go, you know how AR works on a phone. Car manufacturers are already building AR navigation systems into car windscreens, so it should be no surprise that it’s coming to ships. You can read more about AR and related technology here.
What’s wrong with current navigational systems?
Endsley defines situational awareness as: “The perception of the elements in the environment within a volume of time and space, the comprehension of their meaning, and the projection of their status in the near future.”
This is critical to safe marine navigation, but too often it’s an aspiration rather than a reality.
The inefficiency associated with task-switching is a well-studied phenomenon. Even a well-rested person can only keep about seven different pieces of information in their working memory. Yet the bridge of an average merchant ship has more aids to navigation than navigators of the past ever dreamed of.
Despite that, we expect watchkeepers to track information from assorted equipment, match that disparate information to the changing situation, process it, draw the correct conclusions, and act on their decisions. All while monitoring three or four radios, filling in the logbook, and standing ready to respond to alarms. It’s no surprise they sometimes miss something, with often catastrophic—and expensive—results.
AR navigation systems make relevant information readily available in an accessible format at the point of use. This reduces the cognitive load on the navigator and allows them to focus on the big-picture, rather than on the constant task-switching of gathering and cross-referencing information.
How does AR navigation work?
The AR system overlays relevant information on stabilised video images from a forward-facing camera. Just as navigators can choose which information layers to display on an electronic chart display information system (ECDIS), AR navigation users can choose to display AIS, radar, ECDIS, gyrocompass and route information on their AR system. AIS and radar targets change colour according to their threat level, and users can increase or decrease range and take bearings, just as with a radar or ECDIS.
The systems alert users to buoys, vessels and other targets of interest, displays shallow water, no-go zones and the planned track, and even includes information from other navigational instruments. At a glance, the watchkeeper can check important voyage information such as the speed of other vessels, the closest point of approach and the time of closest point of approach of targets.
In restricted visibility, or at night in heavy coastal traffic, AR navigation systems offer a notable improvement in situational awareness, clearly indicating which lights are likely to be ships rather than shore lights, and where to look for targets in fog.
Who uses AR marine navigation systems?
Mitsui O.S.K. Lines (MOL) and Furuno collaborated to develop an AR navigation system. In March 2019, MOL installed it on their car carrier Beluga Ace, and in October 2019 on their new very large crude carrier (VLCC) Suzukasan as a trial. They’re planning to expand it into their twenty-one VLCCs, then to their energy transport fleet, including LNG and dry bulk carriers.
FURUNO ENVISION AR Navigation System is our all-new advanced
augmented reality navigation system that provides substantial support to
navigation, using the power of AR to go beyond reality. By
superimposing both navigation information from AIS/TargetTracking and ECDIS
information over a HQ live video imagery, the AR Navigation System can
visually assist the ship's maneuvering even in adverse weather or
visibility conditions, allowing you stress-free maneuvering and
navigation.
Raymarine takes a different approach, offering their Raymarine Clearcruise AR as a free software upgrade for their existing Axiom multifunction displays rather than a standalone system.
Conclusion
AR navigation systems allow easy access to all relevant electronic information on a single screen. This improves situational awareness, decreases cognitive load, and makes validating and cross-checking navigational information easier than ever. Improved situational awareness leads to a reduction in navigational accidents, safer ships, and inevitable cost savings in repairs and insurance premiums.
Given the constant, valid reminders that navigational watchkeepers need to spend less time looking at equipment and more time looking out of the bridge windows, it’s hard to argue against a system designed to let them do exactly that.
Divers, including George Currie (bottom left), pose with lucky finds in 1987.
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