Performance of seafarers during extended simulation runs

The term "good seamanship" is often used to describe the behaviour of deck officers who navigate according to a commonly accepted set of norms. Even though these norms offer a certain flexibility, most of them are covered by laws and regulations. The navigation performance of deck officers is also of interest, and it could be argued that there is a connection between the terms. For training and evaluation of deck officers an objective assessment of performance is also of great advantage. The scope of the paper is to analyse how different measures can be used to describe navigation performance, and the relationship between these in different collision situations. During an extended simulator study with 50 deck officers, navigation performance was assessed while participants spent one complete week in navigation simulators. Their task was a realistic 24/7 voyage through the English Channel, and each participant spent 64 or 90 hours in the simulator. © 2011: The Royal Institution of Naval Architects.