"The man who has experienced shipwreck shudders even at a calm sea" - Ovid, Roman Poet, 1 BC

But what the heck is there to do when the waters are calm, the nearest land is thousands of miles away, and there are over a thousand metres of water under the keel?

I learned one Sunday afternoon, in the middle of the Indian Ocean.

Our container ship was speeding away at 21 knots on a voyage from Cape Town, South Africa to Baltimore, USA. We were in the ‘doldrums’, as the latitudes up to five degrees on either side of the equator are called, somewhere between the ‘humps’ of Brazil and West Africa. The direct rays of the sun cause the moist air to rise into the atmosphere instead of causing winds, and that’s why like most other days here, the sea was dead calm, and its surface shimmered like silver.

As the captain, I had finished the customary post-lunch emails to the office and walked around the bridge scanning the horizon. Not a soul in sight outside of the ship. No blips on the radar either. The powerful engine revolutions assured me that our arrival would be on schedule. We hoped we could get some breathing time before a hectic schedule along the Eastern seaboard of the United States. The second officer was in-charge of the watch, and he looked busy tracking the progress of the ship. We agreed that the able seaman was not required for a lookout and he could help the rest of the crew who were painting the deck. Everything appeared to be under control. I could go for my nap.

As a ship captain, I liked to take an afternoon nap whenever I could so that I would be good to go until late in the night. I wanted to make sure that at no time was I dead tired, and that I was ready to act if summoned even in the middle of the night. I lay down in bed, thinking of jobs to be done when I woke up, some thoughts about the special dinner, and then a bit about my family back home as I slowly drifted off to sleep.

A few minutes later, I woke up with a start.

What prompted me I don’t know, but I went straight to my cabin windows. Pushing the curtains aside, I looked out in front, and I saw our ship heading straight for a buoy.

It looked like a weather-recording buoy, almost 8 metres tall, with a mast that could puncture our hull, or foul our propeller. It was big enough for me to make a dash upstairs for the bridge, still in my pyjamas.

On reaching the wheelhouse, ignoring the second officer on the chart table, I switched the steering to manual and put the rudder hard to starboard. It was a few agonizing moments before the ship started turning. I hurried to the bridge wings to see if we were clear of the buoy.

We were clear, but it was a narrow escape. The bow wave pushed the buoy away from the hull.

The second officer joined me, a distraught, sweaty expression on his face. I said nothing, my thoughts on bringing the ship back to course.

Once I had set the ship back on autopilot, I turned to the second officer. He was shaken, and apologetic. “Sorry captain, I was correcting the charts, and I thought I could do that while looking out of the window once in a while. But I lost track of time and I failed to spot the buoy in time.”

He had neglected his lookout duty, which was the primary responsibility of any navigator. But his performance so far had been good, and this was his first major lapse. I let him off with a warning and would report this near-miss to my office.

While the conversation played itself out, I was asking myself more questions. Why hadn’t we known of the buoy? What would have happened if I hadn’t looked out of my cabin window at a fortunate time? How come we were so close to having a serious accident?

I checked the navigation warnings. There was a report of a weather buoy but that was way off our track. It is possible, that one had drifted hundreds of miles from its last known position.

We had been lucky. We’d have serious damages and look utterly foolish had we collided with the buoy right in the middle of the ocean. We had been lulled by the calm sea.

We had been surprised by an unforeseen, but not an improbable element. Instead of a buoy, it could have been a small fishing boat.

The second officer was one of the best professionals I had sailed with, but I learnt that you need to keep an eye out and be vigilant, even when the best is at the helm. That applies to us checking ourselves, and allowing others to check us, as well.

We cannot afford to drop our guard at work, ever.

True that it’s easier to lead when the waters are calm rather than rough, but not that easy! In fact, in the era of sailing ships, mariners dreaded the doldrums. The ships hardly moved and had to wait for the currents or squalls to push them into the windy ‘horse’ latitudes. Even the seafarers felt listless and depressed when nothing was happening around them. It took special leadership skills to take the ship and its men out of the doldrums.

Even in today’s world of diesel-powered steel-hulled ships, leading in smooth seas is not always easy. Around 30% of ship collisions have occurred in open waters, in broad daylight.^[1] Most of these collisions were severe as both the ships were moving at full speed, emboldened by the calm seas and a clear horizon. The cargo ship Scot Venture collided with the fishing vessel Golden Promise in circumstances similar to mine.^[2] The navigator on the fishing boat assumed that the larger Scot Venture would keep clear. But the navigator on the cargo ship was so engrossed in the paperwork that he didn’t realise the danger until the ships were almost upon each other.

While the challenges of navigating in rough seas and dense fog appear obvious, equally dangerous are being dulled into a state of hubris when things are going well.

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^[1] European Maritime Safety Agency, Annual Maritime Review of Casualties and Incidents

^[2] UK MAIB, Collision between general cargo vessel Scot Venture and scallop dredger Golden Promise, 13 September 2008