NOBODY WANTS A COLLISION, 

Especially at a lone, cold, merciless, ocean. Like a Chinese poem saying : 

      YOU AND I MET IN THE DARK HIGH SEA. 
       I HAVE MINE AND YOU HAVE YOUR DIRECTION. 
        WE NEED NOT TO PANIC,    NOR AMAZE. 
          JUST AFTER ONE BLINK,   SHOULD LOST THE TRACE  . 

It may be a lonely, freezing, laboring watch, but any kind of physical contact of two vessel is more dreadful than romantic. By the rules of road, any action to avoid collision shall be positive, made in ample time and be obvious enough to be readily apparent to another vessel observing visually or by radar.

It's true we should do it in a ample time and proper distance away, then everything should be in a nice and easy order. Bless the good practice exercised in our daily watch that we can still slowly sap the warm tea without splashing it. 

The fear of collision seems only belongs to the "old man". In his long passing sea life, maybe there is some scenario of near-miss haunting and winding in his mind. But he never gave a word of it. It's all behind his wisdom eyes. 

SOP AND AIR PILOT TRAINING

However, in aviation, there is another story. For every single one air pilot's qualification, there must consist of many crises management "skill" which are furnished by S.O.P. and proper simulator training.  

What I am saying is skill. According to the human factor engineering, the skill are coming from one's "long" term memories  and, even odd enough, sub-conscious. The long term memory is the memory that will last longer and the more important feature is it will remain useful under extreme pressure. How can they test the air pilot in a simulator scenario? The action taken from sub-conscious is the action that is taken without thinking. Like the martial art, the action in the sub-conscious is get from practicing days after days. 

Every emergency maneuvering have been carefully study and analysis. The results of these studies then divided into many steps which must be followed one by one in this special case. These steps established are the standard operation procedures (S.O.P.). 

Then, they test these SOP through flying simulator and refine it to a satisfied level. If these SOP will be regarded as instruction book, for those who receive it , they only receive instructions, not skill. If they want these SOP become part of their long term memory, every air pilot must learn from flying simulator and memorized at heart all these SOP. 

In the emergency, even the long term memory will be compressed by the pressure to the most familiar thing in our mind which is our skill. In these events, does the SOP still left in the pilot's mind and they can act accordingly ? They will have to attend the simulation class to really feel about its thrill and to test their SOP. 

 If this is a well established simulation course, then it is possible for the pilot to test his own comprehension and application of the SOP. If the candidate passed the simulation, he then can become a qualified air pilot. Even if a qualified air pilot already in service, he will have to test again every 6 months. If he failed, he will have only one more chance within one month to test again. The one failed again will not be hired as air pilot. 

We seaman may have times to complain the endless training courses. But, have we been really tested our skill under these circumstances? Some may say "I have enough experiences in these regards." as we say  before, short term memory will lost under the emergency situation's pressure. We don't know how much correctness these experiences have. For they have not put under public exams. In the collision case at sea, there is just no S.O.P. for our reference and , needless to say, there is no skill been trained in this regard. 

SHIP HANDLING SIMULATOR CAN SERVE TWO MAJOR USAGE : 

      1. ESTABLISH THE SOP. 
      2. ESTABLISH THE SKILL OF SOP. 

I , been a instructor in the training center, have developed a serious course of collision avoidance and have found out this part of knowledge is still blindfolded over several decades of human activities at sea. My experience with the simulator is far from enough, but I like to open this door for a new approach.  
By the rule 8 of the COLREG, action to avoid collision consist of  many factors like made in ample time, passing at a safe distance, allow more time, etc. These are very good rules which keep the collision case to the minimum. However, this article meant to discuss the last stage of collision avoidance practice, not to encourage any kind of these activities on board, but to prepare ourselves when it's most needed. 

It should be mastered to avoid the collision and the purpose of this article is to prepare the officer in their navigation watch, so the initial speed of vessel is full sea speed.