Emergency Contact Investigating the effects of bridge alarms Home Latest updates News Investigating the effects of bridge alarms 10 Jul 2019 Download Sign up for alerts As vessels and equipment on board become increasingly smarter, seafarers are required to learn additional skills for the ongoing operation and maintenance of this technology. The installation of additional and new technology on board should always be done with the intention of enhancing the seafarer’s ability to safely and efficiently navigate and operate the vessel. However, with more equipment comes the potential for more alarms. In 2017/2018 the Club ran a survey in conjunction with the Department of Psychology at Royal Holloway, University of London, to investigate whether alarms on the bridge affected the attention and focus of bridge watchkeepers. The survey was conducted by a questionnaire, which was circulated widely throughout many industry media such as the nautical institute’s publications, UK Chamber of Shipping, Intermanager, ISWAN and the Club’s media channels. After careful collation, we are now pleased to present our findings to our Members and the wider industry. Firstly, it is important to show the background information of the respondents. As you can see (charts 1 and 2) submissions were mainly from Masters and were from a wide variety of vessel types. *Other vessel types include seismic research and sail training vessels The next question asked participants about the alarms themselves: Are false alarms a problem and are alarms graded to alert the watchkeeping of more urgent situations? As can be seen in chart 3, 89% of participants thought false alarms were a problem and in a further question (not shown graphically) 66% said the alarms were not easily detectable. The answers collated in the chart 4 illustrate that 57% of responses disagreed that alarms are graded by sound. This result was further supported by a high number of free text comments which corroborated this view. The su