ARRANGEMENT OF NAVIGATING BRIDGE WITH EMPHASIS ON BRIDGE VISIBILITY

The Authors suggest that the point of diminishing returns from hardware-orientated solutions to marine accidents may have been reached; more emphasis should be placed on functionally integrating the bridge with the human operator during the design of the ship. Bridge design and layout, with emphasis on visibility from the bridge, are then discussed from the U.S. standpoint. Future bridge design and its standards are considered in some detail, with particular reference to relevant activities of IMO, ISO, MarAd, and the U.S. Coast Guard. Basic factors in bridge visibility design are length and form of vessel, height and location of bridge, and obstructions; these factors are discussed. The use of a design/analysis computer program such as 4 SIGHT will go far to facilitate the process of satisfying regulatory requirements for bridge visibility; examples are included of visibility diagrams prepared with this program, which together with the complementary WRKSITE program, is described in one of several annexes to the paper.