Gunny
Gold Member
By SCOTT LINDLAW, Associated Press Writer
Thu Nov 29, 7:42 PM ET
OAKLAND, Calif. - Eric Robinson stepped onto the bridge of the container ship Horizon Pacific and peered at a computer monitor depicting San Francisco Bay. Ship icons blipped clearly in the virtual water, but the meaning of some of the other symbols was murky.
Robinson, a San Francisco ship pilot, makes his living guiding supertankers, naval vessels and cruise ships through the bay's treacherous waters, and his job is to adapt quickly. But he never knows what electronic navigation gear he will face when he takes the helm. And he thinks that should change.
The government, the International Maritime Organization and the shipping industry are exploring how to bring some order to the jumble of electronic navigation aids proliferating on the seas a movement that has been given greater impetus by an accident in San Francisco Bay earlier this month.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071130/ap_on_re_us/bay_spill_pilots
Oh finally? What a novel idea ... stop spilling billions of gallons, not to mention dollars, of crude into one of the world's largest and most important ecosystems?
Who'da ever thunk it?