ICS Bridge Procedures Guide — Cap. 3: Passage Planning

1. Principles — The Purpose of Passage Planning

Source: INTERNATIONAL CHAMBER OF SHIPPING. Bridge Procedures Guide. 6th ed. London: ICS, 2022. Chapter 3 — Passage planning.

Syllabus: Anexo 2-B, Área III (Navegação em Águas Restritas), item 3 — III.03 (ICS Bridge Procedures Guide), Cap. 3.

The purpose of passage planning is to develop one comprehensive navigation plan for the safe conduct of the ship from berth to berth. That single idea governs the whole chapter: the plan is not a formality drawn up for departure, but the working basis on which the bridge team navigates the entire voyage, ocean legs and pilotage areas alike.

The plan should identify a route that:

• Recognises hazards, and assesses the associated risks and decision points.
• Ensures that sufficient sea room and depth of water is available.
• Includes appropriate position-fixing opportunities and intervals.
• Complies with relevant reporting requirements and routeing measures for ships.
• Considers anticipated traffic and weather conditions.
• Takes into account any cargo-care sensitivities.
• Complies with all applicable environmental protection measures.

The purpose of passage planning is defined by IMO Resolution A.893(21), Guidelines for Voyage Planning: to develop a comprehensive navigation plan for the safe conduct of the ship from berth to berth. In this Guide the term passage planning means the same as voyage planning (§3.1, footnote 5).

A safe passage plan is achieved through four stages, always in the same order. The first two — appraisal and planning — are completed before departure; the last two — execution and monitoring — run throughout the voyage.

2. Responsibility for Passage Planning

It is the Master who is responsible for ensuring that the passage plan provides the basis of safe navigation — and this responsibility stands regardless of who actually prepares the plan. The Master should check and approve the plan before departure.

2.1 Company involvement

The company's SMS should include guidance for passage planning. Where the company supplies a standard passage plan for a voyage, that plan is not used as received: it should be reviewed on board before departure and adjusted as appropriate for the particular voyage.

2.2 Passage planning constraints

A comprehensive plan should be prepared and approved before departure. In practice, however, it may be impractical to include every detail at that stage — particularly those relating to arrival, which depend on conditions still to be confirmed.

3. Appraisal

The appraisal is the first stage: gathering all information relevant to the proposed passage and reviewing it, so that risks can be identified and assessed and the proposed plan confirmed safe. Up-to-date official charts and nautical publications — electronic or paper — are used together with other relevant information to make a full assessment. The appraisal also includes consultation with the chief engineer, to confirm that enough fuel, water and lubricants are available given environmental requirements, expected weather and the company's safety margins. A dedicated appraisal checklist (C2.9) supports this stage. The factors to weigh fall into four groups.

3.1 Official charts

Only up-to-date official nautical charts should be used for appraisal and planning. Any other charts and publications needed for the passage should be identified, ordered and received before departure. For electronic charts, sufficient permits or licences should be available before departure — or else the process for obtaining them during the passage (dynamic licensing) should be clearly understood.

When appraising the charts themselves, four things are weighed: scale (large-scale charts for coastal, pilotage and each course-alteration point; the largest appropriate scale for ocean legs); accuracy of chart data (paper-chart and RNC source-data diagrams and, for ENCs, the CATZOC assessment); Notices to Mariners, including any Temporary & Preliminary (T&P) notices; and additional information found in sailing directions.

3.2 Official nautical publications and other information

A full appraisal reviews the publications that supplement the charts. Each has a defined role.

4. Planning

Following the appraisal, a detailed passage plan is prepared covering the entire passage from berth to berth, including pilotage areas. Any section of a route should be planned using either electronic charts only or paper charts only — not a mixture — unless electronic charts are unavailable for part of the route. The choice depends on whether the ship is certificated for full navigation by electronic means (paperless navigation).

4.1 Route plotting

Whether on paper or on ECDIS, plotting the route follows established procedures. The information shown depends on the phase of the passage — ocean, coastal or pilotage — with progressively more detail as the ship nears land.

One item is specific to ECDIS: to support route scanning, a cross-track distance (XTD) should be set up for all elements of the passage, including ocean legs. XTD information may not be required when plotting ocean routes on paper charts.

4.2 Ocean waters

When planning ocean passages, consideration is given to ocean routeing charts (currents, winds, ice limits, load lines); load line charts (zones and seasonal periods for the Load Lines Convention); weather-routeing services; and the use of gnomonic projection charts for plotting great-circle routes. Route selection may be influenced by ocean currents (and their effect on speed and fuel consumption), by seasonal weather — heavy weather, tropical storms, ice and reduced visibility — and by environmental protection measures that extend into an ocean route. Landfall targets are identified and their expected radar and visual ranges considered, including the rising and dipping ranges and the arc and colours of sector lights.

4.3 Coastal waters

Margins of safety in coastal or restricted waters are likely to be smaller than for ocean passages — because of the available depth of water, proximity of land, coastal infrastructure, higher traffic density and other hazards. Planning weighs the importance of passing features at a safe distance; advice in sailing directions; available depth and tidal information; visual and radar fixing opportunities; routeing and reporting measures and VTS availability; the reliability of propulsion and steering; and environmental measures such as fuel-changeover procedures.

4.4 Pilotage waters

Planning for a pilotage phase should contain more information, whether the ship is in a non-mandatory pilotage area with no pilot embarked, has a pilot embarked, or is being piloted by a ship's officer holding a valid PEC. Because the ship is close to hazards and must meet local requirements, the plan may add: recommended routes and channel information; pilot boarding points and means of embarkation; local conditions, rules and restrictions; reporting and communications procedures; details of the prospective berth, tugs and anchorages; and contingency planning for unforeseen issues. (Fuller guidance on pilotage is in chapter 6.)

4.5 Planning using ECDIS

Depending on certification, ECDIS may be the primary planning tool on board. Effective use of its route-planning tools, voyage notes and action points contributes to a comprehensive plan. Among the factors to consider: availability of up-to-date ENCs and RNCs (and identifying where RCDS mode — and therefore paper charts — may be needed); rechecking any reused route; using an appropriately large-scale chart; removing old routes from the display; using pick reports to get extra safety detail; applying a maximum acceptable XTD to each leg per the SMS; calculating and setting safety depths and safety contours in line with the SMS's UKC requirements; setting ETA correctly (a wrong ETA affects tidal and time-dependent data); applying current and tidal data; and confirming the vessel's characteristics (draught with any squat or margin allowance, turn radius and dimensions). The finished plan is then saved, backed up and locked against unauthorised editing.

The ECDIS uses contour lines to display depths on screen. A contour is a line separating areas of minimum depth — a 10-metre contour separates waters below and above 10 metres. Contours are available in 5-metre intervals (5, 10, 15, 20 m).

A traditional paper chart's blue shading does not give a clear picture of water under the keel, because that depends on the ship's draught. With ECDIS, the officer sets the safety parameters to the ship's own data. The ECDIS also has a tool to pre-warn the OOW of an anticipated safety-contour crossing within a user-set time.

4.6 Category zone of confidence (CATZOC)

When calculating the ship's safety depth, the CATZOC value of the chart in use must also be considered. CATZOC highlights the accuracy of the data presented on charts and, through six categories, tells the user how far the chart can be relied upon when planning or navigating.

When calculating the contours, the officer designated for passage planning addresses several factors: sailing draught, anticipated squat (from depth of water and speed), company-required UKC, height of tide and the CATZOC of the area. The Guide gives a worked example.

4.7 Finalising the passage plan

To avoid losing critical information, the plan should not be over-detailed and should be in a format the bridge team can easily understand. When the planning officer has completed the berth-to-berth plan, the Master checks and approves it, carefully inspecting the charts to confirm the route is appropriate and safe. On ECDIS the route is visually inspected at optimum scale (1:1) for the ENC or RNC in use, and — for a route on an ENC — the ECDIS route-scanning function is used as well. For scanning to be effective, safety depths and contours must reflect UKC requirements; the officer checks each item the scan raises and amends the route if necessary. A detailed manual review should always accompany the automated scan.

4.8 Weather routeing

Weather routeing lets the Master and team follow a plan that avoids the worst weather, in the interest of safety and fuel efficiency. It predicts the movement of weather systems associated with poor conditions and rough seas, then plans the most favourable route around them. Its main benefits are increased safety, better conditions for cargo or passengers, fuel and time savings, and reduced overall cost.

4.9 Briefing the plan

A briefing is held so every bridge team member understands their role in executing the plan, addressing the factors in checklist C2.9. Before sailing, all of the team should be briefed and should confirm their understanding of the passage plan.

4.10 Amendments and transferring positions

Planning is updated whenever the route is amended for changing circumstances before or during the passage — and after amending a route on ECDIS it is important to run a full route check. When transferring route and hazard information between paper charts, electronic charts and different GNSS, appropriate corrections must be applied, because the geodetic datum may vary between hydrographic offices, chart types and equipment. Corrections may be needed between different GNSS systems, between GNSS and paper charts or RNCs, and between paper charts or RNCs and ENCs.

4.11 Maritime safety information (MSI)

Weather information (including gale warnings), NAVAREA warnings and coastal navigational warnings are broadcast by radiotelephony from coast radio stations and by NAVTEX. Long-range warnings are broadcast via satellite systems such as SafetyNET, together with NAVAREA warnings, as part of the World-Wide Navigational Warning Service (WWNWS). Details of weather-routeing services and of meteorological areas (METAREAs) are in lists of radio signals and in Volume D of WMO Publication No. 9.

4.12 Planning an anchorage

Factors to consider when planning to anchor include: the purpose and anticipated duration of anchoring; availability of space at the anchorage; position-fixing opportunities; weather conditions and available shelter; tidal height and stream for the duration; sea room and proximity of hazards, including traffic; depth of water and windlass capacity; nature of the seabed and its holding characteristics; the scope of cable required and the anticipated swinging circle; port requirements; security measures required by the Ship Security Plan (SSP) and current anti-piracy guidance; machinery availability; availability of required services; and watchkeeping arrangements to keep a proper look-out (checklist C2.12).

4.13 Ships' routeing

Routeing measures reduce the risk of collision in high-traffic areas and of grounding, and they manage shipping in environmentally sensitive sea areas. Measures adopted at the IMO are shown on charts with a note on their use; non-IMO schemes may also exist.

4.14 Ship reporting systems and AIS

Ship reporting systems let coastal States monitor ships in their waters, contributing to safety of life, efficiency of navigation and prevention of pollution. They routinely require the ship's position, course, speed, persons on board, cargo and destination — and, in some areas, defects affecting navigation equipment, propulsion or steering. Where a system has been adopted by IMO, the Master should comply with its requirements, reporting on entry, on exit or on a material change in the ship's condition; reporting areas can be hard to identify on ECDIS, so pick reports and a waypoint note for reporting (including the channel) may help.

The Automatic Identification System (AIS) lets reporting systems monitor ships in real time, reducing the need for reports in certain areas — though Masters should still report as individual systems require. The static, passage and dynamic data programmed into AIS must be accurate, entered before departure and updated as the passage progresses, to avoid transmitting false data.

4.15 Vessel traffic services (VTS)

Vessel traffic services (VTS) monitor compliance with local regulations and optimise traffic management, operating where traffic volume and risk are high, in approaches to ports and in other confined waters. The passage plan should include the specific radio frequencies the ship monitors for VTS. A VTS may provide an information service (IS) — reports on other traffic, waterway conditions, weather and hazards; a navigational assistance service (NAS) in difficult conditions or when the ship has defects, requested by the Master; and a traffic organisation service (TOS) managing the priority of movements, allocation of space, movement reporting, route information and speed limits.

5. Executing and Monitoring the Passage Plan

The last two stages of the four-stage cycle run throughout the voyage. Once the plan has been checked and approved by the Master and briefed to the team, the passage must be continuously monitored to ensure it is carried out in line with that plan. Execution and monitoring are where appraisal and planning are put to the test — a plan is only as safe as the discipline with which the team follows and checks it.