The navigating or deck officer must be extremely cautious when steering the vessel from its course no matter where the vessel might be – in the mid-sea, crossing a channel, or entering or leaving port. The bridge team should be sufficiently capable to sail the vessel safely in all kinds of waters and weather. This of course comes with experience and the development of skills. Simply knowing how to sail the vessel is very different from being able to sail the vessel.

To that end, this book seeks to provide the reader with the first half of this equation: the knowledge part. Naturally, navigation is a vast and complex subject area and there is simply too much to be able to safely condense into one book. What I have tried to do, therefore, is to provide the reader with some direction; a summary of some of the key concepts and themes that concern safe navigation.