Statement of Steven Spendlove, Princess Cruise Lines

MR. SPENDLOVE: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, distinguished guests.

Firstly, like my colleagues from the United Kingdom, I sincerely hope you have no difficulty in understanding my British accent, although over the last six years, mine has developed a slight LA lilt. So, for that, I apologize in advance.

Over the next few minutes, I would like to discuss with you the challenges, purposes and solutions we as a major cruise company have had to face in installing voyage event recorders on our fleet of sophisticated cruise ships.

Challenges. Sitting in the audience over the last two days has brought home to me one major factor. Whether it be land, air or sea, in some ways, each of these three areas of transportation are linked, both in operational demands and the need to receive answers to many questions, both during and after incident, no matter how great or small.

Purpose. For many incidents, great or small, we can always glean information that will provide some insight as to why equipment failed, the reason for a failure or, more importantly, was human error involved.

Over the recent years, the growth in the cruise industry has been phenomenal, with an extra expected 70-percent increase in the number of people taking a cruise over the next five years.

So, as the equipment we place on board becomes more technically advanced, then the monitoring systems we place on board need to be at least the same level or in some cases more advanced, and what better solution is there than in having the centrally-placed unit on board a vessel that can gather this information?

The data received by the unit, we shall now call the voyage event recorder, can be customized to meet not only the needs of the authorities, flag state or insurance companies, but can be equally used by the end user to aid his training, investigative, maintenance or safety programs.

In the marine industry, in some respects, we have one small advantage over our colleagues in land and air, and the word is "time". Whether in the air or on land incidents usually happen in seconds, and the reporting of that incident by the media is quick, if not quicker.

As we have seen in the maritime industry, the initial incident often does happen in the same time frame, but it could have taken hours, even days, to actually unfold and thus eventually conclude.

Although not attracting instant media attention, it nevertheless, and rightly so, reaches the populous sometimes hours, even days, after the incident has happened.

As one of the distinguished speakers has already stated, the oceans of the world are a large area, with 95 percent of the world trade actually using it to move the produce or persons from A to B.

Some examples. A flight from Miami to London takes approximately eight hours, yet a cruise from Miami to London takes eight days. So, a lot more time for things to go wrong.

If the audience will permit, I would now like to expand further on the topics I have discussed.

Purpose. There have been many discussions in our organization into the merits for and against the use of voyage data recorders. At first, to this speaker, it was just a technical issue of getting the units on board, installed and working. But over the last six years, I've come to realize the VDR actually serves many purposes, besides just being the "Big Brother is watching".

Usage. I know one of the previous speakers touched on the ISM Code and its implementation and its effects on the shipping industry. Wouldn't it be easy if during a port inspection, rather than the inspector having to rush around the vessel, he or she could actually go to a central point and view the picture of the radar and information gleaned from the ship's last entry to port? Thus proving the equipment was functioning correctly on the time of entry, and the operations staff on board had performed the maneouvering as per port requirements, thus saving all many, many valuable hours.

As a training device, in our organization, we learned very early on that the VDR could not only be used as an instant information-gatherer, but if we could take this information, and at a later stage reconstruct the incident as our colleagues in the airline industry have done for many years, and then actually go through the whole scenario, which, incidentally, could have lasted a few hours, we can then pinpoint where the mistake had taken place.

To this end, we have recently installed a simulator on each vessel that actually represents and uses a mathematical computer-generated model of that vessel. We can then use the information learned from the data recorder and link it to the simulator to train our staff directly on board the vessel.

We have also installed in our headquarters a complete fleet simulator, and when this is linked to the information obtained from the vessel, the story of the incident can be played and replayed in order that the land-based management are promptly brought up to speed on the incident and don't jump to any false conclusions.

As the cruise industry hops the globe for more different and interesting ports to meet the ever-growing demand for travel, we have actually found that the information gained when entering a certain port by one master and his vessel one year, a year down the line it is usually a different master and a different vessel that actually enters that port. But by allowing the new captain the chance to view the previous captain's entry, he has gained valuable knowledge which is normally in either written word or word of mouth, meaning this could easily be misinterpreted. He can then easily rely on the information at hand to take his vessel safely into that port.

Therefore, we have actually built a history of world ports where we may only use one or two times a year, and, of course, this has proved saving of time in both operations and, of course, money.

Watchdog. The VDR will also serve as an official watchdog over the technical and human issues, but I will cover that a little later, if I may.

Technical advancement. In this day and age of high-speed data and more reliable equipment, and the ship owners' ultimate need to balance the books, although it may seem expensive at the time, an outlay may prove very economically prudent over the future years as legal costs continue to rise, technology seems to either plateau or is falling.

As mentioned previously, if a ship owner could be convinced to lay out some capital, it could prove a saving over the years to come. For example, at present, a certain Pilot organization will give a discount to vessels entering that port that have an electronic chart display system, commonly known as ECDIS, coupled with differential GPS system.

So, why should flag states, countries and insurance companies not give a discount on premiums for vessels carrying a voyage event recorder?

Princess Cruises currently operates nine vessels, all of which are no more than 10 years old. All are equipped with VDRs. We have three more vessels currently being built. One of the vessels in use at the moment is the Grand Princess, which some of you may have heard about. It's the largest cruise ship ever built, a 109,000 tons. It lists 2.500 to 3,300 passengers and has 1,200 crew. That's 4,500 people in one place.

I would now like to mention some instances where data recorders have not only completely vindicated a vessel or its master and the company alike, but also cleared the ship staff of any blame whatsoever.

A fishing boat reported that his nets had been cut in half, and he had been in a near collision with, as he said, "a big white boat". When asked what this vessel was, he reported it was such and such. By looking at the actual data recorder on the mentioned vessel, we found that it was tied up in port 500 miles away, and with this, we could prove the fact.

In another recent incident that springs to mind and received quite a lot of media attention some time after the event, the master of the vessel decided for safety of the vessel, its passengers and crew, he would miss out of port due to severe weather conditions.

To the untrained mariner, this was complete hogwash, but a close review of the weather data would have shown that the captain was actually being very conservative in his wind speeds and taking the vessel into port that day could have easily resulted in an incident.

Although I'm not saying that it made the master's decision for him, it certainly backed his decision some 12 months after the event when legal came a-calling. The issue was quickly resolved.

I don't want to sound patronizing, but how many people have noticed that I've actually changed the header from "voyage event recorder" to "voyage data recorder"?

(Show of hands)

MR. SPENDLOVE: Okay. So, we all know it now, but after lunch, if I was to ask the same question, I doubt very many of you would remember much, except that you listened to a really boring speech by a small nervous Englishman.

But as my slide was computer-generated, then it can very easily be saved for future comparisons.

As mentioned by a previous speaker, some times getting the correct information from people, sorry, after the event is sometimes impossible because in the heat of the moment, words are forgotten as soon as they are spoken. But by using the VDR voice recording play-back, we can actually prompt people's memories.

Once this incident came to light not long ago, when one of our vessels was under pilotage, the pilot gave an order, the captain disagreed with it, and it was quickly forgotten. Unfortunately, some months later, a letter of complaint was received at the head office re this particular incident.

The captain had at the time of the incident decided quite rightly so to take the tape away and send it to headquarters just in case. In the end, everything was cleared up with a quick review of the tape, and no further action was needed.

As per our colleagues in the auto industry and their use of tachographs, which is now completely accepted as a driver's ally, so the VDR can achieve the same results in a cruise vessel or marine vessel.

Two instances I wish to relate to you are we have a company policy that only English is spoken in all public areas and technical areas. As areas such as the bridge and engine room and control room are on the VDR microphones, this acts as an unofficial policing of our policy, and in an incident, it must help the investigators because everybody is speaking in the same tongue.

The second incident was during a recent audit of a company vessel. I was social chatting to the captain on the bridge just prior to sailing. I should mention that this particular vessel was a high-speed ferry and carried two captains.

Each master did no more than eight hours on the bridge as per company regulations. As we stood chatting away, the captain remembered that the whole of the bridge was being recorded, and he was over his allotted time. So, it also meant that we were able to get out of the way and let the Bridge staff get on with what they do best.

Now, I'd like to go over the advantages of a data recorder. Essential information, where data gathered can either be subjected to instant replay and at the same time stored for future research and investigations.

Lessons. With every incident or accident, valuable lessons are learned, but what better way than to collect,and to electronically store this information and use it at a later stage to ensure those famous words "it'll never happen again" mean something?

Training. We can provide a very valuable training gate to simulate training using real event situations.

Technically. In this day and age of advanced electronics, anything is possible.

Recording devices. As technology advances, so does the need to store information. Presently, we use an audio-video tape that stores information for 24 hours gleaned from maybe 46 systems on board our vessels.

This tape will run for 24 hours before automatically rewriting on itself. At present, one of our sister companies has developed an optical disk that will act as a storage and vastly improve both space and technology and ease of transportation.

I'm sure that as an industry, once VDR or VER becomes compulsory on certain vessels, then the advancements in technology, both for recording data and monitoring that data, will take place.

With modern recording devices, it is now very easy to store environmental data, such as wind, wind speed, direction, speed, heading, etc., etc., and while these may not seem essential, in other industries, when we build a history of a port or vessel data, these are critical factors.

Transmission of data. Yesterday, the question of instantaneous data was mentioned, and with such mediums as satellite high-speed data using ISDN connections, we can make this a reality. I agree totally with the previous speaker that in the marine environment, this would hinder rather than aid a situation.

Review of data. The questions as to who has the right to view, have the right to have access, have the right to hold, store and keep this information will, I'm sure, will be discussed at this afternoon's meeting.

I do sincerely hope that I haven't put you all to sleep, and I thank you for your attention.