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Organizational structure of a ship changes under the influence of technological development. Processes on board a ship change as well. Major change refers to the role of the crew and consequently leads to the change of a method of determining competences. Equipment and working processes are becoming more complicated. They have a strong impact on the crew, i.e. on their competences. Competences prescribed in STCW Convention are not in accordance with the changed role of the crew in the processes on board. In STCW Convention, competences have been grouped according to the ship’s functions at different levels of responsibility. Competences have not been prescribed on the basis of the working processes within a system. Such a situation has led to the absence of the proper upgrade of needed competences. Based on the analysis of the functional organizational structure of a ship, the paper suggests more elaborated approach to defining competences. Such an approach links competences with equipment and working processes on board a ship.

Ship manoeuvrability is a wide term which consist of number of various parameters. Knowing the influence of these parameters on ship manoeuvrability is a first condition to ensure and maintain safe navigation. However, many of these parameters are external forces and, in some cases, cannot be calculated and prediction may be complicated. Analysing the influence of external forces can give as an insight into ship manoeuvrability when such external force occurs. The main purpose of this paper is to analyse the influence of wind on ship manoeuvrability. The best way to make such analysis is during turning circle because in this case wind acts in all 360°. Analysis is made using empirical equations and in situ with the real vessel. The results provide the better understanding of vessel trajectory and show that in some cases vessel may respond in unexpected manner.

The passage through the Panama Canal has become the usual waterway for all the ships that can navigate through the Canal. The traffic through the canal is limited by the size of a ship. The need for the expansion of the Canal has emerged due to the development of the global trade and the shipping industry. The new dimensions of the lock-chambers determine the size of the ships as well. The new generation of ships built to the largest specifications possible to transit the current locks of the canal are called the Post-Panamax vessels. The maximum dimensions of these ships are 366 meters in length, 49 meters in beam and 15.2 metres in draught. The paper analyses savings in the operational costs on three types of the Post-Panamax vessels after the Canal expansion.

Despite the efforts of all stakeholders maritime accidents still occur, most commonly caused by human failure. Efficient team work is a vital tool in preventing occurrence or rectifying the errors and violations. Therefore Bridge Resource Management course focuses on developing and sustaining work teams. Unfortunately, team work can be hampered by many factors, including poor organisation, cultural differences, improper attitudes and behaviours, as shown by analysis of many accidents and it is important to address these issues during trainings. As a starting point for a discussion simulation training can be used. In this paper we propose three scenarios based on real accidents, which address problems that are usually not familiar to students: authority gradient, desire for harmony in a group and antagonism between specialties.

The latest container vessel grounding in the Suez Canal, which occurred on 23 March 2021 (the Ever Given), raised many questions regarding the safety of navigation. The sudden concern about safety is due to fears that traffic flow through the Suez Canal could be blocked for longer periods of time. Besides external forces imposed by wind, in this case bank effect had a significant influence on the ship’s grounding. Bank effect occurs due to restricted water flow caused by narrow waterways. Many fairway design standards consider sloped banks such as those of the Suez Canal as unsubstantial in bank-effect forces. This paper analyses the impact of sloped banks on container ship trajectory and proposes minimal distances that may decrease bank-effect forces in order to reduce the risk of vessel grounding and increase the safety of navigation. However, this type of accident has happened before and may occur again due to a small sailing distance from the bank in cases where vessel speed is increased.

Based on traditional expressions and spherical trigonometry, at present, great circle navigation is undertaken using various navigational software packages. Recent research has mainly focused on vector algebra. These problems are calculated numerically and are thus suited to computer-aided great circle navigation. However, essential knowledge requires the navigator to be able to calculate navigation parameters without the use of aids. This requirement is met using spherical trigonometry functions and the Napier wheel. In addition, to facilitate calculation, certain axioms have been developed to determine a vessel’s true course. These axioms can lead to misleading results due to the limitations of the trigonometric functions, mathematical errors, and the type of great circle navigation. The aim of this paper is to determine a reliable trigonometric function for calculating a vessel’s course in regular and composite great circle navigation, which can be used with the proposed axioms. This was achieved using analysis of the trigonometric functions, and assessment of their impact on the vessel’s calculated course and established axioms.

Modern societies, new technical equipment and technology confirm the importance of knowledge acquisition in everyday life, especially in economy. An education system is a non-profit system. Since it strongly affects economic efficiency, its quantification becomes a very complex process. In order to make the quantification process possible, this paper analyses the already existing criteria for measuring efficiency in higher education systems. The already existing models of measuring educational efficiency are universal and do not analyse different professions’ specific qualities. In this paper, models of measuring educational efficiency were analysed separately, whereas their interrelations were not a part of the analysis. A conceptual model of measuring maritime higher education institutions’ (hereinafter: MHEI) efficiency was proposed on the basis of the above-mentioned analysis. All the evaluation criteria relevant for MHEI and their interrelations were determined.