Steven Jones, the founder of the Seafarers Happiness Index, on the tech above all generation and the urgent need to rebuild seamanship and trust at sea.
The worst things you can lose at sea are stability, power, and position. Lose your stability and over you go. Lose power and the wind, waves, and current take you. Lose position and you’re navigating blind, vulnerable to grounding, collision, or worse.
There is something else you can lose, though, something harder to detect and potentially even more dangerous: that is the trust and respect between crewmembers. When senior officers no longer trust their juniors’ competence, when professional respect erodes between watch-keepers, the entire human infrastructure that keeps a vessel safe begins to fracture.
Unlike a power failure or GNSS outage, there is no alarm that sounds when this happens. The latest Seafarers Happiness Index has revealed precisely this crisis, worryingly and quietly unfolding. According to the latest responses, it seems senior officers are increasingly expressing unease about their junior colleagues’ fundamental navigational skills, a concern thrown into sharp relief by the rising threat of GNSS jamming and spoofing.
What emerges is a portrait of a watchkeeper increasingly dependent on their equipment, yet dangerously unprepared if that technology fails or deceives.
The tech above all generation
Seafarers express concern about those who are drawn in and lulled into a false sense of security, where technology becomes not just a tool but a substitute for seamanship. The phrase that captures this perfectly: a reluctance to “even look out of the window.” This isn’t merely about preference; it represents a fundamental shift in how navigation is conceived.
There is much discussion in the industry about the training mix and the complex role of traditional skills like celestial navigation, dead reckoning, and the intuitive reading of sea conditions. These skills are deteriorating, replaced by an unwavering faith in screens and algorithms.
The consequences become existential when GNSS reliability is questioned. In an environment where positioning systems are jammed or spoofed, increasingly common in conflict zones and contested waters, officers without foundational navigational skills experience a “complete loss of confidence.”
It is not simply that they lack alternative methods; it’s that they’ve never developed the problem-solving framework for operating without technological certainty. “My junior watchkeepers stare at screens, decisions paralysed if they cannot compute what they are being fed”.
The human cost of skill erosion
This technical dependency creates a cascade of problems that extend far beyond navigation itself. When confidence in competence is lost, the entire social architecture of shipboard operations begins to fracture. Trust, the foundation of effective watch-keeping and emergency response, erodes. With devastating consequences.
This leaves Senior officers compelled to double-check work they should be able to delegate, leading to fatigue and resentment. Junior officers, sensing this mistrust, may become defensive or further retreat into technology’s false comfort. The divide deepens.
Those who learned their craft primarily through traditional methods struggle to understand how their juniors can be so skilled and knowledgeable in many ways, and yet so helpless if there is a blip. Meanwhile, junior officers perceive such concerns as “technophobia” or resistance to progress.
Tensions are building.
The dynamics aboard ship depend on a delicate balance of authority, competence, and mutual respect. When that balance tips, the psychological safety net that crews depend on begins to fray. Any erosion of professional trust creates discomfort, but more, it creates danger too.
Rebuilding seamanship and trust
Seafarers are not just about problems; thankfully, some are proposing solutions too. Some have even started traditional skills training, requiring officers to plot positions manually, practice celestial navigation, and conduct exercises where electronic systems are deliberately disabled.
Others advocate for “Nav Champions”, designated mentors whose role extends beyond formal training to fostering a culture of seamanship. These champions teach, encourage, and guide junior officers through the embodied learning that screens cannot provide. They normalise asking questions, admitting uncertainty, and developing judgment through consequence-bearing decisions.
This approach addresses both technical competence and interpersonal dynamics. A Nav Champion doesn’t just teach how to shoot a sun sight; they model professional engagement, demonstrating that asking for guidance is a strength rather than a weakness, and rebuild the bonds of trust that technology dependency has eroded.
They create spaces where junior officers can develop skills without judgment, where mistakes become learning opportunities rather than confirmation of incompetence.
While this all sounds positive, we have to recognise that while it may work well on ships with adequate time and resources, unfortunately, on many vessels, people just do not have the opportunity or luxury to spend on developing skills or attitudes which should already be well engrained.
The human core
We are facing a crisis that is much about human relationships and professional identity as it is threats and risks of technology. Any divide over seamanship skills, be it generational or operational, threatens crew cohesion and operational safety. We cannot reject technology but must recognise and insist that it serves seafarers rather than replaces them.
If we do not find the right course through this challenge, things will get even worse in the medium term. Indeed, just as we recognise and respond to the dangers of tech reliance, the industry is accelerating toward AI-assisted navigation. Systems which promise optimisation and safety, but risk deepening the very crisis discussed here.
If officers struggle when GNSS fails, what happens when they have never learned to question an algorithm’s confident recommendation? The AI optimises without consequence; it never lies awake replaying a decision, never faces an inquiry, never loses its ticket. That asymmetry between consequence-free processing and consequence-bearing judgment is precisely why human seamanship must remain sovereign.
When seamanship skills erode, when watchkeepers cannot navigate without GPS, when trust between crew members fractures, we lose not just technical capability, but the professional culture that has kept seafarers safe for generations.
We risk losing the understanding that competence breeds confidence, confidence enables trust, and trust is what allows crews to function effectively under pressure.
So, we must train navigators who command tools rather than obey them, who maintain the embodied skills that screens cannot provide, and who carry the weight of consequence that keeps judgment sharp.
We need to rebuild the professional trust and respect that makes crews function as cohesive units rather than collections of individuals monitoring screens. We can replace a GPS system. We can install backup power and add redundancy to every critical system, but restoring trust once lost or rebuilding competence once fundamental skills have eroded is far more difficult.
The erosion eats away at the very core of being a seafarer, and because the risks are invisible until the moment they become catastrophic, it is a danger we need to check for constantly. The sea has been teaching humans humility for millennia, and now it seems we must learn again.
Our most advanced technology shouldn’t make us forget the lessons but rather help us apply them more effectively while preserving the irreplaceable human core of seamanship.
Seafaring is not just about individual skill, training or certificates of competency; it’s about the bonds of professional trust and respect that turn a group of people into a crew capable of bringing their vessel safely home, no matter what challenges they face, and no matter what is on the screen.
