One of the most important skills a ship’s officer should possess is their ability to recognize when something is out of place. If you don’t apply a lot of thought to what you are doing, recognizing your mistakes becomes nearly impossible. Thought is required in every step of every process performed on the bridge.With all the modern appliances we use for navigation and collision avoidance today, it is very easy to fall into the trap of being reactive to the wishes of the machines without giving much thought to the outcome of our actions.