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Reading the Compass: Why Every Seafarer Must Master the Art of Nautical Bearings
Reading the Compass: Why Every Seafarer Must Master the Art of Nautical Bearinngs
Okeoghene Onoriobe | Waterways News | Maritime Training & Safety Desk
For every cadet stepping onto the bridge for the first time, and for every seasoned officer who has spent decades navigating open water, one skill remains constant and non-negotiable: the ability to read a nautical bearing compass with speed, accuracy, and confidence. It is, in many ways, the language of the sea — a silent but precise system that tells a mariner exactly where danger, land, or another vessel lies in relation to their own ship.
Maritime trainers and navigation officers across Nigeria’s waterways continue to emphasise that bearings are not merely academic knowledge tested in cadet examinations. They are a working tool used every single day, in every watch, on every voyage, from the busy shipping lanes of Lagos and Bonny to the open expanse of the Gulf of Guinea.
What Exactly Is a Bearing?
In the simplest terms, a bearing is a direction, expressed in degrees, that shows the position of one object relative to another. At sea, this most often means the direction of another vessel, a navigational hazard, a buoy, or a landmark, relative to the observer’s own ship.
Bearings are measured using a full 360-degree scale, beginning at 000° and running clockwise back around to 360°. This system removes the ambiguity that comes with vaguer descriptions like “somewhere off to the side” or “up ahead” — replacing guesswork with a precise, universally understood figure that any officer, anywhere in the world, can immediately interpret.
The Ship as a Clock
One of the most effective ways navigation instructors teach bearings, particularly to new cadets, is by comparing the vessel to the face of a clock, with the ship’s bow representing 12 o’clock.
Using this method, the key reference points break down are as follows:
- 000° (12 o’clock) : Dead ahead, directly in line with the bow
- 090° (3 o’clock) : On the starboard beam, directly to the right of the vessel
- 180° (6 o’clock) : Dead astern, directly behind the ship
- 270° (9 o’clock) : On the port beam, directly to the left of the vessel
Every other bearing falls somewhere between these four cardinal reference points, allowing an officer to describe, with pinpoint accuracy, the exact direction from which another vessel is approaching or where a hazard has been sighted.
Beyond straight degree readings, seafarers also rely on nautical points of the compass, most commonly one, two, or three points, to describe how large or small a change in direction is. A one-point alteration signals a slight adjustment in course or bearing, while a two-point or three-point shift indicates a more moderate or significant change. This shorthand allows for quick, efficient communication on the bridge, particularly during time-sensitive manoeuvres.
Beam, Bow, Quarter and Stern: The Vessel’s Points of Reference
To fully grasp bearings, mariners must also understand the fixed reference points on their own vessel:
- Bow :- The forward-most point of the ship
- Beam :- The midpoint along either side of the vessel, at a right angle to its length
- Quarter :- The area between the beam and the stern, on either the port or starboard side
- Stern :- The rear-most point of the vessel
Together with the 360-degree bearing scale, these reference points form a complete navigational vocabulary, enabling officers to describe the position of any object around their ship with total clarity, whether it is fine on the port bow, broad on the starboard quarter, or dead astern.
Why Bearings Matter: Safety, Communication and Collision Avoidance
Maritime safety experts stress that a firm grasp of bearings is not simply a box to tick during officer certification. It is central to three pillars of safe seafaring:
1. Communication. A precise bearing eliminates confusion on the bridge. When an officer reports a vessel “fine on the starboard bow at 020°,” every crew member instantly understands the exact situation — no interpretation required.
2. Collision Avoidance. Bearings are the backbone of the COLREGs-based risk assessment mariners perform constantly at sea. By repeatedly checking the compass bearing of an approaching vessel, officers can determine whether that vessel is on a steady bearing, a classic warning sign of risk of collision, and take timely, appropriate action.
3. Safe Navigation. From plotting a ship’s position using cross-bearings of known landmarks, to reporting hazards to other vessels or shore authorities, bearings remain one of the most fundamental tools in a navigator’s arsenal, even in an era of advanced electronic charting and satellite positioning.
A Foundational Skill for Every Rank
Whether addressing a first-year cadet fresh out of maritime academy or a master mariner with decades of sea time, training officers are unanimous: mastering bearings is a rite of passage that never loses its relevance. Modern bridge technology, radar, ECDIS, AIS, has made navigation more sophisticated, but none of it replaces the fundamental human skill of looking outward, taking a bearing, and understanding precisely what it means.
As Nigeria’s maritime sector continues to grow, with increasing vessel traffic along its coastal and inland waterways, industry stakeholders say a renewed emphasis on foundational navigation skills, bearings chief among them, will remain critical to reducing incidents at sea and building a new generation of confident, capable Nigerian seafarers.
Waterways News will continue its ongoing series on maritime training fundamentals, bringing practical navigation and safety knowledge to seafarers across Nigeria’s waterways.
Waterways News is Nigeria’s foremost digital publication covering ports, shipping, inland waterways, and the blue economy.© Waterways News | www.waterwaysnews.ng | All rights reserved
Featured
IMO Sets First-Ever Two-Year Theme for World Maritime Day, Tasks Member States to Move “From Policy to Practice”
IMO Sets First-Ever Two-Year Theme for World Maritime Day, Tasks Member States to Move “From Policy to Practice”
By Emetena Ikuku | Waterways News
The International Maritime Organization (IMO) has adopted “From Policy to Practice: Powering Maritime Excellence” as its World Maritime Day theme for both 2026 and 2027, marking the first time in the observance’s history that a single theme will run for a full two-year cycle instead of the usual one.
The decision was endorsed by the IMO Council at its 134th session in London, held from July 7 to 11, on a proposal from IMO Secretary-General Arsenio Dominguez. World Maritime Day will continue to fall on the last Thursday of September each year, with 2026 and 2027 both marked under the same theme.
IMO explained that the extended timeframe reflects a deliberate shift in focus, from the adoption of new rules to ensuring those already on the books are actually applied. According to the organisation, “From Policy to Practice” speaks to its core mandate: making sure that conventions, codes and guidelines agreed at the international level are translated into national law, enforced consistently, and embedded in the daily operations of ports, ships and administrations worldwide, rather than existing only on paper.
The “Powering” element of the theme points to the practical support IMO intends to deploy to help member states close that implementation gap, including technical assistance, training programmes, capacity-building and knowledge-sharing partnerships aimed at strengthening maritime administrations and port state control regimes. “Maritime Excellence,” the organisation says, describes the end goal: a shipping industry that is safe, secure, efficient and environmentally sound, held to the highest international standards and committed to continuous improvement.
In a video message announcing the campaign, Dominguez said the true test of the global regulatory framework lies in implementation, stressing that when the industry talks about “practice,” it is ultimately talking about people, and that IMO is committed to powering that transition through direct technical cooperation and support.
IMO has invited member states, industry stakeholders and the public to join the campaign using the hashtags #WorldMaritimeDay and #MaritimePolicytoPractice as national and regional activities roll out over the two-year period.
Nigeria Watch
For Nigeria, a theme built entirely around closing the gap between policy and practice lands close to home. It is, in many ways, the exact fault line this desk has tracked for years across the country’s maritime sector: regulations that exist in full on paper but struggle to survive contact with implementation on the water.
The theme’s emphasis on national legislation, enforcement and day-to-day operations speaks directly to open questions around NIMASA’s cabotage regime and the long-delayed disbursement of the Cabotage Vessel Financing Fund (CVFF), to the jurisdictional tug-of-war between NIWA and LASWA over inland waterways regulation even after Supreme Court intervention, and to the practical rollout of the NPERA Act now that the agency has formally begun operations. Each of these is, at bottom, a policy-to-practice story still waiting for its second half to be written.
It also speaks pointedly to the everyday reality of Nigeria’s informal and small-scale waterway operators, represented by bodies like WABOTAN and ATBOWATON, who often experience federal and state maritime policy not as technical assistance and capacity-building, but as enforcement action with little of the promised support attached. If IMO’s two-year campaign is genuinely about “translating international rules into action at sea and on shore,” as the organisation puts it, Nigerian regulators have an unusually clean, IMO-endorsed framework to be measured against between now and 2027, and operators on the inland waterways will be watching to see whether “powering” the transition includes powering their own long-stalled asset financing and safety upgrades, not just headline compliance targets aimed at the deep-sea fleet only.
With Nigeria holding a seat on the IMO Council, the country also carries a diplomatic stake in how visibly it is seen to be putting the theme into practice at home over the coming biennium.
Blue Economy
Oyetola Sets Up Technical Committee to Fast-Track Fish Production, Cut Nigeria’s Import Bill
Oyetola Sets Up Technical Committee to Fast-Track Fish Production, Cut Nigeria’s Import Bill
By Ighoyota Onaibre | Waterways News
The Federal Ministry of Marine and Blue Economy has begun moving from policy talk to implementation on fish production, with the Minister, Dr Adegboyega Oyetola, inaugurating a Technical Committee on Accelerating Fish Production in Nigeria in Abuja on Thursday.
Oyetola said the committee’s job was to convert existing recommendations into coordinated action that can deliver measurable gains in the country’s fisheries and aquaculture sector, rather than produce another policy document.
He noted that fish remains a major source of animal protein for millions of Nigerians, and that the fisheries and aquaculture value chain sustains livelihoods across production, processing, marketing and transportation. But domestic output still falls well short of national demand, he said, with knock-on effects for food security, household incomes and the country’s foreign exchange position.
The Minister listed the sector’s key constraints as high production costs, particularly feed, poor access to quality fish seed and broodstock, weak fish-health and biosecurity systems, post-harvest losses, and inadequate cold-chain and storage infrastructure. He also pointed to limited access to affordable finance, thin research and data systems, and gaps in standards, traceability and market development.
Oyetola said the recent transfer of fisheries and aquaculture functions to his ministry gave the sector a stronger institutional platform, and reaffirmed government’s commitment to growing sustainable domestic production and cutting Nigeria’s reliance on fish imports.
The committee’s work builds on a strategic roundtable the ministry convened with the National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies (NIPSS) on October 29, 2025, which produced a set of recommendations on production and value-chain bottlenecks. Members have been asked to test each recommendation against existing national policy, laws and institutional mandates, deciding whether it should be adopted, refined, folded into current programmes, studied further, or dropped and to map ongoing public, private and development-sector initiatives so scarce resources are not duplicated.
Oyetola said the committee’s final output must include a clear implementation roadmap and matrix covering priority interventions, responsible institutions, timelines, indicative costs, funding options, performance indicators and required approvals, along with credible entry points for private investment, public-private partnerships and development finance.
The Permanent Secretary of the ministry, Mrs Fatima Sugra Mahmood, who chairs the committee, pledged a thorough review process aimed at practical, measurable interventions. Prof Akintola Shehu Latunji of Lagos State University, speaking for other members, thanked the Minister and committed the committee to working with stakeholders to boost fish production nationwide.
Other members include Mr Omoragbon Wellington and Mr Garba Usman of the Federal Department of Fisheries and Aquaculture; Prof Ayo Omotayo of NIPSS; Prof Sule Abiodun of the Nigerian Institute for Oceanography and Marine Research; Prof Sadiku Suleiman Omeiza of the Federal University of Technology, Minna; Bayelsa State’s Commissioner for Marine and Blue Economy, Dr Faith Izibenua Zibs-Godwin; Dr Charles Okaga, Technical Assistant to the Minister; Dr Ebinimi Ansa of the Fisheries Society of Nigeria; Mr Onoja Sunday of the Catfish Farmers Association of Nigeria; Mr Mashi Gabriel Sani of the Fisheries Cooperative Federation of Nigeria; Mr Remi Ahmed of the Tilapia Development Association of Nigeria; and Dr Charles Iyangbe of WorldFish Nigeria.
The committee has eight weeks to submit its report.
Nigeria Watch
Fish production is not a subject Waterways News covers often, but it sits squarely inside the blue economy mandate this Ministry now carries and it is worth watching for the same reason CVFF, NPERA and NIMASA reforms are worth watching: Nigeria has no shortage of roundtables, committees and roadmaps; what it has historically lacked is follow-through.
Oyetola’s own framing, “your assignment is not to develop another policy”, reads as an implicit acknowledgment of that pattern, and an eight-week deadline is a useful marker for readers to hold the ministry to. The emphasis on cold-chain and storage infrastructure, and on post-harvest losses, also echoes concerns Waterways News has tracked on the inland waterways side, where WABOTAN and ATBOWATON operators regularly cite poor storage and logistics as a drag on returns from fish and other perishable cargo moved by water. A serious fisheries roadmap that funds cold-chain and market infrastructure along riverine routes would have direct relevance for the informal waterway transport economy this desk covers closely.
Whether this committee’s report becomes another shelved document or an actual funding and implementation pipeline is the story to follow when the eight weeks are up.
Blue Economy
NPERA Charges Staff on New Mandate as Akutah Eyes $1 Trillion Economy, Pledges Harmony with Sister Agencies
NPERA Charges Staff on New Mandate as Akutah Eyes $1 Trillion Economy, Pledges Harmony with Sister Agencies
By Okeoghene Onoriobe | Waterways News
The newly transitioned Nigeria Ports Economic Regulatory Agency (NPERA) has told its workforce that the agency’s expanded powers must translate into measurable gains for the maritime sector, as its chief executive moved to calm anxieties over possible turf conflicts with other port institutions.
Speaking at a townhall session with staff, NPERA’s Director-General, Dr Pius Akutah, said the agency’s new statutory footing, created under the Nigerian Ports Economic Regulatory Agency Act, 2026, leaves no room for institutional rivalry, since the law spells out NPERA’s role as the ports’ economic regulator distinctly from the operational and infrastructure mandates held by other agencies.
Akutah described the President’s assent to the Act as a breakthrough for the maritime industry, saying the reinforced regulatory powers position the agency to curb sharp practices and drive efficiency at the ports. He urged staff to raise their professional standards to match the agency’s new responsibilities, and said NPERA intends to work closely with the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) in particular, alongside other sister agencies, to deepen reforms and improve service delivery across the ports.
He linked the agency’s broadened mandate directly to government’s wider ambition of building a $1 trillion economy, arguing that a more predictable and business-friendly port environment is central to that goal.
The remarks follow the formal transition of the Nigerian Shippers’ Council (NSC) into NPERA, a process more than a decade in the making. NPERA Governing Board chairman, Dr Ibrahim Shema, has described the change as a structural separation of economic regulation from the NPA’s landlord and infrastructure functions, with NPERA’s approach to be anchored on transparency, fairness, predictability, efficiency and accountability. Both officials have stressed that NPA retains its infrastructure role while NPERA takes on tariff regulation, licensing, competition oversight and commercial dispute resolution.
NIGERIA WATCH
Every new regulator in Nigeria’s port and maritime space arrives with the same reassurance: this one won’t fight the agencies already there. NPERA’s rollout is no exception, and the emphasis on “harmony” with NPA is itself a tell — it signals that stakeholders, including operators and shippers who have lived through NIMASA-NPA and NIWA-LASWA turf disputes, are watching closely for the first sign of overlap.
For the informal and small-scale end of the water transport economy that Waterways News tracks — the operators represented by WABOTAN and ATBOWATON — NPERA’s mandate is, on paper, encouraging. A regulator empowered to resolve commercial disputes and rein in unapproved charges could, if it functions as designed, extend some protection to smaller port users who have historically had the least leverage against terminal operators and shipping lines. But the sector’s experience with the CVFF disbursement saga is a caution against measuring reform by its founding rhetoric alone. An agency can be transparent on paper about “five principles” and still take years to deliver anything an ordinary operator can point to.
The real test for NPERA, as with NPERA’s own DG has implicitly acknowledged by tasking his staff before the agency has even settled into its new powers, will be whether tariff clarity and faster dispute resolution reach beyond the big shipping lines and terminal operators to the smaller players who move goods and people along Nigeria’s waterways every day. Waterways News will be watching how NPERA’s mandate is implemented in practice, not just how it is announced.
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