Been sailing around the Carabbean for the last 12 years,

the scary thing is that nowadays you can not be sure that anyone is on lookout.

Bahamas, three(maybe four) years ago, two mail boats collided off of Cat Island both on autopilot with on lookout. (few died, bunch injured)

Bahamas, two years ago, friends of mine going north on the Exuma Banks in a 45ft sailboat hit a southbound 70' Yacht. Both on autopilot and no-one on deck. (nobody hurt, both boats made port)

Ed.

Won't that be fun when a LNG-ship collides with a VLCC in prolonged heavy pea-soup fog plus heavy seas due to no lookouts, no Loran, no GPS, no use of sextants, no shipboard radio, or even radar? Even flashing lights and/or flag semaphore is useless in thick fog, and very difficult to even find channel buoys.

It still boggles my mind that the Exxon Valdez just powered itself onto the rocks even though it had all the state of the art equipment.

Having all the "state of the art equipment" is the problem.

It breeds the "why should I drive the ship when the autopilot can while I read my book and look outside every 20 minutes or so"

Ed