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He has investigated various shipping vessel grounding's. The most important one was the grounding of the Queen Elizabeth 2 off of Martha's Vineyard in 1992 and the subsequent trial in 1996 in a court in New York. He has investigated other shipping accidents resulting in groundings, but at a less critical or monetary level.

The cause of shipping accidents that are the result of poor or inaccurate nautical charts are the basis of his expertise in this area.

All information relative to shipping accidents has to be examined. Some of these items involve ships position, ships speed, the accuracy of the nautical equipment aboard the ship and of course the nautical chart indicating water depths must be analyzed. Other elements investigated involve ships officers competency, attention to detail, ships equipment, ships draught, ships speed, etc. The information used to compile the nautical chart must be carefully scrutinized. How a hydrographic survey was conducted becomes a very important element in the investigation.

Having recognized the fact that an accident has occurred, it is important to reconstruct the events on the bridge of the ship to determine what courses of action lead to the accident. Various re-plots and analysis of ships position, speed and directions will assist in this investigation. Further investigations regarding the nautical chart and the information used to construct the chart must be looked at carefully.

Navigational aids are a large part of a nautical chart’s information. These aids include but are not limited to the following: buoys, lights, fog horns, ships signals, rules of the road as well as both international and inland rules.

Expert can provide expertise in all of the rules of safe shipping outlined in the international rules of the road. Knowledge of these rules is required before being accepted as a shops master.

A chart is a navigational aid to the safe conduct of shipping. It is the most important aid to navigation that exists and all ships in all countries are required by law to navigate their ships with
the aid of a nautical chart (either paper charts or ENC). In some instances, small yachts are exempt from the requirement of using a chart, but all prudent mariners make use of charts.

All ships and most yachts presently have access to Global Positioning information and can plot the position of the vessel anywhere in the world. These positions are plotted on charts.
Some of these charts are paper and some are images on a computer screen. Expert is an expert in the use and compiling of nautical charts.

He has been deposed a number of times and knows and understand the process well.

Shipping as it pertains to the international rules of the road is a primary area of his expertise. Ships at sea and what they are required to do to allow safe navigation are his specialty. All of Expert’s expertise focuses on international shipping as it pertains to the safe movement of these ships across our oceans, up or down our rivers and into inland waters.

He has been associated with the construction of many survey and scientific ships. He has a very good understanding of ships in this area. He understands noisy and quiet ships. Hard chine and ships designed to be effective in reducing internal noise that is detrimental to scientific and hydrographic operations. Ships with cruiser sterns are especially good a reducing ship noise, as are ships where all the machinery aboard is placed on shock absorbing footings.

Shipping of various products is conducted and the cargoes of these ships are often maximized in order to produce larger profits for the ships owners. Often these overburdened ships run aground in confined shipping channels as a result of low tides or high atmospheric influences. Often the ship’s pilots attempt to navigate in shallow water not appreciating the fact that a salt water ship is now in fresh water or is exhibiting squat as a result of speed and the shallow water.
Expert can comment and offer advice in these areas.

Ocean and their tributaries as it pertains to national and international shipping is his specialty.

Having spent many years in Canada's Arctic, Expert has a very good understanding of Arctic ice and ice in general. He knows how ships move through ice and what it takes to get a ship through ice. He also understands the effects of ice aboard a ship and the resultant centre of gravity questions.

Shipping accidents that result from inaccurate nautical charts are infrequent but they do happen. If a nautical chart can be found to be the cause of a ship going aground, then the owners of the ship and their insurance brokers will need Expert’s help.
Modern charts and associated accurate positioning system are, in many cases, incomparable and need and expert to sort out the inaccuracies. Expert can do this.


Ships that run aground on uncharted or badly charted shoals or shoals where the accurate depth has not been accurately determined need his expertise. Often, and more now that data shifts have affected so many charts there are many serious accidents just waiting to happen. Consider a large tanker running aground on a badly charted shoaling area and you will realize that all nautical charts may not be what they seem.

Geodesy and earth shapes are a large part of hydrographic charting. Determining geographic positions either his conventional methods or by using differential Global Positioning Systems techniques is a large part of his area of expertise.

Many projection types have been used over the years to describe the earth's shape. Map projects, though now limited to Universal Transverse Mercator with a geographic superimposed grid, is the most common.
Map projects are one of his areas of expertise.

The process of successfully navigating a ship from point A to point B is a process that relies on a number of aids. These aids, in modern times, is the Global Positioning System or one of its competing systems. In early times ships navigation relied on star and sun shots, radar and other much less accurate systems.
I know and understand ships navigation well.

In order to navigate safely ships must know and understand both their ships draught, the ships squat and the depth of water the ship is traveling through. A clear understanding of these elements is critical to safe navigation.

He has a clear and certain understanding of all navigational aids necessary to the safe passage of commercial and pleasure craft shipping.

Ships compasses are not what they once were. Global Position Systems now have taken the place of the traditional ships compass. Ships are, nevertheless, still required to carry a compass and have it periodically adjusted by a qualified compass adjuster.
A ships compass will tell the bridge officers quickly what direction the ship is heading. There are two types of compasses. One is a magnetic compass and the other is a gyro compass. The magnetic compass points to Magnetic north and the Gyro points to true north.

Photogrametric or photogrametry is critical to all types of terrestrial mapping. Hydrographic charts rely heavily on coastal features mapped through various photogrametric principles.

Modern photgrametry can be carried out from satellites.

Contributed to the preparation of a negligence case against the US Government in New York in 1995/1996.
Testified for the prosecution in this case. In 2000 offered expert advice in regards a ship grounding in Boston Harbour, The ship was named the M.V. LimarIn 1999 offered expert advice in respect to the M.V. Aktea and its grounding in Stockton Harbour, California.
Advice accepted. Culpability determined.In 1979 conducted hydrographic surveys to determine the cause of the grounding of the M.V. Star Opal in Laredo Channel.
Survey results proved culpability.In 1975 conducted surveys to determine fault in the grounding of the M.V. Irish Star Dust Grounding took place in the Haddington Island area of the British Columbia coast.