Two Units, Four Incidents
At 02:15 you command the overnight watch. Two units are available and no relief exists before the 06:00 handover. Unit Alpha carries the only boarding team and has 2 h 40 min of fuel before its mandatory reserve. Unit Bravo carries the only rescue swimmer and has 1 h 10 min before reserve; both units are currently alongside each other. Four incidents are open. A - 3 nm from Alpha: fishing vessel suspected of unlicensed trawling, four crew visible, not fleeing, no distress. B - 12 nm from Bravo: distress flare reported by a merchant ship, person possibly in the water, merchant ship still on scene. C - 6 nm from Alpha: intruder alarm at a bonded warehouse, unconfirmed. D - 1 nm from Alpha: unlit vessel drifting in the main shipping channel, two persons visible. Bravo is not released from B unless you release it.
1. Rank the four incidents in the order you would commit resources, and name the constraint that drives each step.
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Rank: B, then D, then C, then A.
- B - task the merchant ship, do not sail Bravo. Life is at risk, but the decisive fact is that a capable asset is already on scene. Bravo at 22 kn needs 12 ÷ 22 × 60 ≈ 33 min each way, so a round trip of 66 min against 70 min of endurance leaves roughly 4 min on scene - a sortie that arrives, turns round, and achieves nothing while stripping cover from the channel. Task the merchant vessel to recover, keep it on the line, and hold Bravo for a handover of any recovered person.
- D - commit Bravo. 1 nm is about 3 min. An unlit vessel adrift in the shipping channel at 02:15 is an immediate risk to life from collision, and it is the nearest problem with the shortest solution.
- C - commit Alpha. 6 nm at 18 kn is about 20 min. Unconfirmed, property rather than life, but Alpha is the only asset that can enter and it is close.
- A - defer. No distress, not fleeing, trackable by radar, and only Alpha can board - which makes it the one task that can safely wait for the day shift.
If Bravo's endurance were, say, 4 hours, the ranking changes: Bravo to B becomes viable and moves to first.
2. A colleague argues that B must be first *and* that Bravo must go, because only Bravo can recover a person from the water. Address the argument directly.
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The premise is right and the conclusion does not follow.
- Right: only Bravo has the swimmer, so if the recovery must be done by a unit of yours, it must be Bravo.
- Wrong: it need not be done by a unit of yours. The merchant ship reported the flare, is on scene, and is obliged to render assistance. It is the asset that can actually reach a person in the water in the next few minutes.
- The arithmetic decides it: 66 min of transit out of 70 min of usable endurance. Bravo would be committing to a sortie that cannot stay. Committing it also removes the only swimmer from reach of D, which is 3 minutes away and involves two lives in a traffic lane.
Correct handling: direct the merchant ship to recover and report, put Bravo at immediate notice to take over a casualty transfer, and log the decision and its reasoning at the time. Note the residual risk explicitly: if the merchant ship reports it cannot recover, Bravo goes, and D is covered by Alpha instead.
3. What single new fact would most change your plan, and how?
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That the shipping channel has been closed to traffic - or that D's vessel has drifted out of the channel.
That removes the imminent-collision risk that puts D second, drops D to a low-priority tow or escort for the day shift, and frees Bravo. Bravo then becomes available either to escort a casualty from B or to support Alpha at C.
Ranked runners-up:
- A confirmed forced entry at C - an active intruder at a bonded warehouse outranks unconfirmed boarding work and would move C above D.
- The merchant ship reporting it cannot recover - forces Bravo to B, accepting the endurance problem and reallocating D to Alpha.
The point of the exercise is that the ranking is driven by three variables only: whether life is at risk, whether the asset committed can actually do the job, and whether the information is confirmed. Everything else is background.