Mk1? The eye has been getting iterated on for more than 500 million years. Cameras have only been worked on for about 200 years.
Right. Sorry. Sonar under water, Radar above, things hugging the surface, very difficult.
More here about why not to use sonar unnecessarily:
https://www.dcceew.gov.au/environment/marine/marine-species/cetaceans/sonar-seismic-impacts
My neighbor was a USN ship captain. His boat ran over an adrift buoy when one of the seamen spotters (snerk) left his post for a couple of minutes, which otherwise would easily have been seen and reported to the navigators.
If you’ve only ever been out on a lake, that might not sound like much. But seagoing buoys can be huge:
https://www.alamy.com/the-deck-force-aboard-the-coast-guard-cutter-fir-a-225-foot-seagoing-buoy-tender-homeported-in-astoria-ore-rigs-the-35-foot-tall-9-foot-wide-buoy-14-to-be-lifted-and-pulled-from-the-columbia-river-near-ilwaco-wash-june-23-2016-the-crew-of-the-fir-maintains-60-percent-of-the-largest-buoys-in-the-coast-guard-that-match-the-size-of-buoy-14-us-coast-guard-photo-by-petty-officer-1st-class-levi-read-image209215840.html?imageid=92775D83-D493-4591-A1E2-E1D01B4B48A4&p=652321&pn=1&searchId=ce5cb0a5bb95e1ac6eb201711da33d78&searchtype=0
The Mark 1 can determine what type of ship it is and if it is maintaining a constant course. It will take time by radar to determine there was a course change. Also if the observed ship is at a constant bearing the Mark 1 will help the mate, captain, or OOD determine what course of action they should be making to avoid a collision.
This is inaccurate and/or a massive exaggeration.
Firstly, charts don’t tell you have the sea floor looked the last time someone passed this way - charts aren’t updated by every passing vessel or even close to that. They tell you what it was like the last time there was a hydrographic survey.
Secondly, the sea floor does not actually change that much, for the most part. It can change substantially in estuarine or otherwise dangerous areas where there are shifting sand or mud bars. That is a tiny, tiny percentage of the areas in which ships operate and would generally be avoided altogether. In most areas that ships operate, the depth is far greater than the vessel’s draft and reliably remains so. Any ship’s master who takes his vessel into such an area relying on a guy with binoculars is not going to be in command long.
Thirdly, when ships are in such areas they are probably operating with a pilot, who knows about the shifting sands. Ships do not rely on one of their own guys a guy with binoculars to tell them about shifting sands. They’d go aground if they did.
Guys with binoculars on watch are pretty much exclusively looking for above-water objects - primarily other vessels, buoys etc.
Short hair on sailors is but a passing fad compared to the long tradition of them having long hair. In the great days of sail, when navies ruled the world, sailors had pigtails.
And mustaches/beards. Because shaving on a rocking ship with a straight edge is not a good idea.
Seems to me to be an ideal application for rotating cameras and AI. I’ve no experience with this but it seems that with this type of duty, cognitive fatigue can set in. AI could flag anything that needs human eyes.
Carefully coiffured with a dab of tar.
Just as soon as some develops the AI to do it and convinces the IMO and the US Coast Guard to allow it, I’ll mostly agree. My personal experience was that the vast majority of people stationed as designated forward lookouts were redundant at best, unreliable in most cases, and oblivious at worst. Although this is from my experience in the US Navy circa the mid-aughts to early teens. Other Navies at other times might do it better.
Personally, when I was in charge of directing the ship’s maneuvers as either Conning Officer or Officer of the Deck I considered myself the primary lookout and never had problems with the sort of cognitive fatigue a dedicated lookout might be subject to because I had other tasks to keep my mind busy apart from just watching the horizon (plus the certain knowledge that if we ever hit anything, not only would my career be over, I might actually kill someone or even sink one or more ships—although similar incentives to maintain a diligent watch apparently don’t work on everyone). I also had direct access to the radar and the chart, which really is essential to being an effective lookout, allowing me to integrate the ships sensors and navigational information with my eyes. Oh, and I knew where the ship was going and when it was going to change course, so I could think in terms not only of what might happen if everyone just maintained course and speed, but also knew when to consider anticipated course changes in my evaluations of the various potential hazards.
In general, the US Navy of my era at least did a shitty job of training the dedicated lookouts, who were among the most junior sailors, and the Navy’s leadership seemed to recognize this implicitly when, just before I joined the Navy, it actually eliminated the requirement for dedicated forward lookouts as part of its so-called “optimal manning” initiative. Of course it also went ahead and drastically reduced manning for the ships as if the sailors who acted as lookouts 8 hours a day didn’t do anything but loaf around and sleep (ha!) the other 16 hours of the day and it was all one gigantic cluster fuck which was eventually undone (to the extent one can ever really undo a cluster fuck).
Oh, but anyway, the USN of my era did not seem to recognize the importance integrating lookouts with sensors, navigational information, and of course ships control plans, and in any event the sailors whose duty it was to stand there staring out at the ocean through the their late teens and early twenties often weren’t too interested in doing the job either, plus it doesn’t really take multiple sets of eyes to maintain an effective lookout in open ocean (so the officers really should be able to handle it on their own—and if they can’t, adding a bunch of untrained eyes with no knowledge of what is appearing on the radar, where the ship is relative to land and navigation aids, or what the ship is planning on doing isn’t going to help). And obviously coastal, piloting, or restricted waters could be different.
I suppose a lot depends upon whether you are navy or Coast Guard. 
Somewhat related.
About the use of eyes on the water, above, radar, and developing the AI tools.
Long time ago I was involved in a matter where a ship went aground at night on a small coral reef with a lighthouse. The Officer of the Watch had fallen asleep but it was an open question why the seafarer on the bridge as lookout didn’t realise something was going wrong and wake him up.
The lookout claimed that he saw the light from the lighthouse but didn’t have sufficient navigational knowledge to realise they were too close. Others with experience of the route pointed out that the height of the bridge and height of the lighthouse was about the same and that as the ship approached, far too close, the lookout would have needed to wear sunglasses to avoid pain from the intensity of the beam. He was either asleep, elsewhere, or too stupid to breathe.
Sometimes I would go out on the bridge wings (where we kept the lookouts—something else that made it difficult to integrate them into the bigger picture) at night with night vision goggles to catch them with their eyes shot for… a lot longer than it takes to blink.
Not to mention that shaving with salt water can smart considerably.