Many years ago, on a dark and stormy night, I was running an oilfield boat of some description west-bound through a rather hairy stretch of the southern segment of the ICW. The stretch was either in or near Houma, Louisiana or New Orleans, I think, although I disremember which. Anyway, I was chuggin' along, approaching a bottlenecky curve, when here comes a big, east-bound towboat pushing umpteen barges at a pretty good clip. Nothing unusual here, of course.

But what soon got my undivided, totally-flabbergasted attention was this. After the umpteen barges had passed me by, along came the tug's wheelhouse, which was on a par with my own wheelhouse elevation-wise. And, by George,  it was lit up like somebody's living room, with a TV set on the steering console, and Perry Mason playing on the TV in living black-and-white. Moreover, the skipper was kicked back in his helm seat, manipulating one of the steering sticks with his foot, and gabbin' on the VHF while watching Perry go after the bad guys. Whaaaaaaaaa! The scene was so dang incongruous that I had to swing around in my own helm chair and take another look just to prove to myself that my eyes hadn't played a trick on me.

The enormity of it all began to sink in shortly. Here was a big pushboat, a fair-sized tow, operating in poor visibility due to rain and wisps of fog, with lots of traffic going both east and west and a narrow channel to contend with. And this joker was watching TV and blabbing on his radio while supposedly navigating at the same time. One of the original, or near original, multi-taskers!

Why bring up such a gloomy piece of reminiscence here?

Believe it or not, just about a month ago, I came across a TV-set-equipped helm station on a big strapping cruiser I was sea trialing for a boat test feature. And, upon seeing the darn thing for the first time, I was, of course, constrained to do a double-take very much like the one I did long ago, while looking at the TV-watching skipper back in Louisiana. Check it out for yourself:

Now don't get me wrong. The vessel's helm station was great otherwise, with a logical easy-to-read layout and excellent visibility everywhere, even astern thanks to clear sightlines through the galley and the saloon. But a TV hanging down from the overhead at or near the helm station? Even though the manufacturer might argue that it had been angled for viewing primarily from the dinette area on the port side of the wheelhouse? Or that it was fitted for at-anchor or dockside viewing only?

In my opinion, given the many duties and responsibilities entailed in safely navigating a vessel, particularly during certain high-stress periods, distractions at the helm should be kept to a minimum.

Yeah, a stereo playing after dark in the wheelhouse is nice. And so's a little companionable conversation? But a TV hangin' down? At the helm? So a multi-tasker or semi-multi-tasker can try to simultaneously steer, keep tabs on the road ahead as well as his engine gauges, operate the radio, and navigate, all while watching a favorite program or a movie? You gotta be kiddin' me.