Why context and context-driven decision support matters

On October 5, 2015, El Faro, a cargo ship heading to San Juan, Puerto Rico, foundered in the Atlantic Ocean off the Bahamas due to Category 4 Hurricane Joaquin. Thirty-three crew members remain missing. The captain cut south of the storm, due to the rare occurrence of such storm systems traveling south, but ended up sailing straight into the high winds and seas in the area, a situation that had a high probability of occurrence given the forecast. This event and its outcome demonstrate the importance of using context in weather routing. Context is assumed to mean any information that can be used to characterize the situation of a person, place, physical or computational object considered relevant to providing a clear picture of the dynamics of the problem.