Sailed4seas的部落格

Part 3 Establishing a symbolic culture atmosphere between the company and fleet.

Chapter 16

Shipboard Personal Management – Task and Workload– Consistence of Company Management

FOC vessel increased the Shipboard Personal Management complexities.

In global shipping industry today with so called 'flags of convenience' vessels have increased overseas registry. These FOC vessels usually adopted less restriction over the nationalities of the crew which means multinational crew vessel are acceptable. And the new ship order is also increasing to save the unit cost per each tons are always cheaper than the existing vessel. Following this trend, human resource management functions have also been relocated to HR agencies outside countries. To cope with fast growing number of new ship’s building, recruitment of other national crew/officer also becomes a form of business competition. And the problem is not only concerned with ‘hard issue’ of acquiring the right number of personnel but also with the ‘soft issue’ of quality of manpower. For providing quality service, new seafarers need ongoing training in the necessary technical skills and knowledge or interactive skills.

Just as shipping company has to compete to survive, so they must also compete to identify, attract, and hire the most qualified people. Seafaring is not the preferred profession for youngsters in developed nations. The competencies of the new graduates from maritime schools are always questioned. This is world wide phenomenon not only the developing country, but also the developed country crew. The competence of seafarer in different situation should be demonstrated by his working abilities (habit). This is the third stage that he has to pass after first basic stage knowledge in school, second advance stage skill cultivating (working habit) on board.

In his first stage in school

• First is the issue of the competence of the teachers. These teachers are usually qualified as best as it could, but we usually see them have three or four year’s sea experience only. On board a ship we will never give the ship’s command to a man with 3 or 4 years sea time. So it is most unlikely that these teachers had enough sea experiences to understand what they taught in schools. The knowledge is different from the skill. The skill is different from the teaching. How could we expect they can give valuable demonstrations of their real understanding of each importance step in situations possibly encounter at sea.
• They are not recently disembarked from the vessel, meaning they have not undergone upgrading on board long ago.
• The school, according to one interview: “The school should also look into its curriculum; look at the issue of its relevance in today’s world. There are certain subjects that are non-negotiable that students have to study. But are they relevant?”
• The knowledge delivered and received. In most of works in an advanced technology company like Printed circuit board, integrated circuit even the manufactory of space shuttle, one man take care of a machine is the best he can do. Imaging one OOW in the dark night in bridge, how many equipments he have to handle? And how many outside the bridge he also has to know after the day is break? How many situations he has to react in correct sequence for something he never experienced before? Some concept he had with very good memory are nothing but a label or slogan to him. No real practice or any significances meaning he can picked up for help in real happening, like collision, grounding, flooding, etc. What we should beware before we conducting a U turn in stormy sea? Only once I received the correct answer “Watch out the wave pattern”. But what is wave pattern? Who knows? No answer. This is the label of knowledge, he got the answer by good memory of young man but the meaning is not understood but questionable or forgot to ask in school age.       

In his second stage on board

• This is the process by which a seafarer learns to appropriate the knowledge, procedures, and expected behaviors essential for assuming his role and for participating as a member on board.
• With the passing grade of 60% knowledge he carried from the school, he has no idea what is important and what is irrelevant to daily work which might be helpful some other days, not today.
• His mentor on board who had 10, 20, 30 years sea experiences suffered from the endless hardware and software updated in their techonologies, not knowing the problems of each equipment at all. Not only the equipment he don’t know, neither he can comprehend all the continuously updated and new Ship Management System policy, procedures and check lists requirement in him.
• The young OOW may have proper knowledge of new technologies but he still has some hard time to connect his knowledge of “what should be capable in this machine” to “the exact procedures to make it work for me”. The most common case is for the pilot have rely on the Ship mate to adjust the ARPA for him even every ship is compulsory to carry one. It is the operational procedures in each machine he has to familiar posed his big challenge while he joins one new shipping company or FOC vessels.

In his last stage on board

• He is capable in different situation by demonstrated his working abilities (habit). The complacency set in. COMPLACENCY (definition of USA NASA): false status of security mentally although the physical threat is still present. Mentally, the conscious is under low aroused status and feels self –sustained without any solid ground of reason, almost in an unconscious status. The reasons for complacency are many:
  • Defer to Authority: Follow the command, SOP’s or order from the management unconsciously without confirm or thinking.
  • Fully equipped bridge: Once vessel had ARPA, AIS and VHF, duty officers lost anxiety of collision risk, and rely his equipments to establish communication at the last minute and provide an easy solution to the situation like river pilot do in inland waterway. .
  • From daily routine work we completed at bridge: Most people has the feeling on bridge, it seems to be the most unproductive time from doing nothing but lookout. Some OOW will assign additional works for them to fully utilize the time.
  • From the rush hours after. While you are working very diligently on the bridge after taking a series of avoidance action, everything seems managed very well. You are quite proud of yourself. After ship’s Heading is set and the autopilot is engaged, the traffic slacked. Now seafarers feel more relaxed. Finally, all anxieties are disappeared. This is the time OOW decided to do some errands to kill the time.
  • From expectations of Reoccurrence sailing. Coastal vessel almost sailed in same route every week over a prolonged time. Out of these sailing experiences generated some expectations from the voyages they took. Coastal vessel might think “In general, no vessel will sail outbound in this early morning at 0330”. 
  • From the actual work, we have accumulated fatigue / mental disable / emotional disorders / stress / depression. Under such circumstances people cannot concentrate on the details of the work.
  • With available ARPA/AIS data, captain or OOW has lost their situational awareness of collision risk. Even the senior OOW or some Master depends on ARPA information only to do the evaluation of collision risk which cause a state of complacency. The basic visual lookout skill is lost due to the ARPA if properly used can always provide correct information. 
  • From the privileges of COLREG associated. Vessel sailed along coastal should not have any crossing traffic. If there are vessels outbound the harbor they will be in our port side. The outgoing vessels should give way to own ship. This right of way is likely to get complacent spirit anchored.
  • From management so as into the complacent status. The employer does not require employees to be responsible for their actions, mismanagement.

Shipboard Personal Management in managing company level.

Actually all managing company responsibility had specified by ISM code which is to provide an international standard for the safe management and operation of ships and for pollution prevention.

Company Safety management objectives should:

 .1 provide for safe practices in ship operation and a safe working environment;

 .2 assess all identified risks to its ships, personnel and the environment and establish appropriate safeguards; and

.3 continuously improves safety management skills of personnel ashore and aboard ships, including preparing for emergencies related both to safety and environmental protection.

To achieve these continuously improvements, a shipping company should:

• Provide necessary training: Training might take a variety of forms but all must view it as an important investment for future success.
• Performance appraisal can identify employees who should be retained,
• Rewards bridge the gap between organizational objectives and individual expectations and aspirations.
• Involving employees by seeking their views on matters that concern them. Provide information on the preferences of employees, give warning on potential problem areas, diagnose the cause of particular problems, and compare levels of job satisfaction, commitment and morale on board.
• The shipping companies themselves or the ship owners were reluctant or hesitant in promoting other country junior officers to senior officers because the ship owners are afraid this would displace their own officers.
• The career path of officers and crew should be mapped out in order to promote loyalty to the company and establish long term relationship.
• The shipping companies should invest in people. As much as possible, they need to establish tie-ups or linkages with maritime schools who are the producers of competent graduates. Scholarship grants to deserving students should be enhanced.

The need to improve the image of the maritime career and to attract young people to the seafaring profession is of utmost importance today in order to sustain the growth in international shipping activities.

Task and Workload

Job descriptions in Shipboard Administration Profile

Each crew’s task on board is clearly stated in shipboard administration profile for those shipping company with long history. This can quash the disputes between each crew. For different shipping company job descriptions may have some difference even in same cargo type vessels. For different types of cargo vessel, the job descriptions will be different according to the assessment of company management. This is a long due tradition before the Ship Management System SMS (ISM code) had take placed. For those crews constantly protecting his own right they usually will ask the Captain to provide them with few pages copy of their job descriptions to fight with others who might take advantage of them. For those company like to keep everything under control, they will announce these administration files is confidential to outside party. No one is allowed to reveal its contents unless he had company’s prior consent. These shipping companies treat these materials as their secret weapon for their success management. This sounds a little bit strange but it is the reality while in 1980, some company did the same now.  

If every shipping line keeps this kind of culture on board it will only increase the mental stress on new joined crew from other company or type of vessel. And most probably case is some tasks left unattended for a long time before any superior seaman find out something is wrong or very wrong. Nowadays, Know how is not a problem. The problem is to eliminate all possible errors at least cost. Newly joined crew is also possible to handle very important job. The transit time from his last post to new position or just promoted needs to cut as short as possible. In land base job, if new employer resigned at two weeks it personal department fault. For Human Resource department did not give full job descriptions to new member. At sea, all job transit is within the port time available or berth window available. We really did not have two weeks time to let each new crew to fit in. The company treasures their shipboard administration profile is asking troubles of their own. The best way to prepare a personal for his new job is to let him familiar as soon as possible. It needs all information on board should open to all seafarers. Once the crew knows what is expected from their accountability, we can see “does he capable of doing it”. For we all human we get tired or/and stressed by our natural cycle which might be a big problem to fit in a ship’s groove.

Workload in Shipboard is a big problem.

Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska

11 million US gallons of crude oil into the sea

The shoreline will not recover until 2020

US NTSB accident investigators concluded that the Exxon Shipping Company’s manning policies “did not adequately consider the increase in workload caused by reduced manning”.

1. At 23.24 (point 1) Vessel sailed course 247 degrees.
2. At 23.30 (point 2) Captain informed the traffic center that he was changing course to 200 degrees.
3. At 23.39 ( point 3) 3/O plotted a fix in the separation zoon in the middle of the TSS and Captain ordered another change of course, now to 180 degrees, due south. According to Kagan, Captain also ordered the ship to be placed on autopilot. This second turn was not reported to the traffic center. For a total of 19 to 20 minutes the ship now sailed diagonally trough the eastern, inbound lane of the TSS and crossed its eastern border with approximately 12 knots at 23.47 (point 4).
4. At approximately 23.53. Captain left the bridge after having told 3/O to change course when abeam Busby Light (some 2 minutes ahead at 23.55. hours).
5. At 23.55 ( point 5) 3/O plots a fix abeam Busby Island but he does not order a turn. For another 5 minutes he continues to take Exxon Valdez on her southerly course.
6. At midnight (point 6) the lookout reports Blight Reef light buoy broad off starboard bow. 3/O now orders 10 degrees right rudder.
7. Two minutes later, at 00.02 ( point 7) 3/O orders 20 degrees right rudder and
8. At 00.04 (point 8) hard (35 degrees) right rudder.
9. At 00.07 (point 9) Exxon Valdez strikes Blight Reef at a speed of approximately 12 knots ripping open 8 of 11 cargo compartments.

CAUSE and WHY

1. 23.53. Why Captain left the bridge after having told 3/O to change course after two minutes.

2. Why 3/O did not turning the course at 23.55. Hours requested by Master, and

3. Why continues to take Exxon Valdez on her southerly course for another 5 Minuts without any situational awareness.

4. Why captain and 3/O both are comfortable with the maneuvering they conducted in 1989?

“Don’t ask me why. I just forgot.” The annoyed Captain and 3/O may reply in this way. They had prepared in their mind to accept the possible discipline Actions Company may take to against their career and income. But the managing company cannot just ignore what were really happening on board that night. The reasons may be part of alcoholic and part of tired. “The 1989 tanker crew was half the size of the 1977 crew, worked 12–14 hour shifts, plus overtime. The crew was rushing to leave Valdez with a load of oil.”(Nancy G. Leveson) There are other shocking truths about the shipping when things go back to that date, like to say Radar is left unrepaired over one year time and impending collision with the Bligh Reef by detecting the "radar reflector". What is shipping then? Nothing but a series of ventures put together to endure by crew.

To consume the alcoholic is no excuse but the location is Alaska. If there are no other better alternative on board crew will use the alcoholic to warm up his body is human nature or his habit. In 21 century, anything comes from human nature or habitual should be looked upon closely. The company should provide enough facilities for those crews to keep warm in the frozen land. The tiredness is caused by working stress in that day and fatigue from the berthing/unberthing/cargo operation….etc done in the port stay time. These fatigues are surely something every company has to worry about.      

Physical Workload in Shipboard Operation

Let see what real life at sea would look like now. In coastal vessel, intense activity of body functions to cope with the work requirements causing chemical and physical imbalances beyond normal levels which induce fatigue. In European countries or intra Asia ports including Japan, China and Korea, the distance between each port may as short as 150 Nautical miles. For a car carrier or container vessel, there are many ports of call in Europe/Asia which have 6 or 7 hours sea time only. Between each port fore and aft station need to standby for berthing/unberthing station. These standby times are very long sometimes for navigating in inland waterways like Nieuwe Maas river in Rotterdam, Elbe river in Hamburg, river Scheldt in Antwerp and some times have to enter a lock in Antwerp and Le Havre. Together with the fierce forces majeure of the strong wind and quick flooding tide due to its high latitude locations, the difficult maneuvering ground for turning and berthing, the endless working vessels sailing in the English Channel all these maneuvering need to be done by the crew. These create a lot of stress and fatigue. These weeks are rightly named as “devil’s week”. Remember the devil is always within the details. Anyone want to do sight-seeing or try his luck in the casino or have some get away off the harsh environment on board will have to do it in his rest/sleep time. What choice you will do, to sleep or to go. We think we are tough if you take more consideration of two days before vessel just crossing the Biscay Bay off the French coast with heavy rolling. This course from western coast of France, Brest to Cape Ortegal is not alternative for Asia – North European service. These good 360 nautical miles of one day rolling is part of the price we have to pay. For tanker and bulk carrier, the ports of call in sequence situation is better but the chance to go shore for relaxing may very limited due to the far away location of the terminal to the city. No chance to go shore means more mantle stress suffered by the crews.  

Common sources of seafarer pressure

The stress is the product of pressure. The pressure we felt in work can cause our stress. Beside the port of calling in the service line, other Common sources of seafarer pressure are

• Watch hours or other working demands: safety or reefer patrol
• Jet lag in ship clock adjustment daily
• Too much to do in long hours
• Poor work environments and accommodation condition
• Health worries about dangerous cargos on board
• Strom and bad weather
• Employment worries about changes in job
• Social isolation and loneliness
• Separation worries
• Home leave worries

These pressure caused the stress signs and symptoms of stress could be physical or behaviors like:

• Headaches
• Skin problems
• Indigestion, upset stomach, ulcers and other digestive problems
• High blood pressure
• Toothache

In his behaviour

• In short temper
• Lost sleep
• Slow in thinking and forget a lot
• Absent mind
• Deteriorating relationships with colleagues
• Smoking or drinking too much
• Increased complaints about health
• Feeling constantly tired

The most valuable resource is the time available for our maneuvering.

To reduce our stress level, we have to work and rest efficiently. Work efficiently to save the work time, rest efficiently to recover from the stress. We have to learn the first and best way to reduce our pressure immediately in various situations by:

• In collision risk: the target ship’s distance is first consideration. If possible, to estimate the target vessel distance by visual clue. This technique has the advantage of fast and immediate effect, also save the time to positive identify target on the Radar screen. In almost every case of collision, the general rule is “Fast vessel collide the slow vessel, the big vessel collide the small vessel”. If we felt the pressure of collision risk exist we should consider the possibility that our ship is over speed now. Reduce ship’s speed to coincide with other vessel around can give us ample time to evaluate the situation without any harsh. The risk of collision will surely reduce.

If our vessel can reduce the speed to lesser than other vessels at sea then every vessel once have collision risk with you will sail away from us beside the overtaking vessel right astern. Here I can make some diagraphs to help demonstrate the concept. But the intuition in the emergency case should always come from you; the best way to cultivate the intuition is to derive by yourself. Remember when the collision risk seems inevitable with all vessels surrounding you the best way is always to reduce your speed to take the pressure out.   

• In grounding, Dragging Anchor: to verify the ship’s position immediately to make certain what the distance is to the nearest submerge danger.
• In lost steering, lost M/E, fire break out, water flooding: to stop where you are now is the first priority. Don’t let the vessel drifting under unfavorable conditions. This is to eliminate the collision and grounding risk immediately.
• In firing: what kind of fire and fire affecting area with possible containing solution. The fire and smoke should contain in downwind direction. You don’t want everybody in the bridge to choke by the smoke.
• In flooding: where is the watertight door division could be used to contain the flooding. Where the pumping plan for this case is no joking. If you cannot read it out by heart you better prepare one before water flood in. There is a pumping diagram which could show what pipe line and pump can be used for these purposes in various locations water flooding by Class association/IMO requirement. But it is useless when the water is flooding if you don’t know the correct sequence to operate the pipe and pumps beforehand. 

The most important way to preserve the vessel and human life is to reduce the stress immediately. We should really think about what is the most effective way to reduce the pressure in each emergency case.  The most valuable resource is the time available for our maneuvering. With ample time frame available to Master or ship mate everybody can make a perfect maneuvering and decision. In each kind of emergencies, the first thing we have to make sure is “How many time is available to me?”.

All man’s anxiety and stress and fear are coming from one common reason: Uncertainty.

Why uncertain? Lack of expertise or professionalism. Expertise or Professionalism in our study is almost the same term as our intuition, our structure or our Working Habit. To achieve our professionalism is not one day or two days job. It will need many Years time to achieve our perfection by our efforts. But the first thing is first, we have to have proper mindset to prepare ourself in this career by self practicing the necessary working habits (including the SOP for each emergency), sometimes by our luck and sometimes by our relationship with our colleagues to achieve our goal. No man is perfect without friend for no book is perfect to cover all the facts. The world is an ever changing place. We need someone to remind us and give us their observations and recognition for our easy reference and avoid one man’s error. One man’s error is not an acceptable excuse in modern world for no one is perfect. We just don’t believe any superman could survive in this world along and we did not allow any man to take the responsibility by himself alone any more. Why you did not set a team for the job is the question we should ask ourself more often in 21 century.

How to cope with our stress:

Our stress felt in our work can generate the neurotransmitter into our blood. Recent study show the neurotransmitter related with our stress was the same the neurotransmitter we had in love. The stress could be harmful as poison or helpful as motivation. It depends on the way we treat it. However over stress is impossible to avert for young OOW, this is young man anxiety due to lack of any professionalism. Beside the efforts to achieve our professionalism in the long run, we have to learn some easy way to relax:    

1. Keep healthy life style, especially do not develop sleep debt, and sleep in the rest period not any TV game playing

2. Eat the right food, High-calorie or fried foods could be a poison while you are exhausted.

3. Housekeeping can not only make the cabin more clean and comfortable and helps depression, do more frequent can help to release stress.

4. Counting your money. To see or touch the money make people happy, you can relieve the physical pain and reduce stress caused by social isolation.

5. Meditating can enhance brain activity and help the recognitive recovery

6. Keep Positive Thinking to replace the negative emotion.

7. Give yourself a time each day to stay in silence

8. Breathing can relax conscious control to release irritation neck nerve, ease heartbeat, drop blood pressure.  Breathe it slowly, every minute of each inhalation and exhalation 4-6 times.

9. Change the environment: just go outside the cabin to see the sun, cloud and sea.

10 Shower had the magic power to reduce the physical pain in the body, if you find it hard to get off the bed before the watch. Take some minutes earlier to get up and shower.

11. Doing some intuitional action like we do in releasing the emotion.

The company also has it responsibility to help the crew to reduce their stress level. For any incident/accident happened will surely cost company something or something big or very big. It is reasonable to buy some insurance beforehand.     

How can stress be reduced in company level:

By new ship design:

• Improve work environment :Equipment, Material, Lighting and air conditioning
• Human factor consideration in general arrangement of ship design: reduce vibration and noise level inside ship
• Strengthen the safe regulation to protect innocent/ignorant worker
• Ship manning to comply with Maritime Labour Convention, 2006 (MLC 2006)

Operational signs of fatigue

Fatigue is a subjective feeling of tiredness which is distinct from stress, and has a gradual onset. Fatigue is considered a symptom, rather than a sign because it is a subjective feeling reported by the crew, rather than an objective one that can be observed by others. Fatigue is very hard to reverse by rest. It is like the mood could last over two week’s time more than our emotion. Fatigue could be the tiredness felt over two weeks time. Like the depression felt in land base, our passions and energy for the work just drained out little by little with everyday’s routine work we did.

Physical fatigue, or muscle fatigue, is the temporary physical inability of a muscle to perform optimally. Mental fatigue is a temporary inability to maintain optimal cognitive performance. The onset of mental fatigue during any cognitive activity is gradual, and depends upon an individual's cognitive ability, and also upon other factors, such as sleep deprivation and overall health. Mental fatigue has also been shown to decrease physical performance.

Effect of Mantle Fatigue

• Decreased attention and vigilance
• Communication difficulties
• Inability to concentrate
• Omissions & carelessness
• Slower comprehension & learning
• Slower information processing
• Mood changes
• Hallucinations
• Muddled thinking
• Faulty memory
• Task complexity

Effect of Physical Fatigue

• Vacant stare with sunken, bloodshot eyes
• Eye strain, sore or ‘heavy’ eyes, dim or blurred vision
• Droning and humming in the ears
• Paleness of skin
• Slurred speech
• Headaches
• Feeling cold compared with others in the same room
• Faintness and dizziness
• Lack of energy, drowsiness
• Unstable posture/swaying, dropping chin, nodding head
• Loss of muscular strength, stiffness, cramps 

Effect of Team Fatigue

• Worsening team performance
• decreased interaction with crew members and degraded communication
• People may lose their sense of humor and become moody which can badly affect crew relations.
• Decreased morale
• Fatigue decreases satisfaction, motivation and interest in team tasks and goals.
• People may talk ‘gibberish’, neglect routine tasks, have stupid accidents and suffer hallucinations.

Generally tiredness could be recovered by rest or sleep. One sleepless night will need another night of sound 8 hours sleep to recovery physically, the recognitive ability will need two sound 8 hours sleep night to recovery. If it is still difficult to restore, it indicates that the body has been fatigue, mental performance degraded; confusion, inattention, forgetfulness and cognitive narrowing, poor or neglect awareness, affecting personal hygiene, leading to apathy, taking more risky operation. Some people take longer to make decisions while others make poorer ones. The decision maker is often unaware of the decline. Fatigue can make people accept irrational, erroneous or illegal orders – or ignore good ones.

Human Physical Cycle of the day: 25 hours

Humans live by a working cycle of 24 hours mostly, approximately 8 hours of which are required for sleeping. Our bodies and brains are good for different things at different times of the 24-hour cycle. Person’s attention is worst between 02.00 and 06.00 and between 14.00 and 18.00 hours. It tends to be much better between 07.00 and 14.00 hours, and between.

Some people may have the biological clock of 25 hours a day which means he is always felt not enough sleep. These people is likely to develop the Micro-sleep symptom which is a temporary episode of sleep which may last for split of second or up to thirty seconds where an individual fails to respond to some arbitrary sensory input. It is like the change blind in attention failure. Microsleep often occurs as a result of sleep deprivation, though normal non-sleep deprived individuals can also experience microsleep during boring ( monotonous tasks, view, or horizon invisible due to weather). Microsleep is the same as the “Lapse of Mind”. These microsleeps may not pose a big problem in open sea but it will significant consequence if the vessel is maneuvering around the coastal and piloting in the harbour.

One vessel sailed out of Okinawa Naha port with pilot on board. When the vessel approaching the Break water entrance the pilot say good bye to Captain and remind him to alter course to starboard side to sail out the B/W entrance. It is normal and routine maneuvering which Captain had did many times before in this port calling. However, this time when pilot disembark and vessel arrive the B/W entrance Captain forgets to turn to starboard. The good 3/O used to remind the Captain in occasions before, today had lost in somewhere too.  Vessel just sailed on and passed the entrance. At this point Captain suddenly realize his absent and rush to manage the turn at second B/W entrance. This reckless decision (Acting or done with a lack of care or caution; careless or irresponsible) is the possible victim of Lapse or microsleep. Vessel aground after clear of second B/W entrance for this is the channel for fishing boat with more shallow water depth. 8 hours later vessel refloats with the aids from tug boats without damage.

Another case is vessel aground in Suez bay after departure from Suez Canal. While vessel still inside the buoyed channel, Captain orders the helm to “Hard Starboard”. The Able Sailor responses and turns the wheel to hard starboard as requested. When third mate found out the mistake it is already too late. In the south bound convoy, each vessel is usually keep one to one and half nautical miles to avoid any emergency situation. Possible cause of this Helm Order from the Captain is the Microsleep too. When captain coming back from his microsleep he saw the vessel before in south convoy (one NM ahead of his own ship) is altering the course to starboard side for that vessel had just cleared the buoyed channel sailing outbound. Due to the absent of mind state he felt the urge to alter course too for all his working memories of the where, when, how and why are out of his mind. He will need to have few minutes to recovery. Although outside the window, the shore was just beside his vessel. The helm order is given without second thought.

Microsleep is the reset of our brain: mantle fatigue

Although these two captains are very experienced, these negligence ( a failure to exercise the care that a reasonably prudent person would exercise in like circumstances) are called “low class mistake”, an embarrass terms usually used to describe young man. Only with one more thought or look and get the feeling of danger (provide by our subconscious) the thing will be different. Why? Lost of concentration is not voluntary move but driven by our brain nature activity which try to release all confused massage inside. Yes. It is like the computers have to “reset” to unlock the endless loops inside while the computer is “down”. It also need some time to reboot. We never know what time we will reset (microsleep) by our brain itself. What we can do is to try to eliminate too much brain activities by relaxing and releasing the stressors.

One important point is that the man with the symptoms of microsleep did not notice that they had just fall asleep in the work seconds ago. They may still have the short term memory with them while awake afterward, but not notice their inability while they are asleep in the microsleep. They will continue their work as usual. The price will pay while something bad has happened. Microsleep may not always be the by-production of our slower biological clock. It could be trigged by our stay up late. Don’t want to go bed early or while we are free. The reason may be the boring we felt during our work. We felt the acute need to stimulate ourself from the TV game we played or the TV we watched or other physical activities we engaged. It is human nature but the price is paid by microsleep or sleep debt as our discussion in next paragraph.                

Sleep debt

Sleep debt is not enough sleep needed by our body. The reasons could be biological requirement is different from each person physical condition or mantle sleepless due to stress or boring. The boring is one of the major cause of sleepless, this cause are much more unknown to public.  Accumulated sleep debt is as terrible as continuous sleepless. If one person had 4 hours sleep only everyday over two weeks time his reaction to daily activities is as worse as a person have continuous working over 3 days and 3 nights without rest. If one person had 6 hours sleep over 10 consecutive days his reactions to daily activities are equal to a 24 hours continuous working person.

The only thing I know is that I don't know.;

The driver of a train which derailed in Spain killing 79 people told a judge that he cannot explain why he did not slow down as he approached a treacherous bend at twice the speed limit.

He said: 'I can't explain it. I still don't understand how I didn't see... mentally, or whatever. I just don't know.' The crash on the evening of July 24 2013 carrying 218 people in eight carriages, approached the capital of Spain's north-western Galician region.

The train had been going as fast as 119mph  shortly before the derailment.

The driver activated the brakes 'seconds before the crash', reducing the speed to 95mph. The speed limit on the section of track where the crash happened was 50mph.

Asked whether he ever hit the brakes, driver replied: 'The electric one, the pneumatic one... all of them. Listen, when... but it was already inevitable.'

As he replies to a question about what was going through his mind when he went through the last tunnel before the bend. 'If I knew that I wouldn't think it because the burden that I am going to carry for the rest of my life is huge,' he said. 'And I just don't know. The only thing I know, your honour, sincerely, is that I don't know. I'm not so crazy that I wouldn't put the brakes on.'

Air India Express Flight 812 was a scheduled passenger service from Dubai to Mangalore, which, at around 01:00 UTC on 22 May 2010, overshot the runway on landing, fell over a cliff, and caught fire, spreading wreckage across the surrounding hillside. Of the 160 passengers and six crew members on board, only eight passengers survived. Details from the cockpit voice recorder (CVR) and flight data recorder (FDR) were presented to the Court of Inquiry. The CVR analysis revealed that one of the pilots was asleep in the cockpit. The flight hours in that day are over 9 hours and half the time pilots are asleep.

The Space Shuttle Challenger disaster occurred on January 28, 1986, when broke apart 73 seconds into its flight, leading to the deaths of its seven crew members. Disintegration of the vehicle began after an O-ring seal O-ring failure caused a breach in the solid rocket booster (SRB) joint it sealed, allowing pressurized hot gas from within the solid rocket motor to reach the outside and impinge upon the adjacent SRB attachment hardware and external fuel tank. NASA managers had known contractor Morton Thiokol's design of the SRBs contained a potentially catastrophic flaw in the O-rings since 1977, but failed to address it properly. They also disregarded warnings (an example of "go fever") from engineers about the dangers of launching, posed by the low temperatures of that morning, and failed to adequately report these technical concerns to their superiors. Technique failure and human factor, Yes. The root cause is the NASA management had over worked cause the attention disorientation and lost situational awareness of the dangers. 

Possible causes of sleep debt

• Bad Habit: stay up late to do some recreation activities to avoid the boring life on board.
• Sleepy due to alcoholic: a little alcoholic together with sleep debt cause a person very sleepy during the work.
• Boring: the man lost interest in his work and life on board which he cannot remember what kinds of recreation he had did lately, this mood cause the sleep pattern changed.
• Over stressed: Stressors (eg. paperwork, ship inspections, drills and emergencies, personal worries) are also the problem responsible for one’s sleep quality.
• Sleep apnea: is a type of sleep disorder characterized by pauses in breathing or instances of shallow or infrequent breathing during sleep. Each pause in breathing, called an apnea, can last for several seconds to several minutes, and may occur 5 to 30 times or more in an hour. Our sleep interrupted by the breathing problem cause the sleep debt.

• Disruptions to sleep itself such as loud noises, bright light, cold, heat, motion, sickness, chronic pain and infection.
• Inadequate, inappropriate or bad timing food and fluids.
• Insomnia can be both a cause and an effect of increasing sleep debt. One of the most distressing things for someone who is tired is to be given the opportunity to sleep, but to be unable to.

People need enough sleep of the right sort to recover from their sleep debt.

• Doing something interest to you or cultivate some hobbies on board to peace your mind.
• To avoid the stress: Don’t worry about what will happen to you. Just go to find out what professionalism is needed for your work. If the knowledge is not available to you try to improve your relationship with your colleagues and ask the help from them.
• Keep good living habit: not to stay up late to make the body fit for work and the mantle health will follow. Regular exercise can help the sleep pattern more stable.
• To eat well and drink well: different foods also affect alertness. Heavier meals dominated by carbohydrates encourage sleepiness. Lighter, protein-based meals encourage wakeful alertness.
• Don’t take the worry with you to sleep. Try to write it down on the paper (intuition action to release the stress like emotional management techniques) before sleep and put aside while you go to bed. This will help your mantle a lot.
• Avoid too much sleep at daytime. Take some short naps 30 minutes in day time if you are very tire. The longer the nap, the greater the increase in mood, performance and alertness – but the longer it takes to recover.
• In bed, doing the sleep only. Go to bed while you are very sleepy. No other activities allowed.

Fatigue is a subconscious feeling of tiredness and has a gradual onset. The onsets of the fatigue are chronic mantle disturbed, tiredness accumulated in our body. It is hard to eliminate by quick sleep/rest/nap or cheer up by coffee or alcoholic or tobacco. It’s a pre-symptom of sickness and deeper than our tiredness. It have to recover from our over stressed life pattern, bad living habit, distrustful personal relationship by proper physical exercises, fully rest periods, always in bright mood and felt life interest, etc…… Fatigue is a serious problem; it will consume our energy of life day by day if we don’t want to give up our bad habits on board the ship. We will not be able to stay fitness for sea anymore. Don’t spoil yourself.        

What happens when you sleep?

People need sleep to recover from their daily workload. If we don’t understand what had happened during our sleep time. It is possible that we will suffer from drowsy afterward, instead of refreshed. Sleep is divided into two broad types: rapid eye movement (REM sleep) and non-rapid eye movement (NREM or non-REM sleep). REM sleep is associated with the capability of learning and mantle activities. The NREM is associated with our physical activities recovery. The NREM have many stage as below copied from Wikipedia. The main point is our mantle ability could be deprived by not enough sleep time over five hours; like the man in the chart below had slept into 0400 hours but with very little time spent in REM sleep(red line). Compared with the man has stay up one day (24 hours without sleep), our physical body needs one good and long sleep night to recover our tiredness but our mantle abilities like learning, decision making and attention need two consecutive nights of good and sound sleep to recover.

How to sleep well to enhance our working abilities?

Fatigue can be reduced through good design and good work-rest habits.

• Adequate heating, ventilation, air-conditioning and lighting
• Minimization of noise and vibration in rest area

• Healthy lifestyle and diet
• Indoor climate regulating
• Ship motion avoidance

Operational considerations to avoid the fatigue

• Stick to MLC 2006 rules
• Observe the existing rules and regulations about work/rest cycles
• Keep correct hours-of-rest records
• Adequate rest for joining crews before assuming duties
• Adequate time for proper hand-over on crew change
• Voyage length, time in port, length of service, & leave ratios
• Good use of time in port for administrative tasks
• Rotation of high-demand and low-demand tasks

Organizational culture consideration:

• Clear communication of company requirements
• Language barriers, social, cultural & religious isolation overcome
• Creation of open, just culture for reporting & dealing with fatigue

The most important thing is self management of our sleep:

• Accuracy of individual record keeping of hours rested/worked
• Aim for deep, uninterrupted sleep 7-8 hours per 24-hour day
• Take some naps – not over 30 minutes each, naps of 10 minutes are worthwhile
• Develop pre-sleep routine, like warm shower, light reading…
• Ensure dark, quiet, cool sleep area and comfortable bed
• Avoid interruptions during extended period of sleep
• Avoid alcohol and caffeine before sleep
• Eat regular, well-balanced meals, but eat lightly before bed
• Exercise regularly – it increases alertness both on and off duty
• Minimize disturbance of rest/sleep patterns
• Get sufficient sleep before high activity periods
• Regular meal timings and sun bath help to regulate the human 24-hour cycle.

2006 MLC regulation of work and rest periods

1. The limits on hours of work and rest shall be as follows:

(a) maximum hours of work shall not exceed:

(i) 14 hours in any 24-hour period; and

(ii) 72 hours in any seven-day period;

or

(b) minimum hours of rest shall not be less than:

(i) 10 hours in any 24-hour period; and

(ii) 77 hours in any seven-day period.

2. Hours of rest may be divided into no more than two periods, one of which shall be at least six hours in length, and the interval between consecutive periods of rest shall not exceed 14 hours.



 Review of administrative requirements in mandatory IMO instruments.

It is worth to notice that shipboard operation have many administrative requirements in mandatory IMO instruments. These are most concern of carriage of certificates and publications etc which are nothing concerned of shipboard normal operation like cargo loading/discharging, berthing/unberthing,.. But international cooperation shipboard needs something for reference immediately. Eventually in our 30 years career at sea we may never participate with once search and rescue operation. But we may get one non-conformity by PSC for IMO publications SAR Manual out dated. However this trend had changed as the work of Ad Hoc Steering Group for Reducing Administrative Requirements (SG-RAR).

In November 2011 the twenty-seventh session of the Assembly adopted resolution A.1043(27), establishing a framework for a periodic review of administrative requirements in mandatory IMO instruments. The resolution defined an administrative requirement arising from a mandatory IMO instrument as an obligation to provide or retain information and data, while it defined an administrative burden as an administrative requirement that is, or has become, unnecessary, disproportionate or even obsolete.

The steering group identified 563 mandatory requirements of IMO (ship master have 138 requirements to attend, 25% out of total). The SG-RAR also noted from the assessment of the responses that it is often the accumulation of administrative requirements that represents a burden. Requirements for carriage of certificates and similar documents were perceived as an administrative burden. The SG-RAR fully concurs with the recent decisions by FAL 39 (a) that electronic certificates should be used as equivalent to traditional paper certificates; (b) that electronic certificates viewed on a computer should be considered as meeting the requirements to be "on board"; and (c) to revise the Guidelines for the use of electronic certificates (FAL.5/Circ.39) accordingly.

STATISTICAL BREAKDOWN OF ADMINISTRATIVE REQUIREMENTS IN MANDATORY IMO INSTRUMENTS

APPENDIX 9

LIST OF RECOMMENDATIONS

PART A: RECOMMENDATIONS ON ADMINISTRATIVE BURDENS

On requirements for provision of information

Recommendation 1:

The SG-RAR recommends that the Organization ensures that all the – present and future – administrative requirements to provide information (both to and from IMO) could be fulfilled by electronic means (paragraph 4.4).

Recommendation 2:

The SG-RAR recommends that the Organization – as a matter of priority – establishes and develops a fundamental vision and policy concerning its role and responsibility as host of an internationally trusted web-based information portal, including (a) functional architecture for the entry, storage and retrieval of information and data; (b) practical and efficient use; and (c) development and maintenance of such a portal (paragraph 4.5).

On requirements for carriage of certificates and similar documents

Recommendation 3:

The SG-RAR recommends that the Organization – as a matter of priority – sets a clear policy target for universal acceptance of electronic certificates and similar documents as a full alternative to paper versions (paragraph 4.8).

On requirements for recordkeeping

Recommendation 4:

The SG-RAR recommends that the Organization – as a matter of priority – sets a clear policy target for universal acceptance of electronic recording of information as a full alternative to paper versions (paragraph 4.11).

On requirements for carriage of other documents

Recommendation 5:

The SG-RAR recommends to encourage the responsible committees to review the pertinent administrative requirements in appendix 7 – and similar requirements in appendices 5 and 6 – with a view to universal acceptance of electronic versions of documents for fulfilling present requirements for the carriage of documents (paragraph 4.13).

On requirements for multiple reporting

Recommendation 6:

The SG-RAR recommends to encourage the responsible committees to review the pertinent administrative requirements in appendix 7 – and similar requirements in appendix 6 – with a view to introduce an electronic and unified "single window approach" for fulfilling present requirements for multiple reporting (paragraph 4.15).

On other types of administrative requirements

Recommendation 7:

The SG-RAR recommends to encourage the responsible committees to review the pertinent administrative requirements in appendix 7 – and possible similar requirements in appendices 5 and 6 – with a view to universal acceptance of electronic or software solutions for fulfilling present other types of administrative requirements (paragraph 4.17).

On requirements concerning maritime security

Recommendation 8:

The SG-RAR recommends that the Council takes due note of the stakeholder's concerns about the regulatory framework for maritime security and takes action as it may deem appropriate; and that the Council considers requesting the relevant committee to ensure that actions are taken to remind users of the reasoning for the introduction of the ISPS Code (paragraph 4.19).

Number and origin of administrative requirements by stakeholder group

Responses by stakeholder type and instrument group

Consistence of Shore Base Management

From the ISM code regulation:

1. Functional requirements for a safety management system

Every Company should develop, implement and maintain a safety management system which includes the following functional requirements:

.1 a safety and environmental-protection policy;

.2 instructions and procedures to ensure safe operation of ships and protection of the environment in compliance with relevant international and flag State legislation;

.3 defined levels of authority and lines of communication between, and amongst, shore and shipboard personnel;

.4 procedures for reporting accidents and non-conformities with the provisions of this Code;

.5 procedures to prepare for and respond to emergency situations; and

.6 procedures for internal audits and management reviews.

This regulation had very clearly defined the job function and requirements of a Company. The Company means the owner of the ship or any other organization or person such as the manager, or the bareboat charterer, who has assumed the responsibility for operation of the ship from the shipowner and who, on assuming such responsibility, has agreed to take over all duties and responsibility imposed by the Code. (ISM code definition) The Company is some party has agreed to take over all duties and responsibilities imposed by 155 “administrative requirements in mandatory IMO instruments” to establish his policy, instructions and procedures, levels of authority and lines of communication, procedures for reporting, procedures for emergency and procedures for internal audits and management reviews. The goals of management are universal to all Companies which are “safety and environment protection” as required by ISM code. Could these goals be accomplished by the vessel they operate? It depends on the shipboard management to cooperate with the company. Shipboard management are at the frontier of all troubles that could be met by the industrial. They need some resources from company to help their work.        

Overload paper works: use up 20% working time

For shipboard personnel their expectations from their Company partly come from too many administration jobs (paper works) which needed to be simplified to reduce their work load. “ …seafarers use up to 20% of their time working on tasks they deem as administrative burdens…in shipowners’ … offices the figure was 9%” Danish Maritime Authority Report 2013. The solutions are just like the SR-RAR had recommended:

1. Administrative requirements to provide information (both to and from IMO) could be fulfilled by electronic means.
2. Establishes and develops an internationally trusted web-based information portal.
3. Universal acceptance of electronic certificates and similar documents.
4. Electronic versions of documents for fulfilling present requirements for the carriage of documents.
5. Universal acceptance of electronic versions of documents for the carriage of documents.
6. "Single window approach" for fulfilling present requirements for multiple reporting.

For these recommendations are not only useful for IMO instrument requirements, it’s also useful to apply to Company in-house policy, instructions and circulars issued or modified. The report requirements of internal audit/ master review are also need to be electrified. However these measures are not immediately visible in the industrial unless the Company willing to invest on the software of programming to electrified all the hard copies (paper back) new and past will need to be sorted inside this framework (web-based information portal).       

The Captains should be on call

In coastal water, Master needs to be on the bridge to help the junior OOW by Company policy. If the vessel service route are coastal (especially those engaging their short international trade inside the English Channel and China sea, Japan Sea, South East China sea…,etc.), the sea passage time sometimes are very short ( 6 hours from Rotterdam to Felixstow) . Vessel might depart the port in senior OOW watch and sail in junior OOW watch, Captain is working in consecutive hours due to Company policy. In these situations, Master has no way to comply with Company policy unless there are two Masters on board to share the work load in sailing and maneuvering.   The policy is not wrong, but sometimes might sacrifice Master rest time to accomplish. Long hours of working provoke the mantle sluggish which might endanger his decision making judgment in the piloting waters. If he takes some naps it will against Company policy even it last for very short time. Some vessels have the coach on the bridge for these purposes. Some vessels have cozy navigator chair and Master just fall asleep without anybody’s notice especially in the night time. Master have the dilemma to solve ( to stay or to sleep), neither of which is practically acceptable. The Company must give the Master some way to avoid this dilemma. The Captains should be on call, not on duty in the bridge. What is the proper calling terms should be decided by the Captain in his standing and night order issued to each OOW on watch. These calling terms decided by master should be justified to company as Captain’s accountability. The Company should have a very clear policy to educate and encourage these Junior OOWs that “To ask help from the Master is the first priority to your watch”. 

No more two OOWs vessel should be allowed.

MAIB official report 14/2013

“At 0308 UTC on 12 December 2012, the dry cargo vessel Beaumont ran aground on Cabo Negro on the north Spanish coast while on passage from La Coruña to Avilés. The MAIB investigation identified that the OOW had fallen asleep soon after sending his night lookout off the bridge. Available bridge resources, that could have alerted the crew and/or awoken a sleeping OOW were not used, resulting in Beaumont steaming at 11.5 knots with no-one in control on the bridge for over an hour.

The vessel’s manager, Company, has amended its Safety Management System (SMS) to include mandatory use of lookouts during hours of darkness, effective use of all navigational aids and compulsory use of bridge navigational watch alarm systems1 (BNWAS). In addition, Company has reemphasized the need for masters to assert their power of overriding authority to delay sailing if necessary, and to use available manpower equitably. In view of the actions already taken, no recommendations have been made.”

“It was later determined that the OOW fell asleep sometime after sending the lookout below. With the Bridge Navigational Watch Alarm System (BNWAS) turned off and other alarms not activated, available bridge resources that could have alerted the crew and/or awoken a sleeping OOW were silenced. As a result the vessel steamed at 11.5 knots with no-one in control on the bridge for over an hour before grounding.

All of the vessel’s crew, with the exception of the OOW, were awoken by the vessel running aground. The Master ran to the bridge, where he found the OOW still asleep. He roused him and simultaneously placed the engine control to neutral. The OOW awoke confused and was shocked to find that the ship was aground. ( MARS 2013 No. 201365)”

In this case, the OOW is the victim of the system. He is shocked and confused and tired and sleepy in any way. He may decide this is not the life for him anyway, and then all these years of training and education are wasted.

The myths here are:

• Sending the night watch below is impossible for an ocean going vessel as reiterated many occasions. This practice should not acceptable to coastal vessel.
• Bridge Navigational Watch Alarm System (BNWAS) should not use an aid to navigation to overcome the Fatigue, it’s a warning system. If any OOW on duty hears the buzzer he should consider it has something wrong going on bridge and the urge to seek for better solution.
• To assert their power of overriding authority to delay sailing if necessary by the Master is good. If Master don’t want to delay the sailing for Master is not tired. The right to assert to Master that Duty Officer is tired should also considered as part of Safety Management System practice (allowable by Company SMS policy)to ask for proper assistance from the Master.
• Increase the Night watch manpower may imply increase the deck rating employment. This is not the correct practice for the ship need one more OOW, not one more Quarter Master or lookout. The authority just chooses not to look at the reality but to allow for two OOW vessel out to the sea.  

Three OOWs vessel watch pattern

For three OOW watch pattern:

Traditional four hours on, eight off which set the Second mate in a terrible life style.

“where fatigue was discussed, particularly for the 12-4, (00-04) watchkeeper, I remembered back to when I was a second mate and the only prospect of getting off the 12-4 was promotion or death – and at that time in the 1980s death looked more likely – so I felt the alternative system might be a way to do this. (Captain Nick Nash)”

The alternative watch system are mainly used in military ship where every OOW had almost same training and education standard in military school. In merchant vessel, the OOW comes from every corner of the world; some even from the country with no shore line. The Swedish system might be a good choice for Merchant Marine. The Master can still keep a good eye on the Junior OOW watch. It is the Company has to decide the watch system to actually look at the trouble faced by 00-04 watch.    

Paper Works comes from shore base Consultant Company  

Some safety requirements of paper work (shipboard risk assessment, internal audit, safety and emergency checklist) to comply with the ship Safety Management System are just too much. Some of these are even unpractical to comply for some reason. Only those ship masters have long term employment relationship with the manning company have the willingness to report to Company and seek for improvements. It is no doubt that Safety Management System had advanced the safety standard and procedures on board. It also guarantee that the requirements to pertain to the Objective Evidence (quantitative or qualitative information, records or statements of fact pertaining to safety or to the existence and implementation of a safety management system element, which is based on observation, measurement or test and which can be verified.) give some extra works to ship personnel to materialize it. But who gonna to set up another more handy and appropriate SMS to reach the same goal? No Master on board will have this energy to do this job. It rest on the Company which has to review SMS feasibility by company human resource. We will have nature wondering who will have better management training and he can combine with his preferred shipboard knowledge as a master or Chief Engineer to solve the complexities of SMS. The easy way is to use extra OOW to do the paper works. The challenge remained unchanged is to have some marine professionals to review all these paper works comes from shore base Consultant Company of no marine background (some copies of ISO 9001:2000 in marine terms) while the ISM code initial enforced.              

Secret Report on SMS policy and Performance Appraisal System   

To avoid the marine casualty and undue delay of ship’s movement by any incident/accident on board, the Company sometimes uses the secret report system to monitor the shipboard personal especially those four Key management personnel. This is the normal practice to all organizations which have higher hierarchy structural which people just like to take advantage of others or the Company. The seaman comes from higher hierarchy culture (higher power distance means the authority of class are more stringent) have no objection of this secret report system, for this system can also protect him from been taken advantage out of his own will. The key man under surveillance of these secret report system knew they been watched by someone, but they don’t care, for he has no intention to stay in one shipping line only. With so many shipping lines in the seaman’s market, he just does what he wants; unless the seaman employment market demand declined this situation will not change.

For those key men comes from lower hierarchy culture (lower power distance), this secret report system is against their basic morale ethic of accountability. It seems Company doesn’t trust them; why they have to work with all their heart for the Company. These key men from lower hierarchy culture will ask themselves that If Company doesn’t trust me why should I trust the Company? If Company doesn’t have the accountability why should I have accountability to Company? New shipping culture of accountability is not just one thing by talking and is not applicable to shipboard key man only. Should the Company to retain his secret report system or not? This is the dilemma of Company.

Merchant Shipping is half military since the day one, the Fourth Forces of nation. The Performance Appraisal System follows the military term as well; this means only the higher rank are taking the appraisal of lower rank. Once one personal reach the top position he will do what he want without any challenge from his subordinates. Absolute power leads to absolute corruption. They don’t need to steal the money from the Company. They can just give a face of bad look to his subordinates to ruin the fundamental base of mutual trust and accountability. Nothing will happen in immediate effect. However this bad feeling will accumulate and repay in the future. In the least way to say it will sabotage the loyalty of these subordinates to the Company. Once they got the chance they just walk away; 70% persons leave the Company after working 2 years are because of his Boss (his direct superintendant), not the company. To change the shipboard culture has only one way out to change the Performance Appraisal System from one way down to all ways out.

It is like the leadership concept is not limited to one way down only. The ultimate Performance Appraisal System should be four ways out: like to say upward to your boss, downward to your subordinates, outward to other department’s head and finally inward to yourself. It are exactly where your leadership should go and where the Performance Appraisal System should cover. The changes will be profound in seaman’s self-motivation to comply with Company Culture. These are not crazy talk and idea, other industrials like The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. and other Hi-Tech microchip manufacture company adopted 360 degrees all round PAS. We want to add one more aspect of self performance appraisal to aid self motivation. By review the assessments criteria every half year, we can know our drawbacks in the past and seek for continuous improvement. 

Incompetence of foreign Chief Mate and Junior OOW

The recomplete of ship’s crew are the manning agent job. Shipboard Master has no way to know what the new Chief Officer or OOW had in his knowledge and experience in professional. No man knows what his is capable of and what he is not able to. If anything these new OOW did is not satisfied by the Master, it is nature that Master complained about the company. By high demand of ship’s employment market young OOW has his promotion in much shorter period than before. Even for those OOW has longer sea experience he may not well prepared for his new post? For those OOW just graduated from collage those certificates he carried on board means nothing in practical environment. These truths will surely add new burdens to senior management on board. The need for cross training is no doubt. How to conduct the cross training is the problem? The job rotation may be the solution for this case. For a STCW certified OOW whose knowledge should be as much as a Master. Only their memories of the knowledge are full of fragments which had not organized by his working habits yet. The longer he settled in his new job routine, the faster he forgot other things he had learnt in collage.               

These job rotation arrangements have to go with proper salary arrangement. The salary of OOW should give by their seniority in years, not by the position they had assigned. For his job functions will rotate at Master’s discretion whenever he thought is appropriate. Once again this is not one thing can take lightly, Company have to have the determination to make the change feasible.      

ISPS stowaway from agency

With the stringent ISPS code requirement, vessel had increased their workload in security check on board.  

IMO Standards and recommended practices for dealing with stowaways:

• regular patrolling of port areas and the establishment of special storage facilities for cargo particularly susceptible to stowaway access,
• continuous monitoring of persons and cargo entering these areas.
• All doors, hatches and means of access to holds or stores which are not used during the ships stay in port should be locked,
• access points to the ship should be kept to a minimum and be adequately secured
• areas seaward of the ship should be adequately secured.
• Adequate deck watch should be kept, boardings and disembarkations should, where possible, be tallied by the ships crew or others
• adequate means of communication should be maintained.
• At night, adequate lighting should be maintained both inside and along the hull.

These recommended measures use a lot of manpower and cannot beat the cheating arrangements from the agency personnel. This is the Company responsibility that proper security record agency and land base security company should be used for helping the Master.

Change service routes and calling ports

Every Company, if possible, should set up a database to collect all ports of call for these informations of shipboard concerns:

• Customs formalities paper work in computer base (electrified)
• Port Entry guide with experienced Master instructions of safe maneuvering. 
• ISPS and security requirements
• Port geography and hydrographical informations need to be aware
• Ship’s provision supply arrangement
• Recreation facilities while berthing, how to take the bus/taxi and where they can buy some groceries for their own usage.
• Agency formalities and contact informations

The Company should collect these informations from his agent and experienced Master who had called this new port. The Company’s Agent should ensure every new calling vessel should have these informations available to reduce the efforts conducted by shipboard staff in service route changed.

PORT INFORMATION GUIDE ROTTERDAM NOVEMBER 2014 are very good efforts done by the biggest port in Europe. However, it’s all business aspect. Nothing in humanity resources had provided for seafarer reference.

External PSC auditor report

External PSC auditor report if not passed by no deficiency, it usually comes with a penalty to shipping company even detention in port. Very often the observations or non-conformities are the byproduct of aging and lack of maintenance schedule. In merchant marine the goal of ship master is safe operation through continuous ports of calling to facilitate the cargo operation. The aging problem or the maintenance schedule is not the first priority. Then very often the human nature mistakes of cognitive biases will take place like;

• Correspondence bias: the tendency for people to over-emphasize personality-based explanations for behaviours observed in others.
• Confirmation bias: The tendency to search for or interpret information in a way that confirms one's preconceptions.
• Self-serving bias: The tendency to claim more responsibility for successes than failures.
• Hindsight bias: Sometimes called the "I-knew-it-all-along" effect, is the inclination to see past events as being predictable.

These were some examples. The cognitive biases are resident in our subconscious. If we don’t take aging and maintenance into our conscious level to treat it immediately, the second priority works will surely suffered by our cognitive biases in our subconscious. The truth is if we don’t take it as first priority and first thing to do we will conduct some cognitive biases without notice. It is human nature into the mistake by cognitive biases.

The checklists for internal audits are useful to this respect. The Company may have issued new circular to remind the Master of lately happened case in due course. But this circular is also subject to the cognitive biases of seafarer in his rush week and eventually put aside for later reference due to frequent ports of calling in consecutive coastal sailing. After the rush week had passed, seafarer just have to recover from the fatigue accumulated from the past. The energy is drained out. The internal audit could be very helpful. But the old thing rust faster and the environment at sea are far more stringent to the ship and its equipments. The cars parking at sea side are rusted much faster than any car inland. The machinery and hydraulic fittings may rusted after the grease inside had eliminated due to wrong greasing schedule or skip schedule.

It is usually take as the responsibility of ship’s master for not leading his crew properly. The disciplinary actions may follow the external report. There is no excuse for this. Only the Company has to address these deficiency reports as the management level problem, not only the leadership style had some problems (not to take it into personal level). The Company should ask the opinions of the Master and provide reasonable recourses to help the Master to avoid the same situation and treat this as a motivation for continuous improvement.              

End of chapter 16