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T

he shipping industry, from themariners viewpoint, is rather likea set of Chinese boxes. Open oneand there is another inside and

another inside that, with each more remoteand more difficult to deal with. Every casualty produces a flurry of documents,rules, advice on how not to collide and theinevitable we fail to understandpronouncements. Blame, of course, isapportioned without going too deeply intothe boxes and we settle down to await thenext inevitable incident.

Without denigrating the excellent workcarried out by this Institute since itsinception, the smell of the sea sometimeshas difficulty pervading the pages of

Sea way s and often the true picture of seagoing as experienced by the majority of mariners in merchant ships becomesobscured. There are too many people in

this industry with inadequate professionalknowledge and little command experiencetrying to dictate the rules of the profession.Thus far too many false premises areallowed to be promulgated without their veracity being challenged.

The proliferation of safety departmentsespecially in the larger companies, has nothelped towards a sensible evaluation. Alltoo often, these safety departments haveas their prime concern the protection of the company that employs them ratherthan the interests of those at sea; they actmore as internal company police forces.

Naturally, as soon as we mention safety at sea we think about collisions and thenear-misses most of us have encounteredat some period in our careers. So I shalltake collisions at sea as the prime subjectof this article and start trying to open afew of these Chinese boxes.

Lookout levelsOne strange anachronism remains as a

vestige of shipping acts of the distant past;the level of lookout assigned continues todifferentiate between day and night, thuscompletely ignoring the advances of electronic aids available today. In terms of the lookout, this differentiation is anonsense: both day and night require thesame vigilance. If a lookout is required atnight, then one is required during the day.It is very rare for a watchkeeper to detecta ship or a danger to navigation before theradar does, while at night the OOW keepsa better watch on the radar. In contrast,the bridge tends to be far busier during theday, with extra tasks and distractions.Therefore there may be a far stronger casefor lookouts to be appointed during the day than the night.

If the shipping regulations demand thata lookout, in addition to the OOW, isessential, and I have no disagreement withthis, we must recognise that this must bemaintained continuously. Thus the duty lookouts should not be allowed to leave thebridge for any reason which then createsthe need of reliefs for these lookouts. Noship is manned to do this or if it is, theinterference caused by maintenance duties wo uld pro hi bit su ch a wa tc hk ee pi ng system.

Under present regulations on a wellmanned and managed ship, the watchkeeping system should be flexible ,allowing the master to make adjustmentscommensurate with the weather, traffic,occupation of the ship (such as coastal,ocean, drifting or anchored) and mostimportant, the experience of the officersand ratings under his command. Howeverthere will always be collisions, purely because those on the bridge controlling theships are human beings and not robots;thus human fallibility will continue to bethe major cause in such incidents for theforeseeable future.

When we examine the actions that canbe taken to alleviate these human failures,the limitations of these actions must alsobe considered. Broadly we can list these aspolitical, financial and human.

The ideal situationLet us start with the ideal situation. First,the ship will be properly manned. This

means the ship can man the bridge at alltimes with a watchkeeping officer and aproperly trained seaman lookout. Few ships today can claim even this.

These six seafarers should be thededicated navigation team of the ship andrequired to perform no duties at sea notdirectly connected with the navigation of the vessel. No ship today can claim this.

They should be highly motivated, of goodmorale, properly trained, with certificationfrom recognised and respected governmentdepartments. Before joining a vessel withnavigation and control equipment with

which an officer is not familiar, a course insuch equipment should be undertaken. A

watchkeeping course should be undertakenby ratings who are to be employed aslookouts and so are by default, part of thenavigation team. Whatever they are being trained in currently, it does not includeacting as a lookout.

These last two criteria may seemextraordinarily ambitious yet all of theabove are normal in the air industry. Noone yet has been able to present me with alogical argument as to why the shipping industry standard should not be the sameas that of the air industry. If such criteriacould be instituted on a worldwide scale,

Captain Michael LloydFNI

Why ships really collide

I am now approaching 50 years atsea with 35 years in command,having been master of ships ofevery type including passengerships, bulk carriers, ice classvessels, container ships, coasters,heavy lift, in sizes from oceangoing tugs to 300,000 dwt OBOs. I

have navigated from the ice of theArctic and Antarctic to the rivers ofSouth America and Africa. I haveextensive pilotage experience and,having worked in several seniorshore positions, also know theindustry from that perspective. Ihave had published more than 30articles on the sea and lectured inmany countries of the world. Thisarticle was written in answer to anumber of requests I have

received from shipmates of thepast, asking me to pick up a penagain to write of their distress atthe current situation which I share.Of course it represents mypersonal views and not those ofthe Institute: Michael Lloyd .

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the incidents of near miss and collision would dramatically decline. But of coursethis will not be done.

The prevailing situationToday the second or third officer isrecruited through a manning agency froma third-world country with certificates that

no one can check as, if they are sighted atall by the employing company, they will bein photostat form. Whereas in the past wehad economic refugees as seamen, now they also come as officers who do not wantto be on the ship or work for thatparticular company; in fact they do not want to be at sea. But the pay, althoughpoor by international standards, is betterthan anything that they can achieve athome. There are many better qualifiedofficers available but the owners or

managers will not pay for them.The officer will be flown out to the ship, which will often be sailing the day he joins,direct from a long flight. The chief officerhas been working for 16 hours without abreak and with cargo loading coming to anend, has no time to show him round. Theship sails and that evening he is on watch in traffic with navigation and controlequipment he does not know, and with alookout who cannot speak the samelanguage and has no idea of how toperform his duties. The real wonder is thatthere are not more incidents.

Of course this does not happen on every ship many captains and chief officers try to ensure that their officers have at least adegree of understanding about the bridgeequipment but if I said it happens on themajority of ships, I feel that I am near themark. With the unwillingness of many companies to train or to recruit and pay properly qualified officers, the full workload now of ten fal ls on the seniorofficers, who can only do so much. In

addition, ISM has added considerably tothe workload thus reducing thenavigational vigilance. All too often it isnever mind the watch, fill in the paper.

Why does all of this happen and why isit allowed to carry on irrespective of theSTCW and ISM initiatives? We now mustopen a few more boxes.

The political dimension Wi th th e ST CW Co nv en ti on , th estandardisation of training andcertification was meant to herald in a new dawn. Of course no one really believedthat, especially the signatories; however it was a brave attempt at least to try to getsome control over certification and

training. Regrettably, while examinationrequirements may be the same, theexamination protocols are not. STCW ledto adverse effects on standards as itreduced the examination standard to thelowest common denominator, thusreducing the value of the certificates of traditional maritime nations fromprofessional to technical standard. They also allowed those holders of certificatesfrom nations with low standards andcorrupt administrations to sail legally onall vessels and worse, to be able to tradelow-value certificates for high-value ones,once again debasing the value of certificates that have been traditionally highly regarded. The result has been anoverall lowering of standards and qualifiedofficers leaving the sea as theirprofessional qualifications and their value

were debased and their salaries reduced.

Professional values were surrendered forthe sake of political expediency.

Did this happen in the air industry? Of course not; in fact the Joint Aviation

Au th ori ty (J AA ), ch os e th e hi gh es tstandards from the participation nations intheir regulations, so the resulting standards of qualifications improved. Why,therefore, was it necessary to have lowerstandards at sea while opting for higherstandards in the air? For the officers fromthe traditional maritime nations, and

indeed for the safety of ships and seamenin general, STCW was a disaster.

The financial dimensionThe creed of the majority of owners andmanagers is: the lowest pay andconditions, the lowest manning possibleand the maximum profit. A deep-seaforeign going ship of 500 tonnes, voyaging across the Atlantic in winter, can bemanned with just the master and oneofficer, while the number of ratings carried

can be decided by the flag state on theevidence of details of the ship submitted by the owner or manager. Yet that ship canhave a speed of 15 knots and at that speed,can punch into a far larger ship, sinking itin minutes.

For those who have not had theunpleasant experience of watchkeeping six hours on and six off for more than amonth, I assure you that the standard isnot very high. I was making a deep sea tow at the time in the Atlantic with two deckratings from the Spanish fishing fleet, whocould not steer or speak English. We hadan oven timer on the bridge to wake us upas we kept dropping off to sleep towardsthe end of the watch.

The majority of the ships steaming

around today are undermanned. Many have language problems on the bridge andinternally. If that is not a worrying statement, then the sterile conditionsprevailing on many ships, with crews of mixed nationalities often existing in asystem of voluntary apartheid, poor pay and conditions and a shoreside personneldepartment that is purely a hiring firing agency all contribute to a generalindifferent attitude and poor morale.

It is unfair to simply blame the captainsas most of those in the office ashore,including those ex-seafarers and the safety departments, know about the problemsand do nothing to alleviate them. This, of course, should not stop captains fromsupporting the correct treatment of theircrews but with the gradual erosion of themasters powers over the years, his littleremaining authority is seldom recognisedby the operating office. If the master of aship feels that the manning of his shipcauses him concern regarding the safety of the vessel, or if he feels that the lack of acommon language on board interferes withsafe watchkeeping, what are hisalternatives?

We all know the professional answerbut if the master refuses to sail, what isthere to support him? In the internationalshipping world, there is no union to cometo his rescue. If he belongs to this Institute

wi ll th is bo dy com e ga ll op ing to hi sassistance? Even though The NauticalInstitute has a code of ethics? In truth, heis on his own against all the guns a largeshipping company can bring against him.The master sails, regardless of the state of his officers and crew.

Fatigue is a human condition but thecauses are financial. The first cause is thechronic undermanning on most shipstoday. It is not uncommon for bridgeofficers to work more than 16 hours a day in port with the chief officer sometimessailing without having slept for 24 hours.

Yes, there are forms stating the requiredhours of work and the forms to fill saying how many hours have been worked but weall know that these are mostly falsified.

Where is the sup port for those who fi llthem in correctly or refuse to sail? There isnone. The owners and operators know thisperfectly well.

Now let us say that, wonder of wonders,a ship truthfully completes the forms andfinds that it cannot sail, and even morestartling, advises the port of this. I wonderif there is any oil or bulk terminal in any port that will accept the ship remaining alongside after completion in order forcrew to rest before sailing? Or any port

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that has set aside berths that those shipscan be moved to for this purpose? Theargument that the ship could go andanchor is ludicrous as not only would thefatigued officers have to go about theirduties unberthing, but then would have todo anchor watches, thus defeating thepurpose. Undermanning coupled withincompetent crew putting a greater

workload on the competent causes fatigue.Rather than producing meaningless papertrails we should be tackling these issues.

The human element As long as we have people on the bridges,there will be accidents. We must do all wecan to alleviate the problem but theconstant flow of watchkeeping advice froma myriad of sources is worthless until thebasic underlying causes are solved.

Once ships sailed through areas like theSingapore Strait and the Dover Strait wi th ou t the ma st er on th e br id ge and without routeing. It takes a very foolhardy master today to leave the junior officeralone on the bridge in such places, even

with routeing and vessel traffic services. Wehave a right to expect that the officer on thebridge should be competent but by whosestandards? By my standards, I have notseen a competent junior officer for sometime. I am certain they exist but the ownersand operators do not want to pay for them.The air industry again does things a littledifferently. If an owner or operator wishesto employ a foreign national to fly itsplanes, certificates and experience must besubmitted to the CAA for their perusalbefore he can be employed, all hisdocuments. They will then decide if and

what examinations are requi red prior toflying the aircraft. Why should the shipping industry not do the same?

The continuing increasing workloadcaused by planned maintenance, updating

more and more publications, completion of ISM requirements, safety officer duties andthe latest security officer duties have beenadded to the ship with no increase inmanning. Further, these duties always fallon the bridge officers, as if there were noother officers on board. As the extra

wo rk load in cr ea se s, mo re ex tr an eo us work is done on watch on the bridge as,understandably, officers are reluctant tocomplete their watch and then go to workfor hours in their cabins.

A better way?To recap, most ships are chronically undermanned for the tasks they arerequired to perform.

s The manning assessments by flag statebased on ship tonnage and acceptance of operators statements of crew requirements are unreliable andunacceptable.s The qualifications and training of many officers are deficient for their professionalrequirement and their designatedresponsibilities.s The falsification of hours of restdocuments is common and expected by many companies and ignored by agencies whose job it is to ensure their enforcement.The result is that many ships are sailing from ports with officers suffering fromfatigue.s There is no adequate support formasters who try to ensure that their shipsare properly manned and that all requiredsafety procedures are followed.s The ports feel divorced from the issuesof fatigue and have no interest in the shipssafety issues except those that interfere with the port and the speed of turn around.s The lookout regulations are out of dateand must accept that day and night requirethe same vigilance.s Bridge seamen require specialisedtraining as lookouts.s We ne ed a de di ca te d bri dge te amunhindered by other duties.

Wh en tr yi ng to de al wi th th es eproblems, you often come against the old

excuse, flag state. If the flag state allowsthe ship to sail with a master a monkey and an organ grinder, it must be safe asthe flag state approves. Who are we todisagree? Such an illogical rebuttal to any reasoned professional case continues asthe excuse for not dealing with problems atsea. Over the years, my many colleagues working within these official bodies haveexpressed their concern on these mattersbut of course, are powerless to act.

I have often wondered why theinsurance companies are so uninterestedin the root causes of our problems. Theonly explanation I have ever been given isthat the costs of the accidents are factoredin. How do you factor lives? You wouldthink that charterers would be interested,but they are not.

If, then, governments are satisfied thatthe flag state solves all problems;charterers and insurance companies areuninterested; unions, associations andprofessional bodies have no power to act then owners and operators will continue toignore all professional reasoning, andcollisions will continue.

There has to be a better way toorganise the operation of ships at sea thanthe present regime.