06/013 - A Master's Observations

‘Working hours’ is only a part of the fatigue problem, often overrated. While the 10 hr rest period is an excellent palliative, it doesn’t altogether eliminate fatigue. Rest comes from real and complete relaxation of the mind and body. That is in turn influenced by monotony, poor living conditions (ineffective air-conditioning or heating, dirty accommodation, poor victuals), inconsiderate on-board management, stress of inspections and fear of harassment by port officials, lack of adequate shore leave after long sea passages, inability to provide cost-effective telephone and email connectivity to families and lack of entertainment, recreational and gym facilities. Ship motions in heavy weather also takes a toll on the sleep and work patterns. These conditions, needless to say, when prolonged over weeks and months create a very high risk situation even if the rest hours are being complied with. Good on board management should factor these while setting output goals and working hours.

Fatigue not only affects safety but also badly hits productivity. It is therefore in nobody’s interest to flog rest hour records and the sooner ship masters and managers realise it the better.

Surprisingly, fatigue also comes from an under-utilised staff with too much time on their hands to brood. So I aim for an optimally busy ship where the crew look forward to the off-period. Fatigue evaluation can be more sophisticated than just a review of the rest hour reports which are being fudged anyway. Port state inspectors if trained to look for body language of the crew, sloppy housekeeping, tense and uptight senior officers and irritable crew responses can gauge the level of fatigue. I think PSC should focus on the container feeder service and car carriers which are the worst affected sectors, given their short voyages and incredibly short port stays. These operational records are difficult to fudge.

This business of fudging rest hour record comes from the mindset that somehow it is illegal to work beyond 14 hrs a day and recording this will lead to trouble with the authorities. Of course this is nonsense. To me as Master, a correctly documented record of rest hours will tell me where the fatigue hotspots of the vessel operations are and gives me a chance to review the work distribution and planning with my department heads. It also builds a data-driven case for me to request additional manning to meet the operational imperatives. A fudged record on the other hand will tell me that everything is hunky dory and lead us into a false sense of security. It is tempting to devise ‘foolproof’ recording devices like punch card system and similar technological solutions. But this is just distracting us from the fact that it is the culture and mindset that needs correctives.

Finally, we badly underestimate the value of the presence of families on board to break crew fatigue. Especially when a ship has little children bouncing off the bulkheads and bringing smiles to the weatherbeaten faces. Somehow, the decision makers hate to give credit to this aspect of HR management and mostly treat family carriage on board as something conceded at the point of a gun.