Editorial (13)
Almost every accident investiga- tion report these days will cite fatigue as one of the causal features of the accident. Many of these reports are of ship groundings or collisions due to the inattention of a 'fatigued' officer of the watch, because he was suffering from a lack of sleep brought about by a 6-on-6-off watchkeeping cycle and an excessive work load outside of his watchkeeping duties.
Such incidents mainly relate to minimum manned short sea shipping, where the bridge manning and watchkeeping patterns are clearly not conducive to the operating pattern of the ship, and where the master is also one of the 2 watchkeeping officers. In these cases, the solution is simple: increase the manning to remove the master from the watchkeeping roster, and consider an alternative watchkeeping pattern.
But, fatigue does not just result from minimum manning and watch- keeping patterns. Fatigue can manifest itself through a variety of environmental, operational, physiological, and psychological factors that can affect the health and performance of every person onboard, in one way or another.
'Fatigue management' should be high on the agenda for all ship designers, managers and seafarers. For the ship designer, this means being aware of, and as far as possible, 'designing out' the debilitating effects of noise, temperature, motion, vibrations, intensity of lighting etc. For the shipowner/shipmanager it means developing a fatigue management plan to ensure that the correct resources, training and procedures are in place not only to ensure the safety of the ship, but also to protect the health, safety and wellbeing of the seafarer. And, for the seafarer, it means being able to identify the causes of fatigue and to work towards taking appropriate and early measures to prevent it.
The IMO guidelines on fatigue mitigation and management are comprehensive and provide practical advice to all the various stakeholders on how to combat it. The US Coast Guard's Crew Endurance Management program (see page 7) identifies the various environmental, operational, physiological, and psychological factors that can affect crew endurance, and addresses the specific endurance risks pertinent to ship operations. Both should be essential reading for those stakeholders involved in the design, management and operation of ships.
While the IMO does not currently advocate mandatory training in fatigue management, common sense and good practice would suggest that such training is essential.
It is time to wake up to the consequences of fatigue - such consequences can be costly...
The IMO Guidelines on fatigue mitigation and management can be downloaded from: www.imo.org/includes/blastDataOnly. asp/data_id%3D2574/1014.pdf