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

l   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. 

l   They are not recently disembarked from the vessel, meaning they have not undergone upgrading on board long ago. 

l   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?”

l   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

l   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.

l   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.

l   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.

l   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

l   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: 

n   Defer to Authority: Follow the command, SOP’s or order from the management unconsciously without confirm or thinking.

n   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. .

n   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.

n   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. 

n   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”.  

n   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. 

n   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.  

n   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. 

n   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:

l   Provide necessary training: Training might take a variety of forms but all must view it as an important investment for future success.

l   Performance appraisal can identify employees who should be retained,

l   Rewards bridge the gap between organizational objectives and individual expectations and aspirations.

l   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. 

l   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.

l   The career path of officers and crew should be mapped out in order to promote loyalty to the company and establish long term relationship.

l   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. 1.       At 23.24 (point 1) Vessel sailed course 247 degrees.
2. 2.       At 23.30 (point 2) Captain informed the traffic center that he was changing course to 200 degrees. 
3. 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. 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. 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. 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. 7.       Two minutes later, at 00.02 ( point 7) 3/O orders 20 degrees right rudder and 
8. 8.       At 00.04 (point 8) hard (35 degrees) right rudder.
9. 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

l   Watch hours or other working demands: safety or reefer patrol

l   Jet lag in ship clock adjustment daily

l   Too much to do in long hours

l   Poor work environments and accommodation condition

l   Health worries about dangerous cargos on board

l   Strom and bad weather 

l   Employment worries about changes in job

l   Social isolation and loneliness 

l   Separation worries 

l   Home leave worries 

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

l   Headaches 

l   Skin problems

l   Indigestion, upset stomach, ulcers and other digestive problems 

l   High blood pressure 

l   Toothache

In his behaviour

l   In short temper

l   Lost sleep 

l   Slow in thinking and forget a lot 

l   Absent mind 

l   Deteriorating relationships with colleagues 

l   Smoking or drinking too much

l   Increased complaints about health 

l   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:

l   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.   

l   In grounding, Dragging Anchor: to verify the ship’s position immediately to make certain what the distance is to the nearest submerge danger. 

l   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. 

l   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.

l   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.

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.

End of chapter 16