Fatigue weakens the last line of defence at sea, and regulatory minimums do not always reflect the workload crews now face, writes Steve Cameron, chair of the London branch of the Nautical Institute.
On opening The Nautical Institute London Branch conference on geopolitical maritime risks and security threats to seafarers, I asked the delegates to consider a simple question: what can we do to make life safer and better for the people at sea?
The programme was wide ranging, covering conflict zones, cyber incidents, GNSS disruption, abandonment and the shadow fleet, yet the words that stayed with me throughout the day, were fatigue, leadership and kindness. They may sound less dramatic than missiles, drones or electronic interference, but they have a direct bearing on whether a ship’s crew can respond effectively when a situation deteriorates.
During one discussion, a speaker questioned whether minimum safe manning can sometimes come to mean little more than the lowest allowable crewing level. It was an uncomfortable but an important point. Minimum safe manning has an essential regulatory purpose; to ensure sufficient crew so that rest hours can be complied with. The concern begins when the approved minimum becomes the normal operating complement, even as the demands placed on the vessel continue to grow.
Ships and trading patterns do not stand still. Port calls become more frequent, turnaround times tighten, and reporting requirements increase. New procedures are introduced to deal with cyber risk, sanctions, security threats and navigational disruption, while the number of people available to carry them out may remain unchanged.
The pressure becomes significant when several demands arrive together. A vessel entering a high-risk area may need extra lookouts, increased security watches, closer contact with naval authorities, and more emergency preparation, none of which removes the normal workload. Machinery still has to be maintained, cargo handled, the ship navigated, and records completed. The risk level may change overnight, but the number of people onboard does not.
This is why fatigue cannot be treated simply as a welfare issue. It affects concentration, judgement, communication, and the ability to recognise when something simply does not look right, all of which matter when a bridge team is deciding whether the position shown by its equipment is credible, or when a cyber incident initially resembles an ordinary technical failure. In those moments, the crew may be the last meaningful line of defence, and that defence is weaker when people are tired or overstretched.
The industry often responds to an emerging risk by adding another procedure, checklist or training requirement. There may be sound reasons for each one, but together they create work. Producing a procedure does not create another officer to carry it out, neither does a record showing that rest hours have been met necessarily mean somebody has slept properly.
Automation can certainly help, but more technology does not automatically mean less work. New systems bring alarms, interfaces more data to be analysed, and dependencies that somebody onboard must understand and respond to. A lean crewing model may look efficient while everything is working normally; its weakness becomes apparent when machinery fails, a crew member falls ill or several systems produce conflicting information. This is not an argument for adding the same number of people to every ship. Different vessels and trades have different requirements. It is an argument for reviewing manning honestly against the operation being conducted now, rather than assuming an approved figure will remain appropriate indefinitely.
Leadership and kindness both matter here. Good masters and shore managers recognise when people are approaching their limits and encourage concerns to be raised without treating them as weaknesses. A manager that understands the pressures facing a crew is more likely to ask the right questions and identify a problem before it becomes an incident. Even the best leadership, however, cannot overcome a structural shortage of people or time, and a master should not be left deciding which essential task must wait because the crew cannot safely complete everything expected of them.
It’s worth flagging that through its guidelines OCIMF sets expectations that exceed basic regulations relating to the Requirements Governing Seafarers’ Hours of Work and Rest. It recommends the use of digital software for accurate logging and to eliminate the “adjustment” of records
However, the responsibility extends beyond owners and managers. Terminals shape turnaround times and customers request ever more information, and charterers drive schedules. The effect of this accumulation of additional demands, can be negated by shipowners implementing strict contractual clauses, and data-backed operational limits, to protect crew rest hours, thus moving safety limits from an internal policy to a legally enforceable boundary.
It should no longer be enough to demonstrate that a ship carries the statutory minimum crew. The more meaningful question is whether it carries sufficient crew to conduct the voyage safely, respond to the unexpected, and do so without fatigue becoming an acceptable operating condition. putting them at risk, Minimum safe manning was conceived as a safeguard. It should never become shipping’s commercial target.
