LLOYDS LIST: Lack of bridge training is jeopardising ship safety
Owners and managers need to plough more of their profits back into navigational training
Jerry Frank - Thursday 1 October 2009
ONLY 18 months ago in the heady last days of the shipping boom, amid all the cash and confidence, concerns were still rife over navigational errors and the steady rise of accidents at sea.
Marine insurers were among those then warning that the pace of demands on ships and crews was jeopardising safety at sea, and this threat was accentuated further by the global shortage of skilled seafarers.
The sub-text to these quite commonplace observations was — and is — that shipowners and their managers, many of whom were so keen to invest in new tonnage at the height of the freight market frenzy, proved less enthusiastic to plough their profits back into navigational training and skills.
There are exceptions and there are paragons of virtue among owners and managers leading the way in training, as well as investment in safer navigational technology. There are many that have at least paid lip service and articulated concern over the need for a focus on maritime safety from the perspective of a ship’s bridge.
However, the fact remains that over the period 2003-2008, which Clarkson Research managing director Martin Stopford identified recently at the annual conference for marine insurers as the "super-boom" years, many in shipping were too busy enjoying the plenty to address the deeper structural issue of a shrinking global base of quality officers and the role of human errors in maritime accidents.
As the International Union of Marine Insurance heard at its recent annual conference in Bruges, the much-anticipated easing up of pressure on officers and ships as one benefit from the world trade slump is yet to materialise.
Navigational skills and the ‘people factor’ behind marine accidents remain an area of concern at a time when the industry no longer has the money it once held to throw at the issue.
That is the message from a new report from the Standard Club, whose director of loss prevention, Chris Spencer, argues that greater investment in training is needed before there is a significant improvement in maritime safety.
Mr Spencer concedes that there has been improvement in ship-based safety technology and equipment, but these improvements in equipment have not led to a reduction in navigational accidents.
So, despite the plethora of new technology that is available for bridge navigators, he says that the number of groundings and collisions continue to mount year on year, and analysis of recent incidents confirms that bridge navigational watchkeeping know-how and experience has been eroded.
"The human elements of lack of experience and knowledge, lack of correct bridge management and leadership, and a mixture of fatigue, overconfidence, negligence and poor communication, training and shore management all combine so that major navigational incidents still happen," he says.
The Standard Club also claims that the understanding on many ships’ bridges of industry standard practices such as the collision regulations, known as Colregs, is often ineffective.
The Charles Taylor-managed P&I club urges shipping companies to place greater emphasis and resources on what is known in the industry as bridge resource management and bridge team management.
The marine mutual’s loss prevention experts want to see more BRM and BTM courses made available to supplement traditional training, and ensure deck officers have the skills sets to operate highly sophisticated navigational equipment.
The oil majors have shown a lead in providing their officers with bridge management training, requiring officers to have completed a training course, while a significant number of owners are insisting that at least their senior navigating officers have attended these courses.
He says additional bridge training is a welcome response to the declining standards of navigating officers, the increase of trade, bigger ships with deeper draughts, failing pilotage standards and the diversity of language and cultures on the bridge. However, he asks: "Is it improving the basic navigational watchkeeping standards?"
Lookout practices, passage plans, position keeping and parallel indexing are some the areas where the Standard Club believes practices are not always followed correctly and where skill sets can be woefully poor.
He adds: "Would you be happy to fly on an aircraft knowing that the pilot has never seen this plane or plane type before, never met the co-pilot before and this was his first flight with the company? So why do we accept it on ships?"
Although many shipowners have an exemplary approach to training and ship management, he says there is a need for more action across the industry as a whole.
Bridge team management failures are a major factor in collision and grounding claims, according to the Standard Club’s safety and loss advisory committee.
But, worryingly for those looking to have a worldwide cadre of skilled navigational officers to draw on, often the failure is also due to an absence of plain common sense.
"The reasons for these failures continue to astonish and often the comment is made that had common sense prevailed or good seamanship been applied, the incident would not have happened."
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