Giving the sea-dog a bad name

I promise not to repost old posts again- at least not soon!- but this is a 2012 one I was forced to recall today.

The notion that a ship's Captain is similar in quality or character to a shore based CEO or senior manager is hogwash that has been promoted by the STCW 'management level' certificate claptrap for far too long. Perhaps this way of defining responsibilities at sea may find some takers among sailors who have a complex about their jobs being inferior to those ashore, but as far as I am concerned, this narrow profiling actually devalues what they do. Because I believe that a Master's job is tougher than a CEO's. In fact, the nuances in leadership, strategic or tactical thinking, physical action and mental agility required of a ship Captain- or, indeed, of any rank of officer or crew at sea- are unique. The 'management' or 'operational' level labels are plainly inaccurate. This is not an office, where a manager does no manual work. This is a ship, whose senior most officers often live in boiler suits these days. 

A CEO ashore is probably responsible for larger amounts of money, but no CEO lives, works and eats with his workforce. No CEO faces the same living conditions as the shop floor worker. No CEO suffers acute fatigue and loss of sleep for prolonged periods while making major decisions that affect directly the physical safety of everybody around, including himself. No CEO picks up a screwdriver at work one minute and handles a multimillion-dollar floating behemoth the next. No CEO makes huge decisions all on his own. No CEO is required to be- within any 24 hour period- alternately a clerk, an operator of machinery or equipment, a HR man, a security in charge, a factory manager, a data entry operator, a communications officer, a cashier, an accountant, a payroll controller, a policeman and an environmental mini-specialist. No CEO is required to work while spending months away from his family at a stretch. No CEO will be arrested for even a major disaster- leave alone a minor accident- in most parts of the world: Bhopal, for example. Hell, a CEO does not even stand on his feet too much or too often; he travels, works and lives in a soothing atmosphere with minions to take care of everything, including his cup of coffee. A  Shipmaster, on the other hand, works in a hostile environment- physical and mental both- that is magnified manifold by most of the people he encounters that are not part of his crew- the antagonistic enemies at the gate. 

When a CEO makes a huge mistake, the company goes bankrupt and everybody loses their jobs; when a Captain makes a huge mistake, everybody dies and everything around is polluted forever.

You may choose what you consider to be the more important job here; my only point is that any sailor's job cannot be compared with any job ashore- and promoting that thinking does every seaman an injustice, is inaccurate and pushes the wrong idea- to prospective and existing seafarers both- of what a mariner's working life is all about.

Actually, I cannot think of any job that compares with a sailor's. A soldier's?  Some similarities do exist here- away from family in a hostile environment, for example, but there are massive differences too. A sailor will not be called upon to face bullets as part of his job description, piracy notwithstanding. A solider's life is simpler than a mariners- no commercial, environmental or such considerations and no job insecurity. On the other hand, although a Bosun's job is more complex than a platoon leader's, the latter is responsible much more for the lives of all his men in combat, and the cost of a mistake- or circumstance- is much higher. In a similar vein, a General is far away from the action, usually, unlike a Shipmaster, but he is responsible for hundreds or thousands of lives and his country's security- a huge responsibility. So, no real parallel exists here either. 

I suggest that we should not even try to find a parallel. Instead, we need to realise that a mariner's job description and responsibilities are unique and leave it at that. A formal job description is required only when there is ambiguity or confusion about role, and shipping has never suffered from that problem. Just say Chief Engineer, and every sailor on earth will know what that man does, his responsibility and his authority. This is true for all other ranks, and on any ship on earth.  We don't need organisation charts at sea; we know clearly what everybody is responsible for.

Unfortunately, what has happened is that shipping has fallen into the management jargon trap where style substitutes for substance- or too often replaces substance. The result is not pretty and is there for all to see. Crews are today groaning under the weight of manuals and checklists that have dubious value but enormous repercussions thanks to stress and fatigue that are a direct result of this nonsense. I see the 'management level' certification and the 'CEO' pretentious blah as an extension of this thinking. 

It may seem like a small thing, the wording on a certificate of competency, but it does matter, and I object strongly to it. Not least because I am a Shipmaster by qualification and profession, not a mere CEO.

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Warping the priorities of Command.

A Chief Officer on the verge of his first Command wanted to talk to me last week. He was understandably a little anxious about handling the responsibility and sounded me out on some of his concerns.

I was left with a feeling of considerable dismay at the end of a two hour conversation. Not because the man had many fears, but because all his concerns, without exception, centred on issues like PSC inspections, vettings, paperwork, reports, the ISM system and other (his words, not mine) ‘management issues’.  Not once did he seek input on the critical parts of a Shipmaster’s job; he seemed to have no apprehensions about ship handling or those critical decisions connected with safety that are solely a Captain’s responsibility. ‘Management issues’- to me, piffling in comparison- were all consuming.

The other thing that struck me was how fearful he was of everybody- his employers and outside inspectors included.  Even commercial inspections terrorised him; my giving him some of my better experiences with, for example, the US Coast Guard, did nothing to help. I had to tell him, finally, that it was a sinking ship that was catastrophe; failing a Port State Control inspection was not. I don’t think he got that.

This is one the problems with shipping’s obsession with the word ‘management’- we have made timorous administrators out of our seamen. Our compulsive fixation on at-sea paperwork and administration has resulted in a dangerous shift of priorities. The tail is now wagging the dog.

Everybody is a product of the system, so I will not comment on whether this Chief Officer is fit, in my opinion, for Command or not (Besides, he may read this!). It appears to me, nonetheless, that the system has degraded itself. Maybe too many making decisions ashore have too little seagoing experience and maybe people ashore believe that the sleight of mouth that works in shore offices works at sea too. Whatever it is, too many seamen are buying the idea- the idea that on ships, management is more important than seamanship.

The fixation on ‘management’ is not just about the shift away from critical priorities. I have seen first-hand how managers use administrative systems as weapons against crews. I have seen officers and Masters slowly co-opted into a half belief that the part of decision making that belongs on board is actually some kind of collaborative exercise between managers and Captains. Of course, managers are quick to point out that the Master has ‘overriding responsibility’, but maybe many Masters today need to be reminded of more than that. Maybe they also need to be reminded that the buck stops with them and that there is no collective responsibility at sea and neither is there much collective decision making. Maybe they need to be reminded that managing a problem is different from fixing it.

In my defence, though, I did remind this Chief Officer of all that. I did speak to him about what I felt were important things, of which there were many that were not on his agenda. I tried to do my bit.

I also told him in the end that I felt that one of a Captain’s biggest qualities was the ability to tell his employers, especially if they pressurised him on critical safety issues, to take a hike.  This attitude went hand in hand with knowing your job, I told him. In fact, it was part of the job, the ability to tell people to take a hike. I confess the term I actually used was far more direct and far more profane, but what the hell. Communication is all about getting your point across, isn’t it?

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The MLC and flexible responsibility

President Borromeo of InterManager- the trade association of ship managers- asked Flag States a few weeks ago to exercise ‘maximum tolerance’ and ‘flexibility’ in the implementation of the MLC. Intermanager claims to represent the management of almost 5000 ships and to be ‘responsible’ for some quarter of a million seafarers, as its website says. It feels that, ‘as the MLC requires total commitment from its global stakeholders, restraint and a common interpretation of the rules needs to be seen from inspecting authorities.’ 

Apprehensive about disruptions to ship’s operations and schedules post the convention coming into effect, Borromeo says that “InterManager welcomes the entering into force of MLC but remains concerned that many of the world’s major ports which our members’ vessels visit, lie within the borders of countries which have yet to ratify the MLC such as the US, Korea, UK, Italy and Japan”. 

I can understand Intermanager’s angst; the words in shipping legislation often have a habit of running away with themselves, sometimes being interpreted- as in the Port State Control regime- in a dozen creative and unintended ways by lazy, arrogant or corrupt officials. The MLC has the potential to be pretty draconian unless common sense is applied. Which may explain some of Mr Borromeo’s concerns; there is scope for mayhem until everybody ratifies it and the dust settles, after which we can all presumably live happily ever after. 

However. 

My memory is poor; which is probably why I can’t recall such apprehensions being expressed before with, for example, the implementation of the useless ISPS convention, which has done little except add a layer of daily drudgery to a seaman’s life without adding an iota to a ship’s security. (Ask the hundreds of seamen that are still being taken hostage every year.) I don’t recall such public misgivings before the ISM Code was implemented either; that was the one that started the conversion of seamen into clerks, running around the ship with clipboards and checklists; that was the one that contributed immensely and directly to fatigue at sea. That was the one that asked ship’s crews to lie in writing. It still does; nothing has changed. 

No concern has been expressed, as far as I know, about the need, effectiveness or usefulness of the new courses that the STCW regime has slapped on seamen with every amendment for the last twenty years. As we speak, for example, hundreds of seamen are running around trying to get a certificate for the ‘Designated Security Duties’ course, another one in a long line of piffling courses that should have been aborted with extreme prejudice before it was born. 

The problem with selectively expressing concern, as Intermanager has done, is that organisational credibility takes a toss. People wonder about who is actually being sought to be protected. People know what the real agenda is. People suspect that asking for flexibility may be another way to wiggle out of the financial cost of responsibility.

Which reminds me. I take exception to Intermanager’s claim that the organisation’s members are ‘responsible for some 250,000 seafarers.’ 

With a small handful of notable exceptions that actually value their seamen, the driving force for most ship managers’- particularly  third party ship managers- is the retention of old clients and the addition of new ones. Other major forces include penny pinching, blinkered short term outlooks and the covering of the organisational backside. Responsibility for seamen is very low down on their agenda. I can tell you, from first-hand experience, that some of these managers- including many considered blue chip- care two hoots about the seamen working aboard their ships. But then you know that already.

Had I suffered from the misconception that these managers were ‘responsible’ for me in any way whatsoever, I would have died at sea long ago. 
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Isle of Caprice.

At first glance, the report of the UK’s Marine Accident Investigation Branch on the Turkish owned, Antigua and Barbuda registered short sea trade vessel ‘Coastal Isle’ almost beggars belief. A feeder container ship with a Safe Manning requirement of 7 crew, although ten were aboard when she ran aground on the Isle of Bute in the Firth of Clyde a year or so ago. The vessel’s bridge at the time was unmanned, since the ‘Chief Officer’- whose Panamanian Certificate of Competency was actually fraudulent, bought in connivance with a shady setup in Turkey and some corrupt Panamanian Maritime Authority employees- had, after knocking off the lookout, disappeared from the wheelhouse a full two hours before the incident with ‘stomach cramps’- he was found after the grounding in his cabin two decks below the bridge, presumably asleep. The Captain, German, nineteen years in command on the same ship but unable to operate the watch alarm. A Second Mate who was, probably for reasons obvious to his shipmates, not allowed to keep independent watch even in this flaky setup- the Captain and Chief Officer were keeping 12 hours out of every twenty four, including one killer seven hour stretch each. Every day. 

After the grounding and extensive hull damage, the Chief Officer was busted to AB. His reliever soon arrived, complete with his own fraudulent Panamanian certificate obtained through almost identical means in Turkey. Hilarious. Unbelievable. Beggars belief again. Could never happen to you or me.

Well, in a way, it could. It did.

I spent many years, until the late nineties, in Command of roll on- roll off feeder vessels, each about a hundred metres long. Total complement was seven; twelve hour watches every day- in port or at sea- and twenty hour workdays was a basic given. Fatigue was a nagging mistress for each of us every day of our working lives. And pressures multiply when, for example, you are alone on the bridge berthing a ship. 

Like the Captain of the ‘Coastal Isle’, I had pilotage exemption for quite a few places, including for berthing at Singapore. I don’t think I would be physically capable today of doing what I did in those years- manoeuvring a ship singlehanded, without even a helmsman or a lookout. Running out of hands and brains to operate everything from the main engines to the generators (controls on the bridge, including frequency matching) to the bow thruster to the wheel, the VHF, walkie-talkie and everything else in between.

And, although none of our certificates was fraudulent- at least as far as I know- I had to be rushed to join a ship because the flag was being changed from a European open registry to a Panamanian one, and the existing European Master there was disqualified by- hold your breath- the Panamanian authorities from being issued a Master’s certificate because of his lack of suitable experience for a certificate equivalent to what the European Flag had given him. (Similar situation on the Coastal Isle with the two Chief Officers, apparently, except that it was Panama that was the offender.) 

Surprisingly, given its past history with pinpointing fatigue as a major cause of accidents, the MAIB report did not stress on the manning levels aboard the Coastal Isle as a major contributor to the incident. It should have. Since he was not drunk, I will bet my last clean underwear that the Chief Officer on that ship- properly certified or not- was instead punch drunk fatigued. And so was, probably, everybody else on that ship. (Why did he send the lookout man off? Could it be that the man was fatigued, and that tomorrow promised to be as hectic as today and yesterday?) 

Short sea trades with stripped manning levels in congested waters on feeder vessels are killers, plain and simple. They are bad enough even with ‘normal’ manning levels seen today on oceangoing ships; they are lethal on short sea vessels.

Actually, what really beggars my belief is that nothing is ever done to solve the manning problem and the fraud that the Safe Manning Certificates widely perpetuate. It can’t be ignorance- everybody knows what I am saying is true. I can only presume, after a lot of head scratching, that it is simple myopia; short sighted ship owners and their lackey managers do not want to see the woods for the trees.

Seemingly unconnected, my reading of the MAIB report coincided with reports quoting the  Chairman of the International Chamber of Shipping Masamichi Morooka bemoaning impending new environmental legislation would cost the industry more than half a trillion US dollars between 2015 and 2025. Trillion. That’s a lot of zeros after the one.

I am not a fan of the way environmental regulation is going, but I can’t help speculating that perhaps shipping’s manning crisis can only be solved through similar- seemingly draconian- regulation. It appears that many Flag States, avaricious ship owners and short sighted shipmanagers cannot see beyond their noses, and have to be dragged screaming and kicking to do what is actually in everybody’s interest, including theirs. They appear, so far, to be perfectly happy entrusting their multimillion dollar ships and cargoes to woefully insufficient numbers of tired, poorly trained and unmotivated crews, some of whose certificates seem to be forged. (12635 reported, according to a 2001 IMO report.) 

If shipping is unable to regulate itself, then it must be forced to do so. Major decisions cannot continue to be dishonest, or subject to the avarice or caprice of clueless shoreside individuals. Unfortunately, the international regulatory regime is party to this nonsense. And so is the IMO, which is as ill equipped, as short sighted- and, ultimately, as incompetent- as any of its members to meaningfully address this crisis.

It is ironic, actually. Shipping is asked to spend half a trillion dollars over the next decade to protect the environment.  In contrast, almost nothing is mandated to be spent on improving the chances that the crew of a ship is sufficient, competent and properly rested to reduce the chances of that environmental disaster from occurring in the first place. 

Bravo, shipping. Bravo. 

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Paper chase

The International Maritime Organisation is seeking public input on ways to ease the administrative burden across the industry. IMO Secretary-General Koji Sekimizu calls this ‘wasted paperwork;’ I call it bullcrap in spades. During the next six months, the IMO will seek inputs from all stakeholders- including through their website, after which ‘a steering group established by the IMO Council will analyse the responses to identify those administrative requirements that are perceived as burdens, and will make recommendations to the Council as to how any such burdens should be addressed’, the organisation says.

It is not just Masters and crews that are affected by all this, the IMO is quick to point out, but also owners, governments, administrations, port authorities and a wide spectrum of interested parties.

Apart from snidely wondering how much wasted paperwork the IMO’s exercise to reduce paperwork will generate, I feel that the move, long overdue as it is, is being made by the wrong organisation. The IMO legislates, and, although it can perhaps reduce the nitty-gritty paper requirements of its legislations a fair bit (or do what I would like to see- throw out useless legislation altogether, perhaps starting with the ISPS code), the real problem here lies in shipowners’ and shipmanagers’ offices. It will take more than the IMO to address that.

I am not too concerned with reduction of paperwork in shore offices of any kind; they can and do hire more people and they never suffer the kind of fatigue seamen do at sea as a direct result of paperwork overload. I therefore will only look at shipboard paperwork here.

A driving force in the shipmanagement business is the manager’s need to have his backside covered at all times and preferably in triplicate. To do this successfully, the shipmanager demands from the ship reams of checklists, reports, emails, letters, photographs and declarations that all is hunky dory, or, if it is not, ‘appropriate’ action is being taken. Appropriate implies, here, that the managers do not end up with egg on their faces; solving the problem is secondary. The IMO can do very little unless this mindset changes. Incidentally, Indian managers are amongst the worst offenders here- whoever said that the British invented bureaucracy but the Indians perfected it was spot on.

There needs to be one manager level person- preferably a Superintendent- tasked in all shipowning or shipmanagement companies, whose responsibility it should be to examine management and safety systems and reduce, mercilessly, unnecessary or duplicated paperwork. He or she should, amongst other things:

•  First of all, realise that the organisation’s love for paper is putting ships at risk because it is the last nail in the coffin for fatigued and overworked crews.
•  Secondly, realise that the main purpose of the organisation is not its administration.
•  Dispense with all those monthly, quarterly, half yearly and yearly reports that managers are so fond of- and, as one admitted candidly to me, never actually read.
•  Payroll should be moved ashore, where it belongs. All that should come from the ship monthly are the deductions to be made to a seaman’s salary- cash taken, bond and communication costs etc. A simple spread sheet once a month. That is all. Stop using Masters as data entry operators; employ a couple of those ashore instead.
• Planned Maintenance Systems should be streamlined to effectively become the one stop combined source for inventories and requisitions. Many are capable of being just that, but are rarely used as such. An exported file should be all that is required to be emailed to the office. The utilisation of PMS software is a joke aboard most ships (I often joke that PMS is not just restricted to women; sailors know the acronym- and the stress- differently, is all). Realise that office insistence on following older systems in parallel on ships increases workload without advantage.
•  Simplify ISM manuals. Very few of the crew understand them to begin with, and then manuals are usually unwieldy, often incoherent or incomplete and so unsurprisingly not followed.
•  Put enough computers aboard. Give other crew – cooks, bosuns, junior engineers et al- the responsibility to keep their equipment and inventories updated. Something is wrong if a Chief Engineer is spending four hours almost every day on the computer updating PMS or other systems, or a Master is spending similar time doing essentially worthless work that is detracting from his main job.
•  Put aboard an additional ‘administrative officer’ or seaman/clerk. To those already doing so, take a bow.
• Reduce the number of people in shipmanagement offices authorised to send emails to Masters. (And demanding immediate responses or clarifications to usually useless queries, many of which have already been addressed). Stop demanding repeat information just because your office filing or email systems are disorganised, or because there is incomplete communication between departments ashore, or because you are too lazy to look it up.
•  Reduce the number of checklists. Curb shore enthusiasm in creating checklists for ships even when not mandated. (If you must create them, then fill them yourselves, please).

I am sure sailing seamen would have an almost endless supply of practical suggestions, and I know many who surface these to managers ashore. The problem in third party managerial offices- especially the big ones- is one of organisational inertia. Change seems impossible, especially when nobody wants to stick their necks out for fear of being beheaded.

The IMO may simplify regulations and compliance associated with them. It may even help with certain kinds of paperwork directly- related to port formalities and such, for example. (I know standard forms exist, but every country seems to want its own format anyway). The IMO can even try to streamline the Port State Control system- the present one is odd, and consists of PSC inspectors having the ability to board a ship at any time and occupy the entire crew for hours on end at a time when urgent operations are happening at multiple locations aboard. In doing so, they compromise safety and add to fatigue.

The IMO- or any one body- cannot change the mindset that prevails in shipping and administrative offices around the world. That mindset uses seamen as cheap labour, dumping increasing administrative workloads on them without thought and without sufficient additional compensation. That mindset dumps paper aboard that belongs ashore, simply because it is expedient to do so.

Ultimately, and besides anything else, that mindset is directly responsible for fatigue and its proven impact on safety. When will all the smart men and women in the industry begin to understand that?

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