Cat amongst the pigeons

Not many sailors realise that there is nothing personal about management blaming them for events leading to an incident. Bluntly put, a manager (and shipowner) can limit or escape liability if he can get away with pinning the blame tail on the mariner donkey. I am certain that I am far from the only Master around who can say, with bitter experience, that investigations conducted by many shipmanagers into any untoward incident at sea are frequently a travesty: they are partisan, corrupted with the overwhelming desire to protect those ashore and are so a farce, as can be expected when any interested party conducts an investigation when it has an inherent conflict of interest. The first (and sometimes only) instinct of any shipmanagement company is to protect itself against blame and liability.

How much is two and two is far less important than how much do the managers want it to be. So blame the crew and the Master (or Chief Engineer), if possible. Whisper “Command Failure”: not too loudly, because somebody on board may spill the beans, but in hushed tones heard only by owners, insurers and regulators. Quietly sign off the Master or involved crew, if you can, without giving them any opportunity to defend the slur on their reputations and without giving any authorities access to them and therefore to the truth. Use innuendo later to degrade the Master or crew. Nothing personal. Just business.

The judgement in the United States against Fleet Management, the managers of the ship that hit the San Francisco Bay Bridge in November 2007, assumes particular significance in this common backdrop. I do not know whether Fleet tried to blame the ship in the immediate aftermath of the incident; I know that many managers would have. Ten million dollars is not a small penalty, but what will send a shudder down many a shipmanager’s spine is not just this number but the use of the term ‘significant management failures’ leading up to the ruling in court. No doubt the severity of the fine is linked partly to attempts to cover up, but as happens periodically, the lid of the Pandora’s Box has been cracked open once again, this time in the US. The court has clearly blamed the management as well as the Master and the pilot (sentenced to ten months in jail earlier) for the crash, and not in hushed tones either. A precedent has been set in a high profile case, and the industry should be concerned that the precedent will become the norm. The cat may be among the pigeons: Imagine if a ship Superintendent were jailed in the US for contributory negligence or forgery.

Equally interestingly for me and surely alarmingly for shipmanagers are some of the failures listed by the court in the Busan affair: at the manager’s behest and with the Master’s knowledge, these involved concealing records, falsifying documents and charts after the event, creating passage plans and entering backdated positions in an attempt to try to show proper planning and monitoring by the ship on departure from the berth. What is interesting is that this kind of behaviour, on the part of either the managers, Masters or crews, is not unusual at all. Once again, it is an attempt to show blamelessness and mitigate or reduce liability. Once again, it is just business.

The Cosco Busan judgement will force shipmanagers in general into a bit of a corner: everybody knows that some of the reasons for the Busan accident were language difficulties, almost zero Master/Pilot information exchange, poor bridge team performance, pressures that had the Busan sailing in thick fog when many other ships did not, a failure to interpret electronic chart information correctly and, finally, good old fashioned poor navigation.

All these lacunae are commonplace on many ships that sail today. English language difficulties are commonplace in an age of multinational crews. Pilots are as guilty of poor or nonexistent English language skills as anybody else is in many parts of the world, including sometimes in Europe. Concepts learnt in BTM courses conducted in a classroom atmosphere translate poorly to short manned ships where anything more than Pidgin English is subject to misinterpretation and navigational skills are lacklustre.

hen, bridge checklists are often filled in after the event and therefore become a paper exercise. Monitoring a ship’s passage during pilotage (and even maneuvering to pilotage) often becomes something that the Master does alone. All this is not only because Masters and crews perform badly, though many do: the issue is more complex than that. Factors such as shortmanning, calibre of officers, fatigue, a system that is paralysed with checklists written in a language many crew are unfamiliar with and commercial pressures all contribute.

So where do we go from here? Well, even given the issues of calibre and language (which are insolvable in the short term), I think there are a couple of things we can do immediately.

If I were a shipmanager, I would first take a hard look at my in house training programme and concentrate hard on navigational safety. I would do whatever it took to improve this in a practical manner: paper be damned. The Busan crashed into the bridge because of poor navigation. That problem, if it exists, has to be fixed first.

I would then take a good hard look at my ISM manuals and modify them with an eye to practicality: slash and burn everything else. I would then go over the ‘new’ manual again, with an eye to the language this time, making it as close to Pidgin English as possible. (Sounds ridiculous, I know, but the alternative is to get more educated and language literate crews). I would then schedule an annual ‘paperwork audit’ to knock off everything except the bare minimum required to comply with international regulations as far as paperwork is concerned. The rest goes into the bin. Objective: Sufficient compliance on paper and much higher compliance in practice. Right now, it is often the other way around.

This course of action has two advantages: One, the manuals and the checklists derived from those may actually get useful as they are simplified. Two, more people may actually understand the damn things, so they are more likely to be followed. Right now, anybody can beat us over the head with our own ISM systems, cumbersome and ill followed that they often are.

We must simplify procedures to make them more effective. Unlike shore establishments, we do not have the luxury of time or clerical manpower available for filling in less than useful (or required) checklists and other such paperwork. As things stand, non compliance with our own ill thought out systems is easy- and, in the context of the Busan judgement, when the term ‘significant management failure’ has been brought out of the closet- can be very expensive.

As for doing away the commonplace post-incident attempts to protect ourselves by subterfuge, fraud and deceit, well, that requires nothing less than a whole new culture.

Postscript: Besides hoping that a certain (and alleged) ship Superintendent in the US I had to deal with has taken note of the Busan ruling, a stray thought: should poor shipmanagers be tried and judged in court, in the aftermath of an incident, before Masters, crews or pilots are?

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The Master and no Margarita

Bulgakov’s “The Master and Margarita” is one of my favourite books. A satirical story set in the days of Stalin’s Moscow, it includes the devil as one of the main characters. Margarita, incidentally, is the ‘Master’s’ mistress. Much like the story connected with banning of alcohol on many ships today, the novel is a strange, satirical and often absurd tale. Somebody described it once as Dante’s Inferno meeting the Marx Brothers.


Coincidentally, the Margarita also happened to be (note the tense, please) one of my favourite drinks at sea. My preferred version had three parts of tequila, one part of triple sec and one part of fresh lemon juice. Crushed ice, chilled salt rimmed glass and shaken, not stirred. One drink in the smoke room in the evening before dinner. ‘The Master and a Margarita’, I sometimes joked.


Then the powers that want to be decided to treat me like a retarded child.


Much like Bulgakov’s story that sometimes reads like a story within a story, the evolution, if one can call it that, of the ‘Drug and Alcohol policy’ on board ships is yet another matryoshka doll exercise at sea. Much like those Russian dolls one inside another, one rule pops out of another in the D and A policy too. At the end of it all, the smallest pygmy dolls and the most draconian steps emerge. These dolls then decide that Masters and crews can be trusted with sometimes a couple of hundred million dollars worth of ship and cargo, but they cannot be trusted with a can of beer. They decide that there will be no alcohol carried or drunk on their ships at anytime, anywhere. Ever.


And what is worse, these dolls get away with it.


In no other industry anywhere in the world is a worker subjected to such harsh restrictions on his personal choices over months on end. Perhaps astronauts at space stations are, and so are Saudi Arabian residents and jailbirds elsewhere, but nowhere else is such an exercise even attempted. Restrictions may well apply to people operating machinery, to pilots and many others, but they do not do so twenty four hours a day over a nine month contract. There would be uproar if this measure were even mooted elsewhere.


I am well aware (how can I not be?) of the history and the rationale behind the arguments in favour of a complete alcohol ban. I am not advocating drunk crews operating ships as the alternative here. What I am advocating is this: it is high time everybody in the industry, including charterers, owners, managers and ship vetters, started treating me like a Master and not like a wayward juvenile delinquent. It is high time everybody started treating crews with some respect and not like they are some dumb animals that must be controlled or else they will run amuck after being intoxicated to the gills.


I am also advocating leaving the subject of alcohol intake of the crew to where it rightfully belongs: with the Master. I imagine that this gentleman, who the dolls give overriding authority on paper to protect themselves not all that long ago, should be able to stop the crew getting inebriated regularly. He did that earlier, before the days of the headmasters, didn’t he?


Sure, have a zero tolerance for drunkenness. Use the breathanalysers and urine testers freely. Let the axe fall on defaulters. However, for those many companies that bar any alcohol at all on board (and, if you are an Indian seaman, there are too many), I say this: Treat people like adults. Leave some things to the good sense of the individual and the Master. In addition, in Ronald Reagan’s words, trust but verify. Your crews are responsible for much bigger things than a bottle of beer. If most of them can handle those, most of them can handle a beer too.


Instances of alcohol abuse have sometimes occurred when people drink too much just before their ship is due to sail. Remember the Exxon Valdez? In many such cases, the reason people drink too much ashore is that no alcohol is available on board after sailing. If it were, they would not be tempted to go on a binge, I think, and certainly not at a waterfront bar just before sailing. Why do that when you can enjoy a drink in peace in the open sea?


This Master, for example, would rather have his single Margarita a day or two after sailing out of port, when in the open sea, rather than just before departure. That is just common sense. Besides, have any of the matryoshka dolls making these rules sailed in recent times with port stays, regulations and short manned crews being what they are? Come on, we are fudging port rest periods here. Do you think we have time to get sozzled regularly?


A couple of years ago I sailed on board a Scandinavian vessel before it was taken over by us. The Master, officers and crew were liberal in their intake of alcohol with every meal, and on most evenings, weekend barbecues and parties. Although Margaritas were not on offer, everything from beer to cognac to Schnapps was. Having seen and heard of similar instances where at least some Western mariners are allowed, by their companies, to drink alcohol freely on board, I wondered why the head masterly ‘zero alcohol’ rules seemed to be reserved largely for Asian mariners.


In this context, a slightly surreal story is that of Capt. Phimister’s recent trail in the UK. In November 2007, Capt. Phimister went ashore from the support vessel ‘VOS Viper’ with Chief Officer Gordon Buchan to celebrate his own birthday; when they returned, the Chief Officer, subsequently found to have four times the permissible blood alcohol level, boarded the vessel and died after falling down some steps. The Captain was charged with breaching the vessel’s safety management system, and was fined 1800 pounds last month for allowing an ‘over the limit’ crewmember back on board. The British Union Nautilus points to increasing seafarer criminalisation and calls these developments ‘extremely disturbing’, adding that the Master’s decision to allow Mr. Buchan back on board was one in which he was ‘between a rock and a hard place’. What was he to do? Leave Mr. Buchan on the pier? What would have happened to him there? What if he had fallen and died on the pier instead of on board?


While explaining his reasons for letting the Chief Officer board the vessel, Capt. Phimister had earlier elaborated that the ship was not scheduled to leave for twenty four hours and there were other (and sufficient) crewmembers on board in case she was required to shift berth. Nautilus may be right when it says that this case raises ‘fundamental questions about the responsibilities of masters and the workings of the ISM Code’.


If these draconian rules must exist at the expense of all common sense, then this Master would like to see them extended to other matryoshka dolls, please. What about the ‘Zero Alcohol’ policy applying to people in other critical positions in the industry? Let’s see, now, by the same reasoning, no alcohol should be allowed to pass the lips of DPAs, Superintendents and others in emergency response systems or teams, Shipmanagement company senior managers, outsourced oil spill response personnel, and many, many such more. Not a drop. Ever. At any time of the day or night.


Sounds absurd? Then welcome to Bulgakov’s satire. Welcome, also, to Stalin and the devil’s Kafkaesque alternative.

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Paper Boats in the Age of Plausible Deniability

I have some doubts whether the implementation of the International Safety Management Code has translated into 'safer seas and cleaner oceans' to half the extent which it sought to do.

Specifically, I have doubts whether bookish Management principles, if applied willy nilly and with no periodic overview for practicability, (which is, unfortunately, the way that they have been applied) will ever make a substantial difference to safety at sea. (SOLAS existed before ISM, and the two are not to be used synonymously, in my view.)

Even more specifically, I have grave doubts, given that the world at sea is still more a place for sweat, grease, grime, soap, dirty overalls and blisters than it is for checklists, that using paper as a substitute for any of these does anything except contribute a veneer.

This veneer is plausible deniability if something goes wrong. This veneer is hiding behind reports and using checklists as shields.


Like junk bonds, the window dressing of dubious paper at sea is encouraged in many ways:

· The first is, of course, that not a single additional person is usually provided on board for all the additional paperwork. Ashore, each organisation would perhaps employ a battery of clerks to assist. On board, all we do is encourage the Master and crew to become clerks. Ridiculous.


· Pre joining paperwork and briefings: High levels of the former and absurdly low levels of the latter. Shore personnel in reputed companies often do not know or cannot even make available basics like the ship's particulars. Briefing?


· Certain nationalities join with thick files of tests and certificates for every person. Quantity is supposed to imply quality here.

· Mandatory Training requirements have ballooned over the years; the quality of training is usually best forgotten.

· Ponderous ISM manuals in a language not understood by most of the crew and many officers. Maybe we should make an Honours degree in English Literature compulsory for seafarers, many of whom sign a half dozen manuals as read in ten minutes anyway.

· Reams of checklists. An extremely agile mind is required to keep track of which checklists have to be filled when. One often faces absurd scenarios when people are running around filling checklists instead of contributing to operational requirements. It is not surprising that checklists are sometimes filled up hours or days after they are supposed to, and predated.

· Audits by Company and shore personnel sometimes degenerates into an exercise to make the paperwork look good; fixing a non conformity operationally is sometimes given less importance than closing the paperwork on it. Clerical satisfaction sometimes overtakes professional satisfaction, absurdly enough.

· The percentage of time spent by Officers on board ships doing administrative tasks has increased dramatically. Since the fixed number of humans on a ship cannot create time (maybe we need a training programme for that) so far, the clear implication is that time spent on paper is taking away from much more critical tasks, the ones that actually contribute to safety . Who gives a damn about this?

· Reports, handover notes, Non conformity reports and such are now made at sea with an eye (and a groan) on how much administration they will additionally generate. Deficiencies are not report often because of this; sometimes they are fixed outside the system.

· Administrative issues including recommendations and requirements post a Superintendent's or other audits are often slowly implemented and passed on to a reliever if possible.



The implementation of the International Safety Management Code starts with frenetic efforts to qualify for the Safety Management Certificate (SMC) on board and the Document of Compliance (DOC) in the office. Many seafarers are openly cynical about this exercise, as was a Master who witnessed a first Administration external audit being conducted between 1 and 3 am during an 11 hour stay in port. This, in a language which he could not understand but was common between most of the crew and the auditors (even though the declared language as per ISM was English). All the while, the crew were red eyed, bunkering was in progress and about twenty percent of the crew were being relieved, including the Second Engineer. (A SMC was issued immediately on completion of the audit).

Post initial certification and this being a cyclical industry where cost differentiation is a major factor, managers are increasingly under pressure to keep costs down. This usually translates into pushing administration onto overworked and ill trained crews, many of whom are not computer or language literate enough to handle the increased paperwork ISM involves, or indeed to even understand the Company’s manuals. Meanwhile, shore personnel, similarly not qualified or able to manage the ever increasing statutory requirements thrust upon them, pass on everything to the ship. No overview of existing paperwork, no oversight on conflicting requirements and no attempt to streamline the ISM system or junk older checklists and filing. The resultant chaos is not unexpected.

Barring a handful of Companies, most, including well known management companies worldwide, do not seem to have any budgets even for sufficient computers for officers and crew, leave alone software and email arrangements which would make documentation paperless and easily transferable. There are usually minimum additional resources made available for implementation of the Code, including training, manpower and material. The system is supposed to manage with more or less the same resources.


Commitment aside, in large parts of the world, even the older Marpol and SOLAS regulations are still incompletely followed. Port officials, including Port State Control inspectors are often bribed to turn a blind eye to many deficiencies, and, indeed, will create deficiencies where none exist if they are not taken care of. Superimposing new rules over such old ones is counterproductive.

Commercial pressures threaten to override many issues, including Safety and Marpol regulatory issues. There are companies who will perhaps spend the money, but there are very few companies who will delay vessels in order to implement the Code.

There is also a widespread belief that in some developed countries, political, chauvinistic and regional considerations are being used to unfairly target and detain ships from other continents, countries or with crew of some nationalities.

The role of the Master has undergone, literally, a sea change. Over the last twenty five years, there has been steady erosion of his authority though his responsibility has increased. Instances like the Erika demonstrate that though it is quite a simple matter to arrest a Master, it is quite another matter when it comes to taking action against a country or a classification society or a company, some of which are widely held to be the real guilty parties in many such cases.

Even on a day to day basis, ease of communication has meant many managers wanting to dictate to the Master on all issues, including safety and pollution issues on which the Master is usually the best judge. There is thus tremendous pressure on Masters, and therefore crews, to bend regulations, including the Code, at every step. With increased documentation, this has put additional pressure on Masters. As one Master put it to me, “earlier the Company wanted me to lie verbally. Now they want me to lie in writing”


Masters and Crew are then prone to taking the easy way out and ignoring regulations even when not pressured to do so.

The impression one gets is that a large part of the Industry is being carried down the ISM route kicking and screaming. In Europe and the US, inspections are becoming more stringent and detention of ships more likely. Recently some European countries have come under pressure for “incomplete” inspections. One view is that as time passes, stricter controls will spread worldwide and compliance will become more the norm than the exception. Perhaps.



The objectives of the ISM Code were "to ensure safety at sea, prevention of human injury or loss of life, and avoidance of damage to the environment, in particular, to the marine environment, and to property.” Excuse me, gentlemen, but you missed the part of generating paper and checklists like confetti, because that is what the exercise often gets reduced to.


Recently, a Shell tanker, the Ficus, ran aground off New Providence Island in the Bahamas because the Master was busy doing paperwork in his cabin and did not reach the bridge as scheduled. It is easy to say ‘human error’ and ‘error of servant’ and collect the insurance.

More difficult is acknowledging the possibility that the deluge of paper a ship is snowed under may be inherently detrimental to safety.










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Undermining Overriding Authority.

The International Safety Management Code mandates, in respect to the Master’s overriding authority that , “The Company should establish in the SMS that the master has the overriding authority and the responsibility to make decisions with respect to safety and pollution prevention and to request the Company's assistance as may be necessary.”

It goes on to say, importantly that, “If senior management's commitment to the system and the company's efforts to improve safety and environmental protection performance are to be translated into effective action on board, Masters should be given every encouragement and assistance to implement the system. Any system of checks and balances implemented by shore based management should allow for, and sit comfortably with, the master's overriding authority and discretion to take whatever action he considers to be in the best interests of passengers, crew, the ship and the marine environment.”

To complete this wonderful picture, it asks the Company to ensure that the master is, amongst other things, “given the necessary support so that the master's duties can be safely performed.”


How nice. They should have a preamble, “Once upon a time”, so we would know at once that this is a fairy tale.


The only thing that is well and truly established, in practice, is the sentence of death in a manual somewhere that establishes the Master’s overriding authority on paper. After that, everybody heaves a sigh of relief at having successfully passed the buck and goes home.

Not only that, this is often touted as a ‘trick question’ and used by many auditors. Like schoolchildren, senior Masters are asked, “Where does it say ‘overriding authority’ in the ISM manual?”

No lollipop for the wrong answer. It would be hilarious if it weren’t so pathetic.


In practice and in my experience, the “Master’s overriding authority” is often a hollow term selectively used by managements. Its use to them is restricted to finding a mandated patsy; other than that, managements often behave as if ‘overriding authority’ is insignificant, even irrelevant.


In atrocious weather on a damaged ship not that long ago, there was expressed consternation when I requested allegedly reputed managers, on the phone, to get me expert technical advice on the residual structural strength of one critical and weather damaged part of the ship. The clear implication, said in so many words, was that I was somehow overreacting, and that ‘we know best’ (even though ‘we’ have not sailed for a decade each and our sensitive parts are not in a sling right now, as mine was). The fact that I pointed out, having worked ashore, that this would require just one phone call to one manufacturer and that it would help me make an important decision, was ignored. Mommy knows best. Or, how dare you have any ideas? Or, what can you really do, now that you are sailing and due to sign off. Not come back to us? Don’t.


Wonder what happened to the ‘give the Master necessary support’ bit in the ISM, or ensuring that the Master can ask for assistance where necessary. Assistance, not control.

Forget the emergency. Egos must be fed regardless and bean counting must continue. Absurd and disgusting.


Then there is the instance where I rang up Operations with a cyclone in the vicinity and told him that many vessels had sort refuge in a nearby port, or not sailed out under advice. However, since I understood the commercial implications of doing so, I was steaming at slow speed in sheltered waters close by, waiting for the storm to blow over and postponing the refuge decision. (I have the bad habit of telling managers the truths they should know about. Some people never learn.)

Panic at the other end at the possibility that I might seek refuge. Did I know how many problems that would create? Charterers would kill him. Capt. Xyz on another Company vessel was in the same port refusing to sail out: Owner’s wanted to ‘sack him’. And finally, a veiled threat, telling me to seriously reconsider. (In a similar scenario, I was once advised by a Company Superintendent to make copies of log books etc. ‘for my own protection’. I told him I didn’t need any, though management might.)


On the flip side, one can imagine the respect I have for one Superintendent who told me, in an emergency, to “do what you think is best. I will back you. Let me know if you need anything.”


My point is that the very possibility of the Master making an emergency decision often throws everybody in a tizzy. The overwhelming response is to push him into continuing with business as usual, if possible, or to hide pertinent facts from other parties. Managements want to mislead owners to score brownie points (or to avoid having the book thrown at them), Owners want to mislead charterers and so on; it’s like Spy vs. Spy out of Mad Magazine at times out there.


Owners and managers will sometimes cajole, bluff, lie, haggle and blame each other to keep expectations low. Manage with substandard staff, these are tough times. The spares are arriving at the next port. Owners are not agreeing to an extra officer even though one is required, but don’t worry, we are pushing for one, or at least a cadet (I need an experienced hand for safe operations and you are sending me a trainee?). The shipchandler goofed up. Ask the Chief Engineer if he can ‘manage’ without Oily Water Separator spares for another round trip. Can you hide important safety related stuff from the surveyor?

With each of those common instances, the implication is that the Master, officers and crew are ever ready to continue to sail on that near substandard ship. At each stage, these kinds of managers are daring the Master to exercise his overriding authority and refuse to sail unless issues are safely addressed. They know most won’t; statistics tell them so, and so do spineless Masters. (I confess that, at times, I have been one of them.)


This is part of the game, too. Wear the Master down if you can’t control his predilection for exercising his authority. In normal times this is an irritant. In an emergency, this is life threatening.


You should realise, gentlemen, that this is an emergency, and listen to what the bozo with the four stripes is telling you. You found him qualified and experienced and put him there. He is not your enemy. He may even be on your side.

Realise also that all of you ashore, regardless of rank or ego, are a support function and no more. Expert opinions, including yours, are welcome. Undermining the Master’s authority by any overt or covert means is against the letter and spirit of the very same Code otherwise found convenient by you when passing the buck, and is not welcome at all.


If this is unacceptable to you, please take over part of the Master’s responsibility, if legislation lets you. Then, and only then, can you take away some of his authority too.


In industry everywhere, authority and responsibility go hand in hand. However, the Master’s authority at sea is being constantly eroded while his responsibility is actually increasing. This happens when countries legislate or criminalise on matters which are not in the Master’s control. This happens when companies don’t match talk with action. This happens when Master’s are overwhelmed in today’s fast turnaround times with regular legislative and other issues and no shore support. This happens when the ‘Master’s overriding authority’ is used as a vacuous phrase, like a politicians promise at election time, with no muscle behind it.


This happens so often that it smells of a conspiracy.

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Bipolar disorder

(Also known as manic depression. Extreme changes in mood, energy levels and behavior.)



Right up into the early eighties, we sailors used to look forward to the next port. Often, after weeks of sailing, it meant a break from monotony and sometimes from hardship; many ships were old and usually without air conditioning or heating. We looked forward the long port stays, working like dogs during our watches or during the day and then going ashore like kings. Communicating home was another attraction of making port; letters came only there, phone calls were possible, sometimes with great difficulty, only in port. Shopping, drinking, and otherwise letting our hair down was expected, even encouraged. A German Master I sailed with as an officer used to get angry if he saw me on board outside my watch keeping hours. An Indian Chief Officer used to tell us cadets, with the usual profanity thrown in, “Roger off from the ship. If I see you on board you will be chipping the whole night”.

In short, we behaved like sailors on shore leave, and it didn't make us poorer seamen because of it.

There was not much thought given to port officials, the US Coast guard, superintendents and surveys. Those happened anyway, nothing too alarming to worry about. And Superintendents, in Indian companies at least, came aboard only in Indian ports. Foreign company bosses were not so problematic or egotistical, and not under the pressure they are today.

Sometime, in the eighties and later, things changed. The recession hit. Ships and cargo became more unitised. Turnaround times decreased rapidly. The industry learned how to run ships cheaply, with minimum maintenance and short manning. One started hearing the adage “A ship does not make money in port” more often. Regulations fell on us like a ton of bricks. Chief Stewards and then Radio Officers disappeared. Workloads increased dramatically and paperwork increased to ridiculous levels. The ISM code, and later, the ISPS code, hit us. Checklists checkmated the most intrepid. Short manning now became the norm. Criminalisation of the profession became more common and dreaded. Short of going to the loo, we had checklists for everything. (Aside- a hilarious Chief Officer I sailed with had this checklist, too, stuck in his cabin. Right from opening the door in the beginning to using air freshener at the end, everything was covered and had to be ticked!)

As port calls started being measured in hours rather than days, as regulations and paperwork choked the fun out of sailing, as clerks and minor officials were given powers disproportionate to their knowledge and responsibility and as everybody from ashore became a pain in the neck in one way or another, as all this happened, the fear and distaste for the shore establishment, from boarding officials to Superintendents to the Coast Guard to everybody in between, became more widespread.

Most seafarers today prefer long sailings over long port stays any day. Simply put, there is minimum interference from the shore establishment at sea. Sure, there are the usual emails, some horrendously long winded and autocratic. (Companies should really put in place an email policy which stresses that the shore establishment is a support function, not a control one). Sure, at sea there are maintenance schedules and watches to keep, ubiquitous paperwork to catch up on, periodical and ever increasing reports to be made… but there is no chance of a clerk landing up and threatening to fine the ship because a garbage can has its lid displaced, or an environment guy saying that the tyres of vehicles being imported carry 'foreign' dirt and therefore he will stop cargo operations unless 'the Captain can be cooperative'. There is no chance of a ship chandler's delivery guy calling up the Master on his mobile and even satellite phone (the Master having just gone to sleep after two days without any) and asking the crew to be sent down to receive stores. There is no chance of a Ministry of Agriculture functionary demanding ten cartons of cigarettes because she found a spider in the provision room rice. There is no chance of a Superintendent arriving for two days with an agenda that should cover ten. No chance, also, of a Port State Control inspection which was done ten days ago and is being repeated now to 'train some of our youngsters, hope the Captain doesn't mind'. There is no chance of being bombarded with a dozen different people all of whom seem to think the crew exists just to service their often minor needs. There is no chance of being mentally and physically stressed by people one wouldn't give the time of day to in other, different circumstances.

No exaggeration. All that has happened to me, and surely to almost everybody at sea.


The distaste and dismissiveness for the 'other side' is not limited to seafarers. An ex Master now in port operations gleefully and dismissively says, "We visit the ship, but we don't even go up to see the Captain". A senior functionary of a huge manning company says, with less tact and even lesser sense, "If seafarers behave like prostitutes they will be treated as such". A charterer's representative takes great pleasure in seeing the Master ten times a day for minor matters which could have been sorted out at the gangway; he also needs a more comfortable cabin to spend time in, given that today's ships are not built with well appointed spare ones. A US Coast guard inspector wants everything including six drills yesterday, when the ship berthed ten minutes ago. A ship chandler's delivery guy arrives with parts of his body apparently on fire, and knocks on all crew and officer cabin doors at three in the morning, the crew having just gone to sleep after arrival. He is kept waiting six hours, which increases communication with his boss remarkably well.

And, in these days of mobile phones, well, they just don't seem to stop ringing. Not unless you switch them off, which once created some friction between yours truly and the Managers of the ship, who seemed to believe that a telephone operators job was part of my job description. Things were sorted out only after I threatened to throw the phone overboard instead of switching it off. Batteries and charger included.

Antagonism within an industry is hardly uncommon. Operations and management are often at loggerheads everywhere, fighting turf wars and ego battles and the usual useless things. But in the end, in almost all other industries except shipping, saner brains realise that they need to work together and not against each other. Hang together, or we will surely hang separately.

This does not work in Shipping for one reason and one reason alone. The crew and management have no long term association plans worth speaking of. Even after ten back to back contracts, nobody at sea really belongs to an organisation. Everybody is temporary, and the maximum that can usually happen is that a seafarer will not return or will not be recalled. Besides the alarm this may cause in these days of shortages, nobody, deep down, really cares about that.

Besides, we in Shipping have a unique disorder, akin to a manic depressive or bipolar disorder. Depending on shortages or excesses of manpower and the imperatives of demand and supply in this cyclical industry, we treat each other either as prospective bridegrooms for our daughters, or something the cat brought in.

Small wonder, then, that this is an additional negative for a youngster contemplating the sea as a career. And, while one can always blame the economic boom in India for the increasing unattractiveness of the sea as a career option, we ignore the perception of Shipping as a backward profession at our own peril. And this perception, that it treats its professionals like bonded labour being sent to the Middle East, is not without justification.


Fix this, my friends, or we will never be home free.




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