200620 Fatigue in chemical trade

 

My vessel loaded from Malaysian and Indonesian ports arrived Europe with a heated cargo of different grades of palm oil in the winter. Enroute, the passage was uneventful, except transiting Suez and heating of cargo. Total passage to northern Europe is about 25 days.

After coming alongside the vessel will be discharging four parcels alongside and four parcels to coasters. Head office is kept well informed about berths and coaster arrival schedules. Coasters are arranged by owners and as per instructions received, should not experience any delay when coming alongside for loading. The boarding supervisor is on board to monitor cargo operations and tank cleaning. Any slackness on the part of the crew is added as remarks in the report.

Total deck crew comprises a chief officer, two duty officers, three ABS, one OS, pump man, bosun and two cadets.

Due to the hectic schedule and freezing nature of the cargo, the chief officer spends all his time in the cargo control room to monitor cargo operations. Duty officers are continuously on, six-on six-off. Crew are distributed as follows: 0600-1200 and 1800-2400: pump man, AB1, AB2 and cadet; 1200-1800 and 0000-0600: bosun, AB3, OS, cadet.

Except for fatty acids, all cargoes need squeezing while stripping. This requires the crew to go inside hot tanks to do manual squeezing. Coils are hot and tanks are slippery. Any delay in squeezing can cause the cargo to freeze at the bottom and this can lead to residue on board or delay by several hours in discharge of cargoes.

From each watch, the pumpman and one cadet stay on top for operations and the crew go inside for squeezing. But with only two crew members it is not possible to complete squeezing. In view of this, all crew members, including those off watch, are called out for squeezing tanks. It is important to provide a gap in the stripping of tanks; however at times these gaps can't be more then 15 minutes and immediately on completion the crew has to enter into other tanks. The workload increases when the cargo stops flowing due to freezing, when the level of cargo goes below heating coils.

On completion of discharge, the vessel is to proceed to the North Sea for tank cleaning. The next cargo is chemicals including some fine chemicals like paraxylene, MEK, acetone, iso-butane etc, with loading to take place in three consecutive ports. The time allocated for cleaning of 28 tanks is four days, to wash tanks with hot water followed by detergent and finally rinsing. Duty officers can't participate in tank cleaning as they are engaged in navigational watches. The chief officer, after the completion of discharge, is busy with the tank cleaning schedule.

It takes almost three days to wash tanks and one to prepare the tanks for loading. When we are about to complete washing, we return for loading to avoid any delays. Tank cleaning involves manual cleaning after an initial pre-wash to remove traces of the last cargo. Sometimes acid tanks need re-cleaning if not properly cleaned first. Once again, prior to arrival you will receive the schedule of berth rotation and coasters in the first loading port. Immediately on arrival, surveyors come onboard to take wall-wash tank tests to avoid delays at other berths. This shifting on berth and loading takes about three days in port.

After loading, the vessel is to proceed to two other nearby loading ports. After the first port, pressure reduces as the number of tanks to be loaded reduces. Total discharge, tank cleaning and back loading takes about 12 days.

So in all, those 12 days of discharge tank cleaning and back-loading are full of work with no proper rest. Rest hours' violation becomes common. With so much work in hand, you have to worry about the surveyors passing the tanks and the reports given by the boarding supervisor. On chemical tankers, an additional duty officer, who can assist the chief officer in tank cleaning operations, should be a must.

Ed note: This report was submitted to the Institute's fatigue survey so the author has concentrated on the work hours rather than safety issues. It is reproduced in MARS because of the obvious effect that such a schedule may have on safe operations. These include:

• The crew working in hot, slippery cargo tanks while fatigued.
• The ship operating on a six-hour, two-watch system in the North Sea.
• The potential for mistakes during loading operations.
• The potential for inadequate supervision of tank entry and work.