201461 Fatigue wake-up call for shore-based personnel

07 Nov 2014 MARS

Fatigue, and its deleterious effects on judgement, often feature in MARS reports. Usually, these reports concern on-board operations, but I have long been concerned about fatigue amongst shore-based employees of the marine industry. The marine transport industry works 24/7, 365 days a year, and the vessel’s shore-based support team have to keep the same pace as the ships. Flag State/Port State Inspectors, pilots, agents, chandlers, repair technicians, classification society and P & I surveyors all work long, gruelling hours. And to get to and from the job-site, they usually drive cars.

On one occasion as a marine inspector, I was driving home at the end of a very long work day and I fell asleep at the wheel. Fortunately, the motorway was equipped with lateral rumble strips and the noise and
vibration woke me before I crashed. I am personally aware of two other serious incidents. In one, a cargo inspector departed the job-site in the early hours of the morning after a long day loading a bulk-carrier. He fell asleep at the wheel and drove into a ditch; fortunately without injuries. In another incident, a classification society surveyor driving on a remote road in winter hit a patch of black ice. He skidded off the highway, down a steep slope, and crashed into rocks sustaining career-ending injuries.

I am concerned that the marine industry’s shore-based support staff are subject to the same dangers of fatigue as mariners, but without comparable awareness of the risks of fatigue.