HE01265 - The Human Factor
David Smith reports for Shipping World & Shipbuilder, June 2014, on the latest research into seafarer fatigue, as it relates to ships’ engineers, and the importance of safety culture in marine casualties. Keywords: seafarer fatigue; engineers; safety culture; casualties; casualty
The widely acclaimed book The Human Element: a Guide to Human Behaviour in the Shipping Industry, published by the UK2019s MCA, comments that issues of reduced manning, increased workload and resulting fatigue have continued to play a major role in many maritime accidents to the present day.
While groundings and collisions are often the types of accidents in which fatigue is identified as one of the causal factors 2013 usually within the navigation watch there have also been incidents where fatigue within the engineering staff has been cited, but perhaps with less spectacular consequences, such as Safe Concordia (2005), River Embley (2010) and Ever Excel (2010). Furthermore, while fatigue is relatively easy to identify as a causal factor in a major casualty, when for example, work records might establish that the officer-of-the-watch held responsible for the casualty had had little sleep in the previous 24h, it is less likely to come to light if, for example, an engineer suffering from fatigue had made an error during machinery overhaul which subsequently lead to a much later significant failure or loss of life.
The most recent research into fatigue of seafarers was the Horizon Project which looked into the effects that watchkeeping patterns have on the performance of deck and engineering officers.
The research, carried out under controlled conditions using bridge and engine-room simulators at Warsash Maritime Academy (UK) and Chalmers University of Technology (Sweden) simulated a one-week voyage in the North Sea under six on and six off and four on and eight off watch systems.
Experienced deck and engineer officers participated in the study during which subjective and objective performance measures were monitored during a range of real-life, real-time scenarios of voyage, workload and off-watch interruptions.
As well as providing further evidence of degraded performance on six on/six off watch systems and a better understanding of sleepiness under both watchkeeping regimes, the study findings were used to generate data to enable the development of a mathematical model that predicts sleepiness at sea which is a critical predictor of fatigue. This culminated in the development of a prototype tool 2013 MARTHA an acronym derived from a Maritime Alertness Regulation Tool based on hours of work. While the report on the research project (available at www.projecthorizon.eu) recognises the need for further research on the impact on fatigue of parameters such as weather conditions, onboard noise and the effects of long periods at sea 2013 and prototype testing of the tool at sea has revealed some problems with user-friendliness which are currently being addressed 2013 the work is nevertheless significant. The outcome of the project was presented by the UK to IMO2019s sub-committee on Standards of Training and Watchkeeping (STW) in April 2013 and following from the discussions of the work there was general recognition that IMO should look afresh at fatigue issues.
At the beginning of this year the revised IMO sub-committee structure came into effect, which resulted in the former STW sub-committee taking on the earlier role of the Human Element Working Group to become the sub-committee on Human Element, Training and Watchkeeping (HTW). At its first meeting, held in April this year, Australia contributed to the debate with a paper setting out its proposals for the development and adoption of a holistic Fatigue Risk Management System (FRMS).
he01265 - The human factor.pdf