AMSA: How to manage fatigue onboard

AMSA has developed guidance to assist owners and operators of commercial vessels to identify and manage fatigue in their operations.

What is fatigue?

Fatigue is a state of weariness. It can develop quickly, for example if you are doing heavy lifting. It can also develop slowly, for example if you lose an hour of sleep a few nights in a row.

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A survey of more than 1000 crew working across a wide range of commercial vessels in Australia found a concerning knowledge gap when it came to identifying and managing fatigue. Of the 1000 survey participants:

One in three began work on a vessel already in a fatigued state
40% had less than six hours of sleep in any given 24-hour period
Survey participants struggled to identify lesser-known behavioural signs of fatigue like slurred speech and risk taking
50% had not received any fatigue management training or guidance.

What causes fatigue and how can you manage it?

Lack of quality sleep, body clock disruptions, work tasks and structure, environmental factors in the workplace, lifestyle including diet and personal responsibilities at home, all influence the onset of fatigue and should be considered as part of a holistic approach to managing fatigue.

Lack of quality sleep

Generally, people need between 7-9 hours of sleep per night to perform adequately and effectively. Any less than this can result in fatigue. Most accidents involving fatigue follow a lack of sleep or poor quality sleep. Poor quality sleep is when your sleep is disturbed by things like light, noise, motion, alcohol, drugs or stress. Fatigue can also accumulate when you do not get extra sleep to make up for lost sleep – sometimes referred to as a ‘sleep debt’.

Mitigation: Work with crew members to examine what a typical 24-hour period looks like for them, factoring in the time spent working and time spent on other activities like commuting and being at home with loved ones. Help them identify a window for sleep, where they can have a minimum guaranteed 7 hours of quality, uninterrupted sleep. The need for this should be communicated with the crew member’s support network, which includes their fellow crewmates and loved ones ashore, and factored into workplace operations as an absolute priority.

Body clock disruptions

Humans have evolved to spend about a third of their lives sleeping. Our body clocks naturally program us to be drowsy in the late afternoon and sleep at night. Shift work is sometimes an unavoidable part of working on the water, which is why body clock disruptions must be carefully managed to reduce the risk of fatigue impacting safety.

Mitigation: If possible, avoid scheduling critical operations between the hours of 3am-6am and 3pm-5pm, when crew are most likely to be drowsy or have an urge to sleep. If that’s not possible due to the nature of your operation, ensure other mitigation strategies are in place as outlined in this guidance hub.

Work and job design

Common features of work and job design that lead to fatigue are:

A long workday
Physical tasks
Boring or repetitive work
Few or no breaks
A pay system that encourages long hours
Inadequate time for sleep between work operations
Unpredictable work schedules
Sleep opportunities during natural times of high alertness
Mentally demanding tasks.

Mitigation: Consider implementing short rest breaks during operations, rotating activities that crew have been assigned to (where appropriate) and creating opportunities for strategic napping. Research shows that naps as short as 10 to 15 minutes can deliver measurable benefits and help maintain performance while staving off fatigue.

Environment

The maritime work environment is stressful on crew and can make fatigue from lack of sleep worse. Common environmental stressors on crew are cold, vibration, heat, noise and vessel motion.

Mitigation: If crew are out on the water for a prolonged period of time and need to sleep on the vessel, remove or implement buffers for environmental stressors to facilitate quality, uninterrupted sleep. This can include providing a dark, quiet, warm and comfortable place, as well as adequate time for restorative sleep. Consider minor changes to the physical environment to improve quality of sleep, this could include basic sound proofing and black-out curtains.

Lifestyle and home

The impacts of a crew member’s lifestyle and home demands must be factored into an holistic approach to fatigue management.

Balancing the need for time at work, commuting to and from work, time with loved ones and other personal responsibilities at home often results in sacrifices being made when it comes to quality sleep.

Diet, fitness, alcohol and drug use are lifestyle factors that can also impact quality sleep and a crew member’s susceptibility to fatigue.

Mitigation: Lifestyle factors and home demands may not be within the strict control of a commercial vessel owner or operator, but that doesn’t negate the need to increase awareness of the benefits that a healthy lifestyle and supportive home environment can have on increasing a crew member’s resilience against fatigue. Where it can’t be controlled, it should be factored into operational planning.