Fatigue is one of the key safety risks facing seafarers
On April 3rdh, 2011, bulkcarrier “Shen Neng 1” hit a coral reef off the Australian west coast. In its final report on the grounding the Australian Transport Safety Bureau put forward that the chief mate was fatigued, affecting his performance as Officer of the Watch (OOW).
Fatigue is one of the key safety risks facing seafarers, and watchkeepers in particular.
The ATSB urged ship operators to comply with international requirements and properly manage the hours of work and rest of watchkeepers. And the report stated that a succession of quite simple and small errors on the part of a tired crew led to the ships grounding, a problem that rests with the flagstate of a ship, as they are the party that decides what is the minimal safe manning of a ship(based on IMO resolution A.890(21).
Normally, this IMO resolution sets out high standards, but flagstates do not follow this IMO-resolution, leading to very lowsafe manning crew numbers on ships. An example: Panama-flagged VLCCs may sail with a captain and two mates, and thats perfectly legal.
Serious shipping companies make their own assesment of necessary crew levels onboard; but other companies just go with the (deflated) crew numbers on the safe manning certificate.
Only recently, Port State Control officials (Paris MOU) have been writing deficiencies against low safe manning, tackling the root of the problem; namely the flagstates.
Another connected issue is the actual bridge complement; STCW-95, VIII-15 states:
The lookout is -day and night- standard modus operandi. By daytime, the lookout can be removed from the bridge; but only after careful assesment. This, in many cases, has been nibbled away to a mere OOW solo on the bridge, day or night, in all circumstances.A poor level of manning induces fatigue, and is a root cause for maritime accidents.
B.N.A.W.S., or Bridge Navigational Watch Alarm System is a system that will be phased in onboard ships in the coming year(s).
The system was proposed to IMO by Denmark. Denmark already had national legislation on watch alarms, since the M/V Karen Danielsen crashed into the Great Belt bridge in 2005. This too was caused by -amongst others- fatigue.
IMO agreed on the idea, set up a time schedule for phasing in BNWAS, and wrote performance standards for the system.
BNWAS is -basically- a watch alarm system that requests bridge watchkeeping crew to periodically push a button; if not an alarm is triggered in the cabins of deck officers, and the captain.
BNWAS is aimed to detect inability of the watchkeeping crew on the bridge of a vessel.
BNWAS is a piece of kit that may facilitate single-handed watchkeeping, and it may be perceived by many ashore as aquick-and-easy fix of fatigue problems.
Watchkeepers falling asleep ? Put a buzzer beside them to keep them awake.
A modern bridge is already overflowing with alarms and buzzers; all frittering away the watchkeepers attention, distracting from his main task. A system equipped with motion sensors is much less intruding. (But some flagstates refuse motion sensors.)
BNWAS is no magic potion: it will do nothing for the tired watchkeeper; to help him avoid a succession of quite simple and small erroros”, the chain of errors than can lead to a catastrophe. It does not guarantee that a watchkeeper is mentally fit. Ships fitted with watch alarms have already crashed into islands, coral reefs, the works.
BNWAS is not adressing the real problems in the shipping industry, like undermanning, proper hours of rest, etc
Watchkeepers can become unable for a number of reasons; not only sleep. A watch alarm is an extra safety net, to warn others onboard about a disabled watchkeeper.
And that is, in some situations, enough to save the day, without prejudice
Source: gCaptain
