# How many hours are you actually working onboard?



## Brianne Jane Wright (Nov 8, 2013)

Hello All,

I am conducting a pilot study into an officer’s hours of work during the day to day running of a ship with the aim of:
- Determining the level of minimum manning based on the number of hours it actually takes to run a vessel
- To identify if the MSN 1767 manning guidance is realistic

The implications of undermanning are long established and widely recognised. Exxon Valdez in 1989, Jambo in 2003 and Pasha Bulker in 2007 are just a few examples of how undermanning and the resulting increased workload and fatigue can cause serious incidents.*

The MLC guidelines regulate the seafarer’s hours of work or rest, therefore, if the number of actual work hours it takes to run a vessel were known, it would be possible to calculate the necessary level of manning.

Due to the small scale of this study, it is unlikely that the required hours of work for all vessel types, cargos, trading areas etc will be defined. However, if some findings are made, it may prove the validity of such an investigation to be recreated in future studies.

Unfortunately, I only have approximately two weeks (from today: 02.04.2015) to collect as much data as possible before analysis. If you would like to contribute to the investigation, please follow the link below or paste it into your search bar. I shall post the final results later this month or next. I have already written a background review entitled ‘Is minimum manning, safe manning?’ that I would be happy to email to those who may be interested to read it. Furthermore, please comment below as I am very interested to hear your opinion on the matter.

https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/hoursofworkmanning

 Hope to hear from you all

 Thank you


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## Keltic Star (Jan 21, 2006)

In my day on home trade tankers in the winter, it was regularly "16 on and stay on" and we never hit anything or ran aground even without radar, gyro compass or lookouts.


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## Robert Hilton (Feb 13, 2011)

Keltic Star said:


> In my day on home trade tankers in the winter, it was regularly "16 on and stay on" and we never hit anything or ran aground even without radar, gyro compass or lookouts.


You can endure that sort of routine if it's just watches and cargo work. When paper work is added that doesn't make you any safer, but only absolves management from responsibility, the effect can be crushing - and stultifying.


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## Robert Hilton (Feb 13, 2011)

Good luck and more power to you. However I fear the following:

If you show the manning to be inadequate your research will be rejected as superficial, unrepresentative, or somehow flawed. If you show it to be adequate it will be taken up as a definitive study showing all is correct and published everywhere.


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## Brianne Jane Wright (Nov 8, 2013)

Yes I completely agree. Due to the size of this particular study and the limited resources and time available, that may be the case. 
Although the results would obviously not be representative of every single officer which fits into a certain category, ship type for example, I shall hopefully be able to make preliminary conclusions on the basis of that data. If the conclusions are valid in the number of responses saying the same thing, hopefully it may be grounds for a larger scale study!




Robert Hilton said:


> Good luck and more power to you. However I fear the following:
> 
> If you show the manning to be inadequate your research will be rejected as superficial, unrepresentative, or somehow flawed. If you show it to be adequate it will be taken up as a definitive study showing all is correct and published everywhere.


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## Keltic Star (Jan 21, 2006)

Robert Hilton said:


> You can endure that sort of routine if it's just watches and cargo work. When paper work is added that doesn't make you any safer, but only absolves management from responsibility, the effect can be crushing - and stultifying.


I agree with you to some point but it is no different in shore side management where the government paperwork is at lease five times more today than when I first went ashore or the mountain of ISO, Class, H&S and National Flag do***entation required on almost a daily basis in shipyard production. 

Fortunately computers provide excellent financial, taxation, engineering and CAD software to replace hours of manual calculations just as electronics and dual redundancy systems have eased the navigation workload on the bridge and machinery monitoring in the engine room.


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## Barrie Youde (May 29, 2006)

#6

All of which supports the view that excessive amounts of paperwork crush and stultify the human spirit in all of us.

Most of us recall the predictions that computerisation would reduce paperwork. This has proved to have been a wholly and utterly false prediction. Whatever benefits computerisation might have brought (and they are many and obvious) the stultification and crushing of spirit by way of further paperwork can be (and frequenty are) quite terrifying.


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## trotterdotpom (Apr 29, 2005)

Computerised paper work might not be slowed down so much if the paperworker stopped looking at his/her emails, porn, Ships Nostalgia, etc.

John T


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## Brianne Jane Wright (Nov 8, 2013)

Hello All, 

This survey has now been closed! I shall post the results shortly after analysing!

Thank you to everyone who took part!

Brianne


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## david freeman (Jan 26, 2006)

being rather elderly now: remembering time at sea in my youth, one had ship mates and fellow engineers. If one had a good ship running on time and fault free, and everyone pulled their weight in the watch duties and kept an eye open for faults, with the leccky, and proper guidance stoppages at sea could be reduced to a minimum. One bad practice was a voyage crew who sailed the vessel and changed over the plant form one unit to its sister unit, without checking the coming off load machine, and then when one had a failure sailing with one unit only until next crew change, was difficult and very unrewarding for the relief crew (spares was an issue- used spares in the new replacement box of spares- good intentions but short sighted ness by the company or ships bean counters). This was a problem in larger tanker fleets and companies as groups of engineers were not associated with a set ship! maybe a class of ship; But even this one worked ones backside off. In liner and boxboat regular trades I understand one had regular crews, who knew each other and respected what work was required from each of them as individuals.
The other problem was trades/drydocks and the frieght rates, a ship makes no money in port or drydock, so a super was having his **** kicked to put a vessel to sea, and some of the plant was overhauled/repaired by sea squads and off course the crew.
Most of the regulary crews (That is same persons), in large tanker companies tended to sail on the newly commissioned ships: however these could be a bed of nails, or a sewing machine ready to run and run.
One took ones opportunity article/company contract/ and the personnel department: some of the issues could be outside the engineers control if the management of the ship at sea was for voyage and frieght rates only.
You have or are looking at a pandora,s box, and I image in todays climate, things have changed very little. Remember we all or everyone at sea is in the same boat, so at some stage you all have to pull together, to get back to blighty and be paid off? Again if your relief turns up, or you break that company contract or the artcles are changed. No easy answer I am afraid.


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