The supreme irony of tighter international maritime safety regulations is that ships are still dangerous places. Seafarers continue to die on board in accidents caused by thoughtlessness, disregard for established procedures, poor training, lack of proper equipment and even fatigue. In light of this, it’s good to hear strident calls to address the safety issue – one from The Nautical Institute in London and the other from British maritime safety junkie Bob Couttie in Olongapo City north of Manila.
Says The Nautical Institute: ‘Common sense and seamanship are often forgotten in our regulated world, where blaming and firing people who make mistakes seem a traditional, but self-evidently ineffective ‘incentive’ to improvement. There is a need to view individuals as competent, reliable, capable and professional. A change of attitude to individuals can, it is suggested, make a difference. But attitudes need to be changed from the very top of a company, in its leadership and the fostering of knowledge and skills throughout the organisation.’
The statement comes on the heels of the publication of the May 2011 edition (Issue No. 26) of the Alert! bulletin – part of the Alert! Project, a campaign to enhance awareness of the human element in the marine industry. The latest issue contains some very edifying articles. We urge ship managers, crewing executives and seafarers to read it online or download a copy from the Alert! website.
Mr Couttie, who’s currently focused on enclosed space hazards, takes a different approach. Says he: ‘Real change rarely comes from the top down. True, the safety culture of a company and its ships is defined by the attitude and commitment of its management. For that to work there must be fertile ground to plant the seeds of safety. Unlike many other classes of accident it only takes one person to reduce the toll of confined space fatalities, the person at the pointy end – the seafarer.’
To help bring about the change, Mr Couttie has launched The SafeSpace Project. It’s essentially an awareness campaign to reduce the ‘unacceptable toll upon seafarers of confined space hazards.’ The personal initiative is made more commendable by the direction of its thrust. Mr Couttie wants to empower seafarers so they’ll ‘take ownership of safety.’ At the same time, the campaign is open to any concerned individual who prefers to act and not just talk.
Both The Nautical Institute and Mr Couttie ultimately seek to propagate a culture of safety. It’s a noble aim. Unfortunately, many of the players whose actions determine the general state of maritime safety – ship owners, manning agents and seafarers themselves – are driven by money. It is this that stands in the way of better safety. It is commercialism and the cash culture that the folks in London and the good man from Olongapo are up against. ~Barista Uno
A very well balanced commentary. The scourge of confined space deaths will not be resolved only by targeting shipowners, only by targeting managers, but by active involvement of everyone and, especially making the seafarer an active participant, not merely a recipient of other people’s knowledge.
During the course of my career I lost 6 shipmates to ‘confined space’ accidents. Tragically in every case it was their own fault, they had not followed established shipboard and Merchant Navy Regulations about entry. In one the Officer rushed in to save two of his Philippino shipmates; he died, one of them survived. I have entered Bob Couttie’s website in my “Link List’.
Good Watch.
I have been following the debate on the different aspects of safety, including the posts on Linkedin and the Marine Café Blog.
As a trainer who regularly delivers safety training within an operational environment specifically within the offshore oil and gas industries, to a variety of nationalities, I would like to add the concept of Cultural Safety to the mix.
Thanks very much for your comment. ‘Cultural Safety’ seems to have a different meaning from the more common phrase ‘safety culture.’ Do you mean ‘cultural’ in the sense of ‘cross-cultural’ training?
Yes. To be able to get seafarers of different nationalities to understand and become involved within the safety culture on an organisation, first you must take the time to understand their cultural background.
In other words, what does safety mean to them in relation to the normal safety perspective from their cultural, educational and national background? i.e. the way in which they were brought up.
This has to be the precursor to how a trainer will deliver any safety training. To succeed in safety training, the training must be delivered from the trainee’s perspective and not the trainers.
Disregarding the semantics; when I came to sea in the 1950’s ships had Officers and crews of much the same nationality or European Officers with Laskar, Chinese, or Indonesian crews. There was a tradition of behaviour in each case. The ships operated quite smoothly by and large with relatively few accidents. Then we changed to multi-national crews and its cultural clashes. Some of them seemed and still do, think they are god’s gift to the maritime world. It is hard to train these people since they believe they already know it all. One has to impose a set of Rules and SOP’s. As Safety Officer in cruise ships with a crew of 600 (quite small for today) we had 35 nationalities and used 8 languages (including Tagalog!). Developing a ‘culture’ meant one group bullying another group to a large portion of the crew. It therefore became necessary to impose those Rules and SOP’s or dismiss someone to control the whole. Tough but my job as Safety Officer was to have a safe ship. I did!!
Good Watch.