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Seafarers’ wellbeing or business, a complex paradox of the industry

Tetemadze B., Carrera Arce M., Baumler R., Bartusevičiene I.

TransNav : International Journal on Marine Navigation and Safety of Sea Transportation

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2021

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Vol. 15 No. 4

817--824

EN

The research is an insightful exploration into what contributes to the deterioration of seafarers’ wellbeing. It unveils the determinant factors and their impact on wellbeing, further exploring the perception and awareness levels of the maritime society on the issue. Moreover, the effectiveness of main regulatory instruments to address seafarers’ wellbeing is analysed and discussed. Qualitative methodology based on semi-structured interviews and content analysis was applied. Twenty-six active seafarers of different nationalities and working on different types of vessels, one pilot and 11 influential maritime stakeholders of the industry were interviewed. The literature review shows that wellbeing can only be fully understood when considering its physical, mental and social dimensions, and emphasizing its significance the workplace. However, the study indicates that despite high awareness of such dimensions and determinant factors of wellbeing, the psychosocial working conditions provided by shipowners onboard ships are not in full compliance with a holistic view of wellbeing. Moreover, shipping companies lack promotion and training on awareness of mental health and wellbeing issues onboard ships and how to handle them, as the existing safety management system is based on incident and accident reduction principles. Results expose excessive workload and lack of sleep (as a result of reduced manning) as major contributors to fatigue further causing deterioration of seafarers’ wellbeing. Other revealed factors include long contracts, lack of shore leave, unavailability of recreational facilities and internet connection, lack of onboard socialising, fear of job loss and stress/anxiety. The regulatory instrument MLC 2006 sets out basic seafarers’ rights but does not fully capture their wellbeing to its fullest. Seafarers’ wellbeing is unlikely to improve unless awareness of the concept of wellbeing is installed within the SMS and all of its dimensions are well addressed in future amendments of the regulatory instruments.

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Near-miss reporting as seen from seafarers' perspective

Hasanspahić N., Frančić V., Vujičić S., Maglić L.

TransNav : International Journal on Marine Navigation and Safety of Sea Transportation

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2021

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Vol. 15 No. 4

825--831

EN

The maritime industry is a high-risk sector, and there is a large number of accidents its stakeholders need to reduce. Lessons learned from the near-miss analysis can prevent accidents and improve safety in the maritime sector. However, to be able to accomplish this task, near-miss events have to be identified and reported. Identification and reporting are dependent on seafarers. If they cannot identify or are unwilling to report a near miss, there will be no analysis, and valuable knowledge will be lost forever. Seafarers' knowledge, attitudes, and opinions on near-misses are important factors in determining the near-miss management system's effectiveness. The authors created a survey to gain insight into these factors. A total of 223 experienced seafarers participated in the survey. The results confirmed that near-misses are underreported and that seafarers do not report every observed near-miss because of reporting barriers. This paper reflects seafarers' perceptions of near-miss reporting and suggests measures to overcome reporting barriers.

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An Overview of Chinese Seafarers' Communicative Competence in English-Chinese seafarers' Perspectives

Fan L.

TransNav : International Journal on Marine Navigation and Safety of Sea Transportation

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2017

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Vol. 11, no. 4

577--581

EN

The rapid development of technologies and the increasingly strict international shipping regulations help to explain a significant decrease in shipping losses over decades. However, the number of accidents attributable to human errors, in which communication failures represent one third, has not been reduced proportionally. Under the Manila Amendments 2010, it became a compulsory requirement for every company to ensure that seafarers can communicate effectively. Communicative competence of seafarers has been of vital significance in modern shipping. A majority of merchant ships in international voyages are manned with multicultural and multilingual crew. It is not only the multilingual but also the intercultural character of mariners that leads to miscommunication on board. Additionally, communicative competence involves psycholinguistic, strategic and pragmatic aspects. The concept of communicative competence is relatively new in the context of maritime education and training in China and there is a dearth of research dealing with Chinese seafarers' communicative competence. Through an empirical study, this paper aims to fill in the gap by investigating the current status of Chinese seafarers' communicative proficiency from linguistic, intercultural, psycholinguistic, strategic and pragmatic perspectives to understand their strengths and weaknesses in their English communication. Based on the findings of quantitative data analysis, recommendations are finally made to improve Chinese seafarers' communicative competence.