[BITList] Fwd: Lloyd's List: Send to Colleague

[Michael Feltham]

Begin forwarded message:

From: enquiries at lloydslist.com
Date: 2 February 2009 08:05:46 GMT
To: mj.feltham at madasafish.com
Subject: Lloyd's List: Send to Colleague


The below article was sent to you from Mike Feltham (mj.feltham at madasafish.com 
) with the following message: I thought you might be interested in the  
article below.

Coming in from the cold
Monday 2 February 2009

THERE was once a famous (or perhaps notorious) British shipowner, a  
peer of terrifying demeanour, who was said to have been presented by  
the company’s naval architect with the plans for a new-look cargo  
liner that was designed to his specification to obliterate all the  
competition.

Lord X looked closely at the plans, called for a pen and, with a  
number of savage strokes, removed a whole deck of spacious crew  
accommodation, putting the several cabins instead into the space the  
designers had provided for a recreation room.

“Recreation room?” this intimidating man was supposed to have roared.  
“They are not paid to be having recreation — they are supposed to be  
on deck working!”

This old chap, who lived on the Isle of Wight and was supposed to have  
examined minutely the paintwork of his ships through a powerful  
telescope and telephoned through to London to sack the chief officer  
if it was not to his liking, is long dead. But I have no idea whether  
this story about his attention to detail is true, although it would  
seem to correlate with his reputation.

But dare I suggest that there is a little bit of his robust attitude  
remaining, as what might be considered the “softer” side of ship  
design is evaluated by the people who pay for what goes into a ship.

There is a sort of meanness out there in the real world, where nobody  
wants to pay a dollar more than is necessary to obtain a ship that is  
fit for purpose. I have, on numerous occasions, alluded to the  
reluctance to consider the living spaces of the crew as anything more  
than a grim necessity, that must somehow be fitted in to that part of  
the ship that is not occupied by cargo or engines.

I have looked at some of the new designs for containerships and,  
really, it is difficult to determine where the deck stack of  
containers stops and the accommodation begins. The only way you can  
tell is that the accommodation doesn’t have corner posts, so there is  
not too much risk that a careless crane driver might whisk it up in  
the air.

But let us not get diverted down the design road this week, but  
consider instead the ways in which the social isolation of seafarers  
might be mitigated. Now, if you were of a certain age, brought up in a  
regime only marginally more liberal than that practised by the late  
Lord X above, you might suggest that a certain amount of social  
isolation is unavoidable if you make a living at sea.

But that was then and this is now, and in an age of mass connectivity,  
we have to do a whole lot better if we are to persuade young people to  
go to sea and retain them for a worthwhile period.

Credit crunch or not, the manpower problem will not suddenly  
evaporate, and it is encouraging that the more perceptive are looking  
more closely at those elements that deter people from seafaring. The  
International Maritime Organization’s ‘Go to Sea’ campaign seems to  
have attracted the attention of industry organisations, and there is a  
lot more than lip service being paid to this important issue.

People are thinking hard about how this social isolation might be  
reduced, and racking their brains about how they can prove that  
seafarers are valuable and respected for the essential job they are  
doing. It’s not before time.

I was at an industry dinner, held by Headland Media, which among other  
things provides entertainment and welfare services for ships’ crews.  
People like me know of its Walport Entertainment On-Board service,  
which for almost as long as I can recall has been providing the  
excellent and much appreciated facility of film distribution for ships  
and the offshore industry.

But we have come a long way since then, and it was clear from the talk  
around the table that rather more is expected of a respectable  
maritime employer than a Saturday night film show. There were  
representatives from shipping companies, ship managers, the Royal  
Navy, welfare organisations and shipping organisations, and it was  
interesting to see the degree of unanimity about the problem.

Perhaps it was the general agreement about the growing skills  
shortage, which is clearly not some temporary phenomenon and is only  
going to be slightly ameliorated by the credit crunch, with its  
attendant layups and cancellations. Perhaps it is an acknowledgement  
that the solutions resorted to in earlier manpower panics just won’t  
work any more. There are no hitherto hidden sources of cheap and  
cheerful maritime manpower that will suddenly become available — not  
unless we want to retrain Somalian pirates.

Crew welfare makes good commercial sense, and it is encouraging to  
hear this being endorsed wholeheartedly by industry figures. There has  
been a disturbing amount said and written about how we have failed to  
respect seafarers, through criminalisation of their occasional  
mistakes, unfair legislation and constraints on their shoregoing  
through anti-terrorist legislation.

When this is added to an increasingly stressful, fun-free, existence  
aboard ships that have been designed with the crew as an afterthought,  
it is no wonder that some of these complaints are registering where it  
matters.

I was talking with Douglas Stevenson of the Center for Seafarers’  
Rights at the Seamen’s Church Institute of New York and New Jersey  
about the way seafarers have paid such a heavy price after 9/11, in  
the deterioration of so many of their freedoms that made life bearable  
in previous years. If you were a hard-line security enthusiast, you  
might point to the absence of any other attacks since that awful day  
in 2001, and the fact that terrorists have so far abstained from using  
ships, or with very few exceptions, attacking them.

But seafarers’ lives have been made considerably more miserable by all  
this heavy-footed security, and we perhaps ought to be looking at  
whether it really has been justified.

At the Headland evening I heard the word “respect” several times, and  
the acknowledgement that for the first time ever, we are in a position  
to do something about the isolation of the seafarer. There is amazing  
and increasing connectivity, the internet and worldwide web and the  
possibility of affordable and regular communications between ship and  
shore.

Onboard facilities, it was said, “can make up for unfriendly design”  
and this must be true too, although it would be better if clever  
designers ratcheted up the welfare of the crew in the list of design  
priorities.

It is unnecessary for crew members to be so isolated aboard ship,  
unaware of what is going on in the world and having to be reintroduced  
to society at the conclusion of a long voyage. Partly, it needs a  
change of attitude, because the old ideas that deplored anything other  
than a few words in a message between ship and shore are still  
retained by some.

There are still some unthinking souls ashore, who will spend half  
their days on the phone but will question the need for a crew member  
to speak to his or her family at a reasonable frequency and cost. If  
we have this facility, and if we can, using the agency of a company  
such as Headland and Walport, provide affordable crew communications  
and a news, sport and entertainment service, it is a strong message  
about how a shipowner cares for its crew.

It is, of course, only half of the problem. Because, if we want to  
address the loneliness that is almost an integral part of modern  
seafaring, we have to look at life aboard ship in a more holistic  
fashion.

Some years ago I recall somebody bewailing the “loneliness of the long  
distance watchkeeper” aboard a ship operated by a very small crew. He  
carried out his watch alone, mostly ate alone, and before turning in,  
would watch a video — alone, in his cabin.

If we really are going to encourage young people to go to sea and keep  
’em there for a reasonable time, we need to think about all these  
elements. And we may not have a great deal of time left.

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