SSG No 10 - Shipgaz

SHIPPING AND SHIP MANAGEMENT
Jan Horck at the World Maritime University.
Average claims cost for groundings
up by 148 per cent compared to 2000,
collisions up by 123 per cent and
engine claims up by 89 per cent.
It is a dark picture that the Norwegian Hull
Club paints and their voice is just one in
a growing choir expressing deep concern
over where maritime safety is heading
when human error is becoming an increasingly
important factor.
According to the Norwegian Hull Club
claims from accidents caused by human
error are rising at a rate never seen before,
the major reason being the lack of qualified
seafarers.
But there is more to being a qualified
officer than having experience from the
handling of a ship, its cargo and its engines
and equipment.
Between 85–95 per cent of the world’s
seafarers are estimated to work on vessels
manned by crews with two or more nationalities.
Lack of understanding of each
other’s cultural differences and poor language
skills have become the root to many
accidents at sea. Crew management and
team building are essential factors for the
safe operation of a vessel and this requires
Jan Horck (second from the left) on a field study with some of the students from WMU.
Cultural differences:
strength or burden?
knowledge, perception and experience not
only within onboard management but also
in shore-based organisation and its support
functions.
”Cultural awareness is a maritime safety
issue that must be raised already at the
maritime education and training institution”,
says Jan Horck, who has many years
of experience as a lecturer and today is
associated professor at the World Maritime
University in Malmö.
Wrong stereotyping
In his master thesis ‘A mixed crew complement’
Horck writes that it is not only substandard
communication that lies behind
accidents but also a lack of cultural awareness
and ‘wrong’ stereotyping.
Horck criticizes the industry for not
being capable of coping with diversity or
hesitating to balance possible advantages
with possible risks. Mixed crew is a fact
of life and a consequence of the shipping
industry’s need to keep costs down.
It is not a choice based on any experience
showing that multi-cultural crews in any
way are better at operating ships.
Horck argues that the mixed-crew concept
is not ideal but can work and can also
Cultural awareness
is a maritime safety issue
that must be raised already
at the maritime education.
be a positive and interesting challenge. People
tend to be cautious or even hostile to
the unknown, and therefore officers should
be introduced to cultural differences in a
planned manner during their training.
Other problems
Jan Horck urges the world’s maritime education
and training institutions to introduce
cultural awareness courses and to
increase teaching efforts in English. But it
is not only the MET institutions that have
to act. If mixed crew is to become a more
rare factor in the marine causality causes
statistics, the shipping industry also must
address other problems, such as those arising
from mixed crew on vessels with low
manning levels and long onboard work
periods. Try for instance to imagine working
and living for six to eight months in
a community with just 12–15 inhabitants
without any one being your friend.
”An unhappy seafarer is an unsafe seafarer”,
says Jan Horck.
text and photos: rolf p nilsson
Footnote:
Jan Horck’s master thesis ‘A mixed crew
complement’ can be downloaded at:
http://hdl.handle.net/2043/5962
30 SCANDINAVIAN SHIPPING GAZETTE • MAY 16, 2008