Fatigue behind many accidents at sea

Fatigue is an increasing cause for accidents at sea. Director Leif Nordlund of Alandia Marine thinks that a dialogue between owners and insurance companies is important for turning this development.

There are several studies showing that there is an increased risk for accidents in connection with night work. The work of a deck officer on a ship includes highly irregular work hours.

Also the authorities are aware of the risks. In a recent report the Accident Investigation Board of Finland has investigated seven accidents – all of them were groundings – with Finnish or Åland vessels from 1997 to 2003, caused by the watch officer falling asleep or not being fully awake.
That fatigue is becoming a serious problem among watch officers has also been confirmed in studies made for example in Sweden and the UK.

– Matters regarding safety and fatigue are hot topics also for the insurance business, confirms director Leif Nordlund of the Åland based insurance company Alandia Marine.

Interaction

	Director Leif Nordlund of Alandia Marine.

A key element is the bridge design and the interaction between human and technical equipment.

– It may be quite warm and cosy on a modern bridge and the risk for falling asleep while on watch may increase, says Mr Nordlund.

Of significance is also how the watch routines are organised. During an insurance seminar in Mariehamn Mats Gullberg from Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm pointed out that sleepiness at sea has a connection to the watch system. Mr Nordlund thinks that much could be done to improve safety also in this field.

– Studies show that other watch keeping systems might decrease the number of accidents. Of course it is much speculation and theory, but all reports clearly point in the same direction.
Levels of sleepiness are highest during the early morning watch and rising towards end.

– Statistics show that accidents most frequently occur during the watch from 4 to 8 am when junior officers are on duty, says Mr Nordlund.

Pinpoint problems
It has been estimated in the insurance branch that the human factor causes directly or indirectly some 80 per cent of all vessel incidents. Different reports indicate that the number of accidents involving human error is increasing. Mr Nordlund thinks that one reason might be that the shipping companies are under economic pressure and constantly seek for more cost-effective solutions.

– Our ambition is not to solve the problem, but to pinpoint them for the management in the shipping companies. We show the connections and propose what could be done to improve the safety.

Obligation
In the end a negative development affects the insurance costs of a shipping company. If it continues also the trend with rising premium costs will continue.

– There is of course a connection between paid insurance premiums and damages. If the problem considering fatigue could be solved the damage claims would no doubt decrease and this would have a positive impact on the premium.
In Mr Nordlund’s opinion the insurance companies are obliged to account for the development within the branch.

– Fortunately most of the shipping companies are very rarely hit by a collision or a grounding, but for us it is common routine, explains Mr Nordlund.

– We also understand that an accident causes serious stress factors in an organisation, some of them which cannot be compensated for by an insurance company.

The insurance companies possess a lot of data from which conclusions may be drawn how to reduce the number of accidents and thereby also the costs.

– It is of course also in our interest to reduce our costs for damages. It is important to have a dialogue with the customers, and discussing how the problems could be solved together.

On right track
Mr Nordlund does not think there are any standard solutions to solve the problems overnight. But he is convinced that a common awareness about for example problems concerning fatigue may lead the development on the right track.

Even if concerned with the development, Mr Nordlund thinks that the trend can be broken. But he would like to see this happen before the insurance costs have risen further.

– It is unfortunate if nothing will be done before the insurance premiums rise so much that they become an essential part of the operational costs of a shipping company, he concludes.

//Pär-Henrik Sjöström