|
 Safety, Environment
& Security |
 |
 |
 |
| WEBSITES |
|
|
| |
Back to SSG 4
Handling anchors and anchor chains on a moving deck of an Anchor Handling Tug Supply (AHTS) vessel requires
skill and experience. The picture is from one of Olympic Shipping’s AHTS vessels. Photo: Olympic Shipping
Offshore recruitment:
Demand outstrips supply
Norwegian offshore operators are faced with a severe shortage of personnel and many owners are forced to run their fleet with less experienced crews than they would have liked.
Current recruiting is slow to pick up and it has proved difficult to reverse a very negative trend, which started in the middle of the 1980s. Recruitment efforts aim to train seamen for the offshore as well as for the Norwegian merchant marine. We will only be dealing with offshore in the following.
The Norwegian Shipowners’ Association (NSA) and Maritimt Forum supports the recruitment in many ways, of which one the campaign web site www.ikkeforalle.no (ikke for alle = not for everyone). However, what is lacking is a better synchronisation of all the different efforts. After all, more than 10,000 new seamen – of which half in offshore – have to be found. The Norwegian labour market is incredibly tight and foreign seamen are recruited, mostly from the EU in order to preserve the net wages system. Nevertheless, some vessels may never become fully operational for lack of professional manning.
More foreigners on board
It is pretty obvious that Norway cannot provide the 2,000 to 3,000 seafarers required to man the steady stream of new vessels entering the fray on the next couple of years. This year alone 52 new supply vessels and 39 anchor handling tug supply (AHTS) vessels will be delivered to Norwegian owners and a growing number of crews will come from Sweden, Finland, Poland, Latvia and Lithuania and other countries in order to make up the numbers. But there is no longer room for training on board vessels working in the offshore industry and the existing crews are very hard worked. Seafarers from the above mentioned countries are good seamen, but with no obvious tradition from the offshore environment.
Many of the new vessels are sophisticated units, which require manning by specialists. The worry is that the few full trained men on board offshore vessels are so overworked their judgement gets blurred. A case in mind is the AHTS Bourbon Dolphin, which capsized and sank in April last year. Although the conclusion from the investigation will only be available in April, it is safe to say that the vessels was too small for the job. The stress and strain on the captain and the crew may have contributed to the accident in which people lost their lives.
The chicken has come home to roost
Back in the middle of the 1980s owners of offshore support vessels – like supply ships and AHTS vessels – were not really interested in organised recruitment and training. The supply of qualified personnel was adequate, and few owners were able to foresee the coming boom in the offshore industry, let alone the scale of it.
In the ten years to the middle of the 1990s we find the seeds to the current recruitment problems. In those years crew wages were poor and owners were using the good pool of trained seamen to their own advantage. Nothing wrong in that, but it deterred young people from choosing a career with the offshore fleet and many trained seamen left the profession altogether. Until quite recently very little has been done to tempt them back.
Theoretical training
Norway has four university colleges that offer maritime training at degree level. They are Høgskolen i Vestfold, Høgskolen i Ålesund, Høgskolen in Tromsø and Høgskolen Stord/Haugesund. At a lower level there are 21 upper secondary schools, which have maritime subjects on offer. In addition the country has four regional maritime training offices.
Of the four university colleges only Høgskolen i Vestfold and Ålesund offer degree studies in three or more subjects. Høgskolen i Vestfold has a bachelor in nautical subjects to become a deck officer, a bachelor in shipping and logistics and a bachelor in technical maritime operation to become a ship’s engineer. Ålesund has two first bachelor degrees, but no engineering degree. Instead the university college offers a three-semester course in shipping and economy.
However, not enough students are choosing maritime subjects at any level even though recruitment is up around twelve per cent overall.
Onboard training
Photo: Olympic Shipping |
Onboard training is less frequent nowadays, even if it is more necessary than ever as vessels get ever more sophisticated and more and more specialists are required. It is perhaps ironical that some of the specialist knowledge, which owners are now seeking, is in scarce supply precisely because onboard training has been cut to the bone. However, blaming owners for lack of onboard training will not generate more specialist crews. If anything vessels could become even more shorthanded as more vessels leave the yards. Many a deck officer has publicly warned of impending disaster as a result of crew inexperience. We have had the Bourbon Dolphin accident, but there could be more, as pressure of work mounts on those with experience.
In order to secure specialist officers and crew to the offshore fleet in the future owners may pay more heed to the captains complaints.
Latest update 21-02-2008 10:30
|
|
 CURRENT SSG |
|
No 12/2008
Order a copy
|
 |
| CURRENT SST |
|
No 13-14/2008
Köp numret
|
|
|
2008
