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Thome Group News

Fighting the impact of fatigue

By Olav Eek Thorstensen, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer,

Thome Group of Companies

The result of fatigue, stress and workload is impaired performance and diminished alertness.

For many years, fatigue was discounted as a potential cause of, adjustments, technological changes and operational requirements
or contributor to, human error. However, international studies on emphasizes the need for establishing a safety culture among each

maritime accidents have shown that fatigue is widely perceived as and every one of us, especially when it comes to personnel aboard
the main cause or a contributory factor in a considerable number ship. This approach underlines the fact that our efforts should be

of casualties at sea resulting in the loss of life and damage to the undertaken to convince the personnel/seafarers that compliance
environment and property.
with the international maritime regulations regarding safety and

the role of fatigue issues toward maritime casualties, should be The Exxon Valdez, one of the worst maritime environmental
made consciously.
disasters in the past century, is one of the many mishaps where

fatigue was identified as a contributing factor. In fact, fatigue’s The unique aspects of operational regime onboard that the
detrimental role toward performance at work is leading to errors shipping industry represents today, based mainly in prolonged

being made, which may impact the normal operation of vessels working hours, are an important element in generating fatigue
resulting in accidents and fatalities.
and especially stress among seafarers. Regarding this issue, it is

important to comply with the working schedules and the duration Fatigue is a problem for all 24-hour a day transportation modes
of the rest breaks to reduce the impact of fatigue factors toward and industries, the shipping industry included. However, there are

seafarers.
unique aspects of seafaring that separate the marine industry from
the others. It must be recognized that the seafarer is a captive of In addition, a good monitoring of working hours will assist the
his/her work environment. Firstly, the average seafarer spends seafarers to make a clear separation between work and rest

four months, and rating up to nine months working and living leading to the relief of fatigue at sea.
away from home, on a moving vessel that is subject to Furthermore, it is fundamentally a mind-set change concerning

unpredictable environmental factors (i.e. weather conditions).
how we manage human resources within the Thome Group of
Secondly, while serving on board the vessel, there is no clear Companies. The philosophy, prevention is better than cure

separation between work and recreation. Thirdly, today’s crew is concerning fatigue and safety problems should be the approach.
composed of seafarers from various nationalities and backgrounds In light of these considerations, we encourage you to mitigate

who are expected to work and live together for long periods of the negative effects of fatigue thru THOME'S HUMAN
time. The operational aspects associated with shipping become ELEMENT a holistic approach to business excellence through

more complex compared with standard industries, for reasons people, managing attitudes in order to manage risk. It clearly
such as: variety of ship-types, pattern and length of sea passage, illustrates that we want safety and quality within the Thome

port-rotation, and length of time a ship remains in port. All
Group and in order to achieve this we must focus on the human
these aspects present a unique combination of potential causes element, our attitudes and how we work together as a team.

of fatigue.
The most common causes of fatigue known to seafarers are

lack of sleep, poor quality of rest, stress and excessive workload.
Workload issues lie behind much of the stress we experience. Not

only can a heavy workload be tiring in its own right, worse than
this, a heavy routine workload leaves us little time to deal with
the emergencies that could come up from time-to-time.

Effectively dealing with fatigue in the shipping environment
requires a holistic approach. There is no one-system approach to

addressing fatigue, stress and excessive workload, but there are
certain principles (e.g. lifestyle habits, rest, medication,

workload.) that must be addressed in order to gain the knowledge
and the understanding to manage this human element issue.
Olav Eek Thorstensen,
Chairman and Chief Executive
Officer, Thome Group of The complexity and the difficulties that the fatigue issue
Companies
represents today in the shipping industry in terms of structural

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Issue 36: March 2014