This report questions whether the Department for Transport is striking the appropriate balance between its role as a regulator of port safety and its aim to promote the commercial attractiveness of UK ports. This follows evidence that most ports fail to confirm to Government that they comply with best practice guidance on port safety and the Maritime and Coastguard Agency has the resources to conduct just four port 'health checks' each year. Representatives of marine pilots, who guide ships in and out of ports, lack confidence that the Department for Transport understands their concerns and the requirements of their work and shares their aim of enhancing maritime safety. The Committee is opposed to a proposal, supported by Government, to relax the rules on the granting of pilotage exemption certificates to more junior navigating officers which could jeopardise safety. If the Government insists on pressing ahead with this change, the Committee recommends that the impact of the change should be monitored. Other recommendations include that: the Maritime and Coastguard Agency should broaden its safety inspection programme so that it undertakes eight inspections per annum; ports should be required to publish statistics on accidents and near-misses; the Government should use its influence to persuade harbour authorities to accept national standards as to who can be authorised as a pilot: if national standards are not adopted the case for legislation on this issue will be compelling.

Proceedings of the 14th International Conference on Applied Human Factors and Ergonomics (AHFE 2023), July 20–24, 2023, San Francisco, USA

Large ships transporting hazardous cargoes, notorious marine accidents, and damage to marine ecosystems from tanker spills have heightened public concern for the safe navigation of ships. This new volume offers a complete, highly readable assessment of marine navigation and piloting. It addresses the application of new technology to reduce the probability of accidents, controversies over the effectiveness of waterways management and marine pilotage, and navigational decisionmaking. The book also explores the way pilots of ships and tugs are trained, licensed, and held accountable. Minding the Helm approaches navigational safety from the perspectives of risk assessment and the integration of human, technological, and organizational systems. Air and marine traffic regulation methods are compared, including the use of vessel traffic services. With a store of current information and examples, this document will be indispensable to federal and state pilotage and licensing authorities and marine traffic regulators, the Coast Guard, pilot associations, and the shipping and towing industries. It will also interest individuals involved in waterway design, marine education, and the marine environment.

This Book is of the seafarers, by the seafarers, for the seafarers Seafarers are the core of all maritime trade and their expectations/perspectives alone should be at the centre of all solutions for maritime skills. Taking this standpoint, the editor has explored the issues of maritime skills with critical gaps following a framework of research methodology. The issue of critical gaps in maritime skills is further exacerbated due to the impact on seafarers caused by changes in – the ecosystem, status & relationship with stakeholders, technology, focus on renewable energy, anxiety levels and so forth. Furthermore, stakeholders can no longer ignore the fact that seafarers are leaving a seagoing career after working for only a few years. Therefore, the editor has also explored the need to prepare seafarers for transition into maritime shore jobs to preserve their maritime skills within the maritime industry. This exhaustive book can be used as a guide for further revisions or a revamp of the current STCW Convention. The editor thereafter divided the researched critical gaps in maritime skills into four groups (Jain’s Model for Maritime Skills) – Panoptic, Social Intelligence, Upskilling & Reskilling for onboard vessels skills, and Portable Skills for future shore jobs. Panoptic and Social Skills are core skills required for both on board vessels as well for maritime shore jobs. Thereafter, the editor embarked on a voyage to discover, persuade, collaborate with a number of exceptionally experienced subject-matter experts over many months to collaboratively pursue many mini-research projects across all selected maritime skills, adopting specific methodology to plug these critical gaps. These experts were drawn – (1) from countries such as India, the Philippines, Romania, South Korea, Malaysia, UAE, the UK and Singapore, (2) from both genders, (3) from deck, engine & professionals settled ashore, (4) with current experience in the industry and/or at sea at a fundamental level, and (5) from seafaring-supplying nations, recognising/experiencing the relevant socio-economic circumstances of seafarers. From this book, seafarers will not only find ideas on how to plug gaps in their maritime skills, but also how they can transition with their existing skills to other maritime jobs, such as marine superintendents, marine managers, designated persons ashore, managers supervising new build/second-hand vessels, IT managers in the maritime domain, marine surveyors, marine experts/investigators, marine pilots in ports, maritime arbitrators, managers in shipyards and so forth. The solutions in this book will also resolve the issue of the shortage and retention of seafarers.