CREW MANAGEMENT ON MERCHANT SHIPS: FROM MARITIME ACCIDENTOLOGY TO SEAFARERS FATIGUE MANAGEMENT

Abstract

The human factor in maritime accidents has often been underestimated and little studied. Intuitively, shipwrecks and other maritime accidents are due to human error. However, a crew is an organisation that can be studied through the theory of High Reliability Organisations (HRO) and the James Reason’s model. The problem of this article is that crew fatigue can be explained by organisational causes. The author uses the MV Herald of Free Enterprise accident report as a basis for a phenomenological approach to understanding the sequence of events and errors, as well as the perceptions
of each of the actors, both on land and at sea. He proposes to adapt Reason’s model even more specifically to the crews of merchant ships, thanks to the notion of synergistic crews, placing even more emphasis on the organisational and systemic aspects of such management. One of the main results is to uncover two systems that do not communicate, from a Luhmanian perspective. This article contributes to renew the approach to human resource management of ship crews.