'Manila amendments' to the STCW Convention – as an IMO policy introduced during last decade, which has created controversy among the international maritime community. Essay
Fatigue is still considered as a significant contributory factor to many incidents in the shipping industry despite of legislation concerning seafarers' hours of work and rest that has been in force for many years; overall enforcement measures have generally been ineffective. (OCIMF, 2012). IMO describes fatigue as a “State of feeling tired, weary, or sleepy that results from prolonged mental or physical work, exposure to harsh environment, or loss of sleep which can lead to the impairment of performance and to the reduction of alertness” (IMO, 2001).
To provide a legal framework and address the problem of fatigue on the high level number of conventions have been adopted during last 30 years by IMO and ILO. In 1984 requirements…show more content… In view of the above stated it should be concluded that matter of fatigue is not only related not only to the shipping industry and consequently prevention of fatigue has been already addressed in other industries, such as aviation for instance. In accordance with the ‘Fatigue in Aviation’ of Federal Aviation Administration, causes of fatigue can range from boredom to circadian rhythm disruption to heavy physical exertion’. In simple terms, fatigue can be simply defined as wearisomeness, which in most cases caused by the lack of rest. Weariness, at the same time, may vary even for the crew maintaining the same tasks on different type of ships or in a different area of trading. Thus it seems to be logical that industry must use various methods for ‘measuring’ fatigue of their workers, but not standardising their hours of work and rest.
At the same time modification of existing fatigue prevention policy should be more focused on implementation of new technical devices in line with the proven objective approach that will not create extra paperwork but will really measure fatigue and improve effectiveness of fatigue prevention. As an example of new methodology for detecting attention lapses or impaired ability of
