At the last SAFETY4SEA Conference, Capt. Hans Hederström, Managing Director, Center for Simulator Maritime Training (CSMART), discussed steps to create a safety environment in shipping. Among the most important things, he stressed, “The Captain has the role of a leader instead of an operator, willing to delegate and coach officers. Combining voyage planning and Bridge Resource Management, and effective communication for timely intervention are vital.”

There is no fast track elevator to safety; you will have to take the stairs, step by step to increase your safety as we have successfully done in Carnival Corporation during last decade.

In 2008, we started with a traditional bridge organization, meaning that a master was giving out his orders, taking all the decisions, dismissing most of the time all technology on the ship and the bridge team as well. What we discovered was that resources were not optimally utilized. We realized that sometimes the bridge team might have thoughts like “I wouldn’t have done it that way,” or “He is the master so he must know something I don’t, so I should not say anything.” Even today, many incidents stem from this lack of intervention. This kind of bridge organization, with the master in front of the bridge team, tends to make officers passive by-standers. Therefore, we had to do something about this organization and our suggestion at that time was to move into an organizationally-based Safety Management System called Role Based Bridge Organization, where we co-ordinate teamwork.

The Role Based Bridge Organization is totally flexible. The Captain appoints who is doing what, and in this case, the navigator is the watch officer; he is responsible for driving the ship in accordance with a very detailed plan. He also communicates with the co-navigator. The role of the co-navigator is to support and cross-check that the navigator is actually following the plan or if there are any risks to the navigation and maneuvering of the ship. The communication between navigator and co-navigator is absolutely essential.

We have developed a specific communication technique called “Thinking Aloud” which translates to situations where the navigator is thinking aloud; he tells what his intention is, the reason for it and what the outcome should be. The navigator and co-navigator are always on the bridge. When risk increases, we add a third person, the operations director, a more senior person, who is either the staff captain or the captain. The operations director is to monitor, overview and supervise or coach the two persons in front of him. The operations director does not come up and intervene in the operation unless it is absolutely necessary. A fourth person added in the more complex maneuvers like port approach and departures. The fourth person is a junior officer who takes the role as administrator with the task to take away distractions from the bridge team. He answers phone calls, and looks after alarms in order to leave the bridge team undisturbed so it can focus on driving the ship. We also have a pilot on board when we enter or leave a port. On the latest ships, there is a specific place for the pilot, the monitoring station. The pilot might have either direct control of the navigation, or indirect control. The latter means that the navigator continues to conn the ship and the pilot will take a more advisory role, similar to the operations director. In addition to this approach, we also changed the bridge lay-out with a human-centered design to maximize teamwork. The next step is to make a change in voyage planning combined with bridge resource management. Do not plan in single numbers, plan in intervals.

Critical areas for safety. In a nuclear plant, they have safe working temperatures, followed by abnormal temperatures that are risky, but still acceptable. They also have stated “no go areas” where they do not want to go. In our organization, we plan our track in a corridor representing the normal operational area. The ship can be anywhere in the corridor; we do not need to be exactly on the track. Between the track corridor and the “no go area,” we have a fully navigable area called safety margin, which can be used in abnormal situations. This is crucial because the safety margin indicates when an officer should speak up if there is a deviation from the track corridor, like planned speed. If it is above or below the interval, the co-navigator must speak up. As those margins are critical for safety being triggers for intervention, they must be mentioned in the pre-departure briefing.

Escalating Outcome Based Intervention technique. Whenever the ship is leaving the corridor without intention, the co-navigator should start “probing” the navigator. He could ask “what is your intention with regards to the corridor?” This is called non-threatening probing. If that is not sufficient, go up to “alerting.” He could verbally state: “We are 30m outside the corridor.” If the navigator does not do anything about this situation, then a challenge with an outcome-based intervention is put in place: “I recommend to alter course to port to bring her back into the corridor.”

We do not tell the navigator what to do. Rather, we tell what we would like to see as an outcome. If we tell what the navigator should do, we are taking over control of the vessel, which is not the purpose. We want the navigator to bring the vessel back into the safety corridor. In the unlikely event that no corrective action has been taken, an emergency step arises where you need to state ‘’If you do not alter course now we risk going aground.” In this escalated situation, you can now assert “I take control” if you are the captain or a higher rank.

Onboard follow-up and coaching by the fleet captains are used to ensure the training we have provided is put into use onboard. The fleet captains visit all vessels annually to safeguard and confirm that our officers and vessel operations function according to training. It is a very successful program, and the transition into a Role Based Organization has been made possible in a relatively short time due to the fleet captains coaching on-the-job. They consolidate training and assist captains to implement changes in order to verify that work is done properly, and mobilize commitment.

This is an edited version of Captain Hans Hederström’s presentation during the last SAFETY4SEA Conference in Athens in October-2018