The written instructions and designated crew member behind familiarization (STCW Code A-I/14)

Who is responsible for a newly joined seafarer getting familiar with the equipment and the procedures. It looks like something the ship sorts out, but STCW Code A-I/14 puts the starting point ashore: written instructions the company gives the master.

Responsibility falls on three parties at once

1 Companies, masters and crew members each have responsibility for ensuring that the obligations set out in this section are given full and complete effect and that such other measures as may be necessary are taken to ensure that each crew member can make a knowledgeable and informed contribution to the safe operation of the ship.

Companies, masters and crew members are written side by side. The structure does not pile the duty on one of them; each carries it. And the purpose sits at the end of the sentence: so that each crew member can make a knowledgeable and informed contribution to the safe operation of the ship.

The starting point is written instructions from the company to the master

2 The company shall provide written instructions to the master of each ship to which the Convention applies, setting forth the policies and the procedures to be followed to ensure that all seafarers who are newly employed on board the ship are given a reasonable opportunity to become familiar with the shipboard equipment, operating procedures and other arrangements needed for the proper performance of their duties, before being assigned to those duties.

Three places to read. First, the form is written instructions, not a verbal instruction or a practice. Second, the recipient is the master. Third, the timing is before being assigned to those duties. The opportunity comes before the assignment, not after.

Two things have to be in those instructions

The first is the allocation of a reasonable period of time. What the newly employed seafarer is to become acquainted with is written in two parts.

What to get acquainted with	Reach
The specific equipment the seafarer will be using or operating	Individual equipment
Ship-specific watchkeeping, safety, environmental protection, security and emergency procedures and arrangements	What the seafarer needs to know to perform the assigned duties properly

The second is a person.

.2 designation of a knowledgeable crew member who will be responsible for ensuring that an opportunity is provided to each newly employed seafarer to receive essential information in a language the seafarer understands.

There has to be a designated crew member, and what that person is responsible for is not delivering the information but ensuring the opportunity is provided. One condition attaches: in a language the seafarer understands. Postings and procedures written only in a language that seafarer does not understand do not meet this.

The company’s duties do not stop at familiarization

Regulation I/14 of the Convention has each Administration hold companies responsible for ensuring five things.

• Each seafarer assigned to any of its ships holds an appropriate certificate under the Convention and as established by the Administration
• Its ships are manned in compliance with the applicable safe manning requirements of the Administration
• Documentation and data relevant to all seafarers employed on its ships are maintained and readily accessible
• Seafarers, on being assigned, are familiarized with their specific duties and with all ship arrangements, installations, equipment, procedures and characteristics relevant to routine or emergency duties
• The ship’s complement can effectively coordinate their activities in an emergency and in performing functions vital to safety or to the prevention or mitigation of pollution

The third is the one that keeps coming up in practice. The examples the regulation gives are experience, training, medical fitness and competency in assigned duties. And two states are required, not one: maintained, and readily accessible. Existing somewhere is not enough; it has to come up when it is needed.

Ro-ro passenger ships carry one more layer

3 Companies shall ensure that masters, officers and other personnel assigned specific duties and responsibilities on board their ro-ro passenger ships shall have completed familiarization training to attain the abilities that are appropriate to the capacity to be filled and duties and responsibilities to be taken up, taking into account the guidance given in section B-I/14 of this Code.

The reach is not only masters and officers but other personnel assigned specific duties and responsibilities. And what is required is not the provision of an opportunity but completed familiarization training.

Worth confirming

The passages above come from Code section A-I/14 of STCW/CONF.2/34. How many days a reasonable period is, who the designated crew member should be, and what form the written instructions take are not set by the provision. Whether the company’s written instructions have actually reached the master, whether a designated person is named for each ship, and whether the essential information exists in a language that seafarer understands are where the actual judgement starts.