International shipping has been for too long encrusted with regulations that make no sense
 To many, if not most, in the maritime world, there are far too many regulations. And as though there weren't enough, bureaucrats the world over are hard at work producing even more.
Hendrik Busshoff, head of product autonomy solutions at, Wartsila Voyage, a Finnish marine equipment maker, has set himself the unenviable task of making an appeal in Hellenic Shipping News Worldwide to the powers that be to take stock of the vast regulatory jungle and see if it can be cut back.
The International Maritime Organisation (IMO), which once bore the less magisterial name, the International Maritime Consultative Organisation (IMCO), has long since built a commanding comprehensive regulatory regime.
But that’s not all. There’s SOLAS (Safety Of Life At Sea), MARPOL (International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships), COLREG (International Regulations for Preventing Collisions at Sea), LOADLINE (Plimsoll mark) and ISPS (International Ship and Port Facility Security Code), which cover ship operations.
Then there’s STWC (International Convention on Standards of Training, Certification and Watchkeeping for Seafarers) and ILO (International Labour Organisation) 147 for the seafarers, and ISM (International Safety Management) dealing with the shipping companies.
"On top of this, there are numerous local and port regulations to follow, certifications to obtain, taxation frameworks, cybersecurity guidelines, along with many other maritime instruments concerning more specific issues that are also in force worldwide," he said.
What makes this unnecessarily cumbersome are obsolete rules and requirements that have lost their relevance.
“We’re using AI on ships while forcing them to have a bell on board," he said. "In between these two generations of technologies, there’s a huge gap that’s getting too big to manage. With every technological advancement, we keep adding new regulations without retiring reviewing the old ones.”
Mr Busshoff then takes them one by one.
First, the foghorn: In reduced and low visibility conditions, as per rules, a ship is supposed to sound the horn to signal its presence to other ships.
"In return, other ships are required to keep a lookout ‘by sight and hearing’. On most ships, when you go on the bridge wing, you hear your auxiliary engines, engine room fans and possibly the noise of a few hundred reefer containers," he said.
"There’s hardly a chance of hearing another ship, not to mention determining its accurate bearing and range. So why do we have this requirement? That’s because back in the day, you had little choice but to listen.
"It did work well when you were on a sailing ship or older three-island designs where the bridge is separate from the engine. But today, it’s different. You no longer have to depend on hearing other ships to be aware of their presence or sound the foghorn to make them aware of yours. We now have a rich set of technology choices to solve this problem," he said.
Another example of a redundant regulation, that we are well rid of, came with the advent of the unmanned engine room.
"Original regulations required an engine room watchkeeper to utilise their senses of hearing, sight, smell and touch. But when we substituted human watchkeeping with ‘unmanned’ technological solutions, we didn’t have to substitute the senses of touch and smell.
“That’s because, 50 years ago, someone was brave enough to say it doesn’t make sense anymore, given all the technological advancements. Take the example of smell, for instance: The original purpose behind this requirement was to ensure that the whole ship doesn’t go up in flames. But today we are better off with a contemporary fire detection system," he said.
Then there are logbooks and noon report rules.
"There are many digital ways to record data. Yet, the gold standard is writing things down. This makes the information neither searchable nor can it be structured or unified.
"Similarly, like everyone else, ships start their days at midnight and yet are still required to file noon reports. Noon reports made sense when navigation was based on stars, and around noon the sun offered a convenient opportunity to calculate the vessel’s position.
"We definitely no longer depend on the sun. Ships are generally not even required to carry sextants anymore. So, even if one remembers how to use one, your noon position often is just out of reach nowadays,” Mr Busshoff said.
Then there is the near useless magnetic compass
Time and money is spent on adjusting monitoring the deviation of the magnetic compass. What used to be a tool of immense value, now delivers questionable results on today’s ship made of steel, he said.
"As we know, steel corrupts the core alignment of the compass that’s based on Earth’s magnetic field. And it doesn’t get any better when you have thousands of containers made of, well, steel again, said Mr Busshoff.
Thus, the compass has to be reconfigured during every port call as every loading and unloading operation disrupts the last adjustment. And so, what is often perceived as your last navigational resort to bring you home if the lights went out, has every chance of underperforming when it is needed the most.
Then there are the numerous certificates one needs to sail.
One is pilotage requirements. "For example, we simulated an inland voyage carrying grain from Nakskov in Denmark to Salzgitter, a small port about 200 kilometres south of Hamburg. The journey starts in the Baltic Sea, and we travel down Germany’s inland river system," said Mr Busshoff.
"To complete this single journey, it requires six different operator qualifications and certifications along with expert knowledge of the German language. Starting with the standard deep-sea certificates of competence to the different pilot exemptions certificates and separate river licences along with a Class A general inland waterways licence, it can take about 10 years of training to get there.
"In short, no one person can be expected to have all these skill sets alone. So, typically a vessel would have to have multiple crew members on board to be able to navigate this small stretch or spend a handsome amount on getting special pilots’ assistance at each junction," he said.
If the operations were carried out by a remotely monitored vessel, there won’t be a need to have six different specialists onboard. Having the right competencies available in a single remote-control centre, and used only when they are needed, would both suffice and optimise the process.
Shipping is full of such examples where we’re expected to have modern automation work around rather ancient rules, which merely exist because “things have always been done that way“.
So before we start building ships with new technology, maybe it’s time to re-evaluate which regulations and guidelines are still relevant and make sense, and which ones have become outdated.
The answer is not to simply keep adding new regulations, but also to analyse old ones and ask why they exist in the first place, and then revise where needed.
After all, regulations are not a checklist with ticks alongside. They are the most logical measures taken to govern the most rudimentary principle of the maritime industry – ensuring safety at all times. |
