Mate to Master - Make Sure Your Crew Are Ready

Can it be done? Yes and safer too. How? There needs to be a structured approach to training and mentoring so that you avoid the situation where the only difference between Chief Officer and Master is two months leave.

You might be a good athlete but if you go to the Olympics with no preparation you will not win a medal! You can achieve a ‘medal winning’ promotion from Mate to Master if you have prepared for it. Once a Chief Officer is named for promotion there should be a programme in place of training and coaching to prepare for command. In this article we mention the obvious basics, such as STCW,  but we focus on mentoring, pastoral care and the Master’s SOLAS safety ‘trump card’.

Checklist

Put a programme together that can be made into a simple checklist so that there is proof of the key skills being assessed. This will help you later if you should need to demonstrate due diligence. The master copy of the checklist should be retained by the Chief Officer, with copies sent to the Master and to the office.

Our suggestion would be to use something like your own or the ship manager’s ‘job description’ for the Master. This might include:

• The relevant section from your or ship manager’s SMS
• Relevant ‘Guides for Ship Master’ from various organisations
• Something like STCW Part A and Part B Chapter VIII

From this type of document you can construct your own checklist which will cover all the key skills.

Mentoring

The Master must understand how to be a good mentor, not only as a way of improving job competence by passing on valuable experience but also a way of improving pastoral care on board.

The Chief Officer about to be promoted will have been part of a mentoring system on board. Without a mentoring system a promotion can be very daunting for most people, they go home a Chief Officer and return as Master!

Just like pastoral care training there should be training in how to be a good mentor. Unless the Master understands the need for this function then it is difficult to assess and develop competency.

Pastoral Care

Good leadership and pastoral care is essential to ensure the crew are happy and enjoy their work and as a result, they will perform better.

A Master should have training or briefing to assist in promoting and championing good pastoral care on board. Part of that training should link to on-board mentoring of all chief officers in general and specifically for chief officers named for promotion – as per the programme mentioned above.

Pastoral care is not rocket science. It might sound cheesy but it’s as simple as being a strong ‘on-board family’. With internet access becoming a must have rather than a luxury, crew family problems are instant. Crew must feel that despite being isolated from their families at home they have the bond and close support of their ‘on-board family’. For example, if the motorman is acting strangely someone must notice and ask why. The Master as the head of the ‘on board family’ must be told, or hopefully if he is a good leader he will have noticed himself.

The Master must also be striving for better and safer crew performance. For example, he should see control of hours of work and rest as a key factor for a happy crew that will enjoy their work a lot more. Such rules are there for a purpose. In marine accident reports, fatigue is usually identified as a factor. All masters should be briefed on how to manage fatigue on board through robust control of hours of work and rest.

SOLAS Responsibility of the Master

All current masters and all newly promoted masters must fully understand their SOLAS duty for the safety of the crew and the environment. If the Master takes a safety decision that overrides all other issues or influences then he must understand that to do so requires a significant reason. He must be able to show how and why he took that decision. He needs to accumulate good evidence at the time and make it known at the time. It does not look good when you put together evidence after the event!

Master’s professional judgement: SOLAS V Regulation 34-1 states that the owner, the charterer, the company operating the ship, or any other person SHALL not prevent or restrict the master of the ship from taking or executing any decision which, in the master’s professional judgement, is necessary for the safety of life at sea and protection of the marine environment.

This is a duty so powerful that it needs to be given keynote status in any programme for training and coaching to prepare for command.

Do you leave all this to the Master? No! Running ships is a joint task between the on board management team and the ship operations team ashore. Both teams need to contribute to training and coaching for command. The more this becomes part of the safety culture of the company the better prepared you can go from Mate to Master.