Maritime companies must close the gap between seafarer welfare policies written ashore and the reality experienced by crews at sea if the industry is to turn policy into meaningful change, experts warned during a World Maritime Day webinar hosted by OneCare Group .
Held to mark World Maritime Day and its theme, “From Policy to Practice – Powering Maritime Excellence,” the webinar brought together experts from across maritime welfare, mental health, crewing, and safety and ship operations to examine why well-intentioned policies do not always translate into meaningful protection onboard.
Moderating the discussion, Gisa Paredes, Managing Director of WellAtSea, member of OneCare Group, said a recurring theme was the disconnect between what companies intend to achieve ashore and what seafarers experience in their everyday working lives.
She said: “Putting people at the centre of maritime excellence really requires confronting operational truth. We need to move from paper rest logs to actual biological rest and evolve from emergency helplines to continuous psychological care, being able to break that stigma, but also foster leadership where seafarers really feel safe speaking up.”
Fatigue was highlighted as one of the clearest examples of the policy to practice challenge. While international requirements govern work and rest hours, speakers questioned whether recorded compliance necessarily means seafarers are receiving sufficient restorative sleep.
The panel was made up of Olga Pavlova, Global Crewing Operations Manager, NSB GROUP; Güven Kale, Manager of Clinical Training and Special Programmes at OneCare Group; Captain Siva Shanmugam, Senior Manager, Inspections, Asia Operations, RightShip; Stuart Edmonston, Director of Loss Prevention, Steamship Mutual P&I Club; and Pablo Torres, Head of Crew Departments, C Transport Maritime S.A.M.
Drawing on his experience of conducting ship inspections, Captain Siva said: “It’s not always about compliance, it’s about whether they are recording it accurately?” He also highlighted the pressure created during port calls when crew changes, stores, provisions and other activities can take place within the same limited window.
Ms Kale warned that rest-hour records alone cannot provide the complete picture. “Rest opportunities given to seafarers is not the same thing as restorative sleep,” she said. “A clean rest hours record should not automatically be interpreted as this crew definitely rested.”
She added companies should also consider sleep quality, repeated waking, concentration problems, irritability, behavioural changes, interpersonal conflict, mistakes and near misses when assessing fatigue.
Speaking from a crewing perspective, Ms Pavlova said the fundamental problem was often not the absence of policies but what happens between written requirements and everyday life onboard.
“On paper, we may say that we prioritise wellbeing, rest hours and psychological safety. In reality, the shipping industry itself creates the environment where you experience every day the operational pressure, deadlines, inspections and delays involved in crew changes,” she said.
The panel also called for mental health support to move beyond crisis intervention. Ms Kale said problems often build through poor sleep, onboard conflict, family difficulties, isolation, anxiety and loneliness before a seafarer seeks professional help.
“The goal here is not only to be available when there’s a crisis, but to make it normal to reach out before there is something big there,” she said.
Mr Torres argued that mental health provision should consequently be regarded as more than a compliance requirement. “We need to consider mental health support not as compliance, but rather as risk management, performance management and really crew welfare,” he said, adding that seafarers should ultimately have access to comparable levels of support to employees ashore.
Mr Edmonston also highlighted the responsibility of senior leadership to ensure welfare policies reflect the reality onboard. “We should ensure that crew welfare is at the forefront of the board’s decision making, where does crew welfare sit in the agenda of a board meeting at a shipping company? Is it in the first half of the meeting or is it at the bottom before AOB?”
He added there had been “huge strides” in improving life for seafarers but stressed that senior management still needs to understand what is happening onboard and whether crews feel connected to decisions being made ashore.
The panellists all agreed a lot of progress has been made in terms of crew welfare and shipping companies are leading the way by investing in mental health and wellbeing but there is still a lot more than can be done, and experts must continue to raise awareness of issues crew members are facing and the practical step employers can ensure the right support is in place.
Closing the discussion, Ms Paredes said genuine implementation ultimately requires the industry to “remove blame and shame” and create a culture in which seafarers can speak openly about the realities they experience onboard.
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