E Watch

1. A review of the voyage length 2. Length of port stay 3. Length of service for every crew member. 4. Personnel number 5. Periods of responsibilities 6. Watchkeeping practices

The management should essentially provide clear, concise written policy guidelines to courage that the personnel are familiar with the vessel’s operational procedures, voyage length, destination, internal and external practices, and vessel’s familiarization procedures. Management should see to it that personnel should be fit for duty and be adequately rested before assuming on board duties. Competent is important in the prevention of fatigue. Common myth existed that fatigue could be prevented by characteristics of personality, intelligence, education, training, skill compensation, motivation, physical size, strength, and attractiveness or professionalism.

SLEEP and FATIGUE (condensed from Appendix 41 of STCW 31/7 annex pages 261 to 276)

Sleep loss and sleepiness, including physical, psychomotor, and mental performance can degrade essentially every aspect of human performance. Moods can be affected and attitudes towards risk-taking and safety can change. Sleep is an active process; when we are asleep , we are in an altered state of consciousness. During deepest sleep, if awaken from it, we are likely feel groggy and disoriented and suffer from sleep inertia, a conditioned of impaired functioning which can last for 10 minutes or as long as one hour. Everyone’s quantity of sleep needs is unique. However 90% of population needs between 7.5 to 8.5 hours of sleep in 24-hour period. Alertness and performance are directly related to quantity of sleep. An acute sleep loss result when one is awake without sleep beyond the normal 14 to 16 hours waking day. The longer one is awake, the greater affect of performance. Once sleep debts and fatigue builds, only sleep can restore or maintain performance level . a person deprived of sleep over an extended periods such as by staying up awake all night and not being able to obtain any significant sleep the next day, will usually take to normal nights of sleep to fully recover. Sleep requirements do not change with age, but sleep patterns do.

Fatigue is used as a catch; a term for a variety of different experiences, such as:
Physical discomfort from over working a group of muscles;
Difficulty of concentrating;
Difficulty appreciating potential important signals; and
Problem staying awake.

In the context of investigation, fatigue is important if it potentially reduces efficiency, erodes, the safety of margin or otherwise impairs cognitive or physical performance.

The following are the effects of fatigue on performance: 1. A person’s job performance will be affected when they are under fatigue. 2. During nighttime hours and a lesser extend during the mid-afternoon dip, most type of human performance, whether manually dexterity, mental arithmetic, reaction time, or cognitive reasoning, are significantly impaired. 3. It affects the abilty to judge distance, speed, and time. 4. It can lead to forgetting or ignoring normal checks or procedures. 5. Mood is likely to be affected, the effects of which are people will less likely to converse, less likely to perform low demand task, more irritable, more distracted, by discomfort, and can display an “ I don’t care” attitude. 6. It can reduce attention, the effects of what people are overlook or misplace sequential task elements, become preoccupied with single task or element, are lest vigilant and less aware of their poor performance. 7. It can result a reduced motivation of performance. This can translate into a willingness to take risks and laxity of safety that would not be normally be tolerated when alert.