ALERT — ISSUE 14 — COMMUNICATION

Another release of the Human Element bulletin. This one has been dedicated mainly to the effective communication matters, treating this as the key to successful operations. We all know that the ability of the human to convey the information properly, by means of verbal communication or in writing is critically important since it not only directly relates to the safety of the crew, passengers of the vessels and visitors, but also affects the wellbeing of the people on board. It may seem that the English skills of some seamen is too bad that they experience problems when trying to communicate between themselves and with the agents.

The IMO SMCP was specifically prepared with the intention to get round this problem and trying to avoid such misunderstandings caused by the language barrier... obviously, this might cause major accidents and shall be avoided. Well, one of the keys to the improvement of the verbal communication is recruiting the seafarers having the basic understanding of the language in use on board, and also continuing education - learning and control of the training process through regular testing.

Apart from this issue, the quality of shipboard documentation has also been addressed in this release of the bulletin, together with culture and communication, alarm system management, paperwork, visual signals etc. Supplemented with this video.