The Master of the vessel by tradition and law holds the ultimate authority and responsibility for his or her ship
Indeed. But there is a difference beween power and responsibility. I do not consider Masters that 'traditionally' made people 'walk the plank', flogged people, introduced press gangs were really responsible to the first basic 101 of a modern safety management system: Safety of people on board.
Please enlighten us as to why you feel this way.
In our fleet we have many different kinds of vessels, manned by different nationalities. But most of the fresh Engineers we get do around 4 years of Engineering and most have bachelor degree qualifications. They have already studied strength of materials, Naval Arch 4 years apart from the normal diet of Marine/ Mechanical engineering. On he other hand fresh Cadets are right out of high school and do compulsory time for their license requirements on deck. We do get people with better educational qualifications, analytical abilities and skills on the Engineering side than on the deck side.
Just early May on a routine inspection, i personally witnessed a Maser supervising the welding of a support bracket for an LRIT antenna while it was drizzling. I got the operation stopped and asked the Master if he had a hot work permit. My company hot work permits have to be signed by Master. Here he signed it and did not realize arc welding in the rain is a NO NO. Because of the near miss here, we had to take into account that Ship Masters might not appreciate safeties involved in arc and gas welding. So it is important that either the 1st or Chief Engineer signs the permit and then the Master. In other words, we cannot trust the Masters signature on such permits alone as ensuring safety during he operation. Because i have he Chief Engineers sign, in case of a mishap, i will haul the C/E up, not the Master. I hope this small example illusrates some of he difficulties we face in our job.
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