Myths about STCW Crowd and Crisis Management and Basic Safety Training

[PMC]

Many of the cruise lines have approval to teach the crowd and crisis management courses in-house. Same with Basic Safety Training. Members of deck and engineering departments are required to take take legitimate STCW courses.

However, for the hotel staff, which can number over a thousand people, the courses are nothing more than being handed a few computer discs. One of the discs has 10 or 20 multiple choice questions. Press the right button and you pass the course. Oh, and then hope your ship does not catch on fire or sink.

How can it work this way? Because somebody who wants to have an experience as a waiter on a cruise ship (or a chef) is not going to be willing to put the time and money into something they only plan to do one contract "for the experience". Unfortunately, the big cruise ships really have to rely on these huge hotel staffs in the event of an emergency.

Perhaps Costa Concordia fiasco will change this.

[CaptAndrew]

Many of the cruise lines have approval to teach the crowd and crisis management courses in-house. Same with Basic Safety Training. Members of deck and engineering departments are required to take take legitimate STCW courses.

However, for the hotel staff, which can number over a thousand people, the courses are nothing more than being handed a few computer discs. One of the discs has 10 or 20 multiple choice questions. Press the right button and you pass the course. Oh, and then hope your ship does not catch on fire or sink.

How can it work this way? Because somebody who wants to have an experience as a waiter on a cruise ship (or a chef) is not going to be willing to put the time and money into something they only plan to do one contract "for the experience". Unfortunately, the big cruise ships really have to rely on these huge hotel staffs in the event of an emergency.

Perhaps Costa Concordia fiasco will change this.

Yes some companies do have approval. But from my previous experience (in small US cruise ships) the approval is subject to the same standards as any other school. Now while I worked for said cruise line I had the pleasure of working with a hotel manager who came from RCL and her training was done at Piney Point, so I would presume that their training met proper standards.

Admittedly this is a limited base of information for me to quote but I would not dismiss all in-house training as inadequate.

[PMC]

From what I am reading, many, if not most of the big cruise ships send there passengers to a large auditorium to watch a video. They NEVER go the their actual lifeboat station.

[Sweat-n-Grease]

Yes some companies do have approval. But from my previous experience (in small US cruise ships) the approval is subject to the same standards as any other school. Now while I worked for said cruise line I had the pleasure of working with a hotel manager who came from RCL and her training was done at Piney Point, so I would presume that their training met proper standards.

Admittedly this is a limited base of information for me to quote but I would not dismiss all in-house training as inadequate.

When we find ourselves in a crowded venue, whether it be a high rise, sports stadium, concert, and yes cruise ships, there exists the unhappy aspect that a crises will happen and cause an uncontrollable panic. Those of us who have sailed, are still sailing, and will sail cargo ships are involved with a relatively small crew and we are trained to handle crises, mostly from STCW and Firefighting Schools, attendance required every 5 years if I recall correctly (some of us from actually being in a crisis situation). IMO the cruise ship industry can and will do better but there is always a caveat that when one boards a cruise ship with thousands of passengers your worse nightmare might happen. With that thought in mind it is imperative for such cruise ship corporations to insist that their officers and crew sail in accordance with international maritime law. Will this happen, who knows, memories are short, but I bet tourist navigation will be curbed - for the moment.