BACKGROUND: Fishery is a hazardous occupation and fatigue may contribute to the observed risks. This study aims to investigate the association between workload and fatigue among Danish fishermen.
MATERIALS AND METHODS: The cross-sectional survey of demographic characteristics and self-reported exposure and health data was performed on a random sample of 270 active fishermen. We applied the validated Multidimensional Fatigue Inventory (MFI-20) to assess the degrees of the different dimensions of perceived fatigue. We estimated physical workload using questions regarding the frequency of seven physical work activities and analysed the association between fatigue and workload using multiple linear regressions.
RESULTS: The mean fatigue scores were 9.18 (SD 3.58) for general fatigue, 9.05 (SD 3.36) for physical fatigue, 7.57 (SD 3.03) for reduced activity and 7.16 (SD 3.07) for mental fatigue. Highest levels of fatigue were observed among fishermen at Danish seiners (mean 10.21), and fatigue scores decreased with more days at sea. However, none of these results were significant. Adjusted analyses showed that physical workload was significantly related to general fatigue (b = 0.20, 95% CI: 0.12-0.28), physical fatigue (b = 0.10, 95% CI: 0.04-0.16) and mental fatigue (b = 0.09, 95% CI: 0.01-0.16). Reduced activity was unrelated to work exposures.
CONCLUSIONS: General fatigue was the dominant fatigue dimension among Danish fishermen and it is mostly associated with physical workload. Physical workload was additionally significantly associated to the levels of physical and mental fatigue. Fishermen had a lower average score for all fatigue dimensions compared to those seen in general Danish working population. Prospective studies are required to assess whether the identified associations are causal.
When a ship navigates at sea, the slamming impact can generate significant load pulses which move up along the hull plating. The effect of the moving pressure has so far not been explicitly considered in the Rules and Regulations for the Classification of Ships. Based on a modal superposition method and the Lagrange equation, this paper derives analytical solutions to study the elastic dynamic responses of fully clamped rectangular plates under moving pressure impact loads. The spatial variation of the moving slamming impact pressure is simplified to three types of impact loads, i.e. a rectangular pulse, a linearly decaying pulse and an exponentially decaying pulse. The dynamic responses of fully clamped rectangular plates under the moving slamming impact pressure are calculated in order to investigate the influence of the load pulse shapes and moving speed on the plate structural behaviour. It is found that the structural response of the plate increases with the increase of the moving speed. The response of the plate subjected to a moving pressure impact load is smaller than the case when the plate is subjected to a spatially uniform distributed impact load with the same load amplitude and load duration. In order to quantify the effect of the moving speed on the dynamic load, a Dynamic Moving Load Coefficient (DMLC) is introduced as the ratio between the dynamic load factor for the moving impact load and that under the spatially uniform distributed impact load. An expression for DMLC is proposed based on analyses of various scenarios using the developed analytical model. Finally an empirical formula which transforms the moving impact loads to an equivalent static load is proposed.
Ship grounding experiments are important benchmarks used to validate numerical analysis, analytical and empirical formulation. They are key to the understanding of damage mechanism. A set of small-scale ship model grounding tests over a sharp rock are conducted in a water tank considering the influence of surrounding water. Two damage modes are observed in the grounding tests, Mode I for discontinuous fracture/tear and Mode II for continuous fracture/tear. The horizontal grounding resistance forces, damage extents of ship bottom plates, and ship motions are recorded and discussed in detail. Moreover, the energy dissipation process of ship model during grounding process is analyzed based on the test results. The influence of the initial velocity, the initial relative height between the upper surface of the horizontal ship bottom plate and the rock tip, and the rock eccentricity on the ship motion response and structural damage are studied.
Large volumes of produced water are being discharged globally as byproducts of oil production. Commercial production chemicals are conventionally needed to avoid problems such as bacterial growth, pipe corrosion, and oil/water separation issues. These chemicals will partition between oil and water phases and may affect both treatment processes and the environmental impact when water is discharged to the ocean after treatment. Capillary zone electrophoresis is used to measure partitioning coefficients of oilfield chemicals when these are dissolved in the water phase and in contact with either octanol or crude oil. The technique is fast and, due to simplicity, could have merits as on-site assessment of the partition coefficient for direct assessment of the fate of chemicals. The method was first qualified by estimating partitioning coefficients of aliphatic carboxylic acids and chemicals with a molecular structure similar to those of some production chemicals. Subsequently, the coefficients were determined for two different commercial corrosion inhibitors and a biocide that are used in the oilfield as production chemicals. The results showed that the chemicals predominantly preferred to remain in the water phase after contact with either octanol or crude oil. The partitioning coefficients log(p) spanned between −0.36 and −1.68 in the case of water/octanol contact and between 2.68 and −1.41 in the case of water/crude oil contact. One of the corrosion inhibitors exhibited a significant difference in the partitioning depending on whether the organic phase was octanol or crude oil. The chemical had a preference for the water phase in the case of the former but a preference for the crude oil phase in the case of the latter. The result demonstrates that it makes it challenging to evaluate the use of partitioning coefficients for oilfield applications.
Objective: To promote the physical and mental health of employees in a maritime setting and provide knowledge and tools to assist seafarers in managing daily challenges.
Materials and methods: The intervention drew on a goal-based approach, including workshops, coaching,health checks, interviews, and questionnaires.
Results: A process evaluation was used to explore intervention challenges and barriers. Results show that an intervention at sea is complex and needs flexibility. Findings varied, and the main challenges were low participation in one group and lack of continuity due to Covid-19. Data showed a significant positive shift in how the crew rated perceived stress and a statistically significant increase in intake of salad, fish, and vegetarian food.
Conclusions: Workplace interventions in poor health status settings are complex, necessary, and possible, and management’s participation is crucial. Increased awareness was achieved. Learning outcomes: The results showed some positive changes, such as lower stress levels and more intake of salad, fish, and vegetarian food. Flexibility is important for workplace interventions. Work place interventions contribute to health and wellbeing with appropriate management support.
Background:
The third edition of the International Medical Guide for Ships (IMGS) was published in 2007 and supported a main principle of the newly adopted International Maritime Labour Convention (MLC) 2006: to ensure that seafarers are given health protection and medical care as comparable as possible to that which is available to workers ashore. In 2021, the revisions and drafting of the fourth edition of the IMGS began. Taking the COVID-19 pandemic into consideration, it was decided that a stakeholder study was necessary to ascertain the usefulness and practicality of the guide as well as provide input for which new topics to include.
Materials and methods:
The study applied data triangulation, with respondents from a geographically
broad sample of the International Maritime Organization‘s five regional areas of the world. The data was analysed using thematic analysis.
Results:
The results show that the IMGS is widely known and used among persons involved in medical care on board ships, but the IMGS is not as practical as stakeholders would wish it to be. For the guide to be useful, it must be ensured that telemedical advice information is included and if possible, ensure there is one single and global medical guide. Also, there is a need for new medical information, and respondents pointed to pandemic information, medicines list, medical chest, mental health issues, a women’s section, updated cardiopulmonary resuscitation instructions, human immune defect virus information (human immune defect-virus) and information on how seafarers may self-monitor and be monitored on board in relation to chronic diseases.
Conclusions:
Respondents understand a medicine chest on board is mandatory according to the MLC 2006, 98% are familiar with its content, and 86% use the IMGS.
Across Europe, countries are joining forces in order to implement European Commission initiatives as the Blue Growth Strategy and the Directive on Maritime Spatial Planning. Collaboration on how to perform stakeholder involvement as well as create cross-border solutions has become a key issue around the European sea basins and holistic spatial planning approaches similar to terrestrial planning practices are now being implemented in the marine environment. Among the sectors in marine governance is the maritime cultural heritage under water as well as in the coastal zone, where the example of the Baltic Sea Region illustrates how this sector has become an inherent part of the new Blue Growth discourse and the MSP-policy development across the region. In order to utilise this potential, support for collaboration and shared understandings within the maritime cultural heritage community of practise is needed. This research has focused on how to develop a spatially enabled digital and collaborative working environment to support the co-creation of new shared spatial planning concepts for maritime cultural heritage. The development of the platform itself has been carried out in a close cooperation with the actual users including cultural heritage experts, public authorities and research institutes in the Baltic Sea Region.
Maritime shipping is the transmission belt of the global economy. It is also a major contributor to global environmental change through its under-regulated air, water and land impacts. It is puzzling that shipping is a lagging sector as it has a well-established global regulatory body—the International Maritime Organization. Drawing on original empirical evidence and archival data, we introduce a four-factor framework to investigate two main questions: why is shipping lagging in its environmental governance; and what is the potential for the International Maritime Organization to orchestrate emerging private ‘green shipping’ initiatives to achieve better ecological outcomes? Contributing to transnational governance theory, we find that conditions stalling regulatory progress include low environmental issue visibility, poor interest alignment, a broadening scope of environmental issues, and growing regulatory fragmentation and uncertainty. The paper concludes with pragmatic recommendations for the International Maritime Organization to acknowledge the regulatory difficulties and seize the opportunity to orchestrate environmental progress.
A conceptual design framework for collision and grounding analysis is proposed to evaluate the crashworthiness of double-hull structures. This work attempts to simplify the input parameters needed for the analysis, which can be considered as a step towards a design-oriented procedure against collision and grounding. Four typical collision and grounding scenarios are considered: (1) side structure struck by a bulbous bow, (2) side structure struck by a straight bow, (3) bottom raking, (4) bottom stranding. The analyses of these scenarios are based on statistical data of striking ship dimensions, velocities, collision angles and locations, as well as seabed shapes and sizes, grounding depth and location. The evaluation of the damage extent considers the 50- and 90-percentile values from the statistics of collision and grounding accidents. The external dynamics and internal mechanics are combined to analyse systematically the ship structural damage and energy absorption under accidental loadings.
This paper is framed in the context of the EU Interreg IVB North Sea Region project Food Port. In line with this project, this paper aims to define mathematically cost and time models able to provide realistic information about the performances of road haulage and of intermodal chains using short sea shipping (SSS) in the North Sea Region (NSR). The models integrate the necessary variables to establish the impact of different fleets and SSS features on the competitiveness of intermodal chains for the movement of food related goods. The models were applied to evaluate the opportunities for the success of intermodal chains using the Rosyth-Zeebrugge route. The results obtained validate the utility of the models and they suggest possible changes to the current operation of this SSS service in order to increase the marked potential possibilities for the intermodal chains through Rosyth-Zeebrugge.