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A
research project in which social
scientists undertook extended
voyages aboard merchant ships has
resulted in an unusual study of
multinational seafaring which has
concluded that there are many
advantages from this type of crewing
arrangement.
Undertaken
by the Seafarers International
Research Centre at Cardiff
University, the three-year project
which was completed last year
permitted researchers to board
vessels and to live alongside
multinational crews while observing
and interviewing them.
Voyages
were made aboard fourteen ships and
242 seafarers were interviewed on
tape. The study* also incorporated
findings from interviews with
crewing managers in ten companies,
141 seafarers in communities in
North Germany and the Netherlands
along with 131 interviews with
seafarers’ families in India and
the Philippines.
The
report discovered that that some 65%
of the world merchant fleet has
adopted multinational crewing
policies, and something over 10% of
the fleet is staffed with crews
composed of five or more different
nationalities.
The
survey noted that social integration
aboard ship increased with the
number of nationalities in the crew,
although teambuilding and personnel
management depended very much on the
skills and personality of those
aboard.
It
was recommended that more training
should be given in these areas so as
to more widely encourage ‘best
practice’.
Language
was seen as the catalyst to better
relations aboard, and it was
recommended that owners and managers
encourage a high level of fluency in
the working language of the ship,
and to encourage policies which
promote stable crewing, and social
activities aboad ship.
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