Fatigue

The IMO Assembly, at its 18th session held in 1993, adopted resolution A.772(18) on Fatigue factors in manning and safety. This resolution provides a general description of fatigue and identifies the factors of ship operations which may contribute to fatigue that should be taken into account when making decisions on ship's operations.

Guidelines on fatigue

The Maritime Safety Committee, at its seventy-first session held in 1999, considered the issue of human fatigue and agreed to develop practical guidance to provide appropriate information on fatigue to all parties concerned. Consequently, at its seventy-fourth session held in 2001), the Committee approved MSC/Circ.1014 on Guidance on fatigue mitigation and management.

Later on, MSC 94, in 2014), agreed to undertake a revision of the Guidance on fatigue mitigation and management and instructed the Sub-Committee on Human Element, Training and Watchkeeping (HTW) to conduct the review.

Accordingly, MSC 100 approved in 2018 MSC.1/Circ.1598 on the Guidelines on fatigue. These guidelines are composed of the following modules, addressing different interested parties:

  1. Module 1         Fatigue
  2. Module 2         Fatigue and the company
  3. Module 3         Fatigue and the seafarer
  4. Module 4         Fatigue, awareness and training
  5. Module 5         Fatigue and ship design
  6. Module 6         Fatigue, the Administration and port State Authorities
  7. Appendix 1      Examples of sleep and fatigue monitoring tools
  8. Appendix 2      Example of a fatigue event report information