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We understand that a cancellation due to the absence of a member of the crew is frustrating and disrupts our customers’ travel plans. We only cancel sailings as a last resort when we are unable to cover an absent, essential member of our crew at short notice.
Safety is paramount:
Safety is our number one priority, and we will never compromise safety by undertaking a sailing without the correct level of crewing to safeguard our passengers.
All Wightlink crew require the highest level of STCW (Standards of Training, Certification and Watchkeeping) to maintain the best standards of safety for our customers. Our training is achieved through continuous professional development, which is in excess of legislative requirements, and ensures all crew have the required knowledge to deal with any emergency scenario.
The health of our seafarers is also important. We regularly send every one of our crew for an external health assessment by a doctor registered with the coastguard. There are many common medical conditions that can be managed on land that would severely impact a seafarer’s ability to carry out their emergency duties. Seafarers have very stringent standards to meet and if for any reason they can’t, even temporarily, they are stood down from work.
How do Wightlink manage members of the crew?
Wightlink build rosters based on our timetables to ensure that all sailings are fully staffed. Colleagues are activated to work on a set of sailings, other colleagues are allocated to a reserve status to cover for any absences, and finally a set number of colleagues are allocated to rest days or on holiday. The building of these rosters ensures that the timetable can be run, with resource available to cover for any last-minute gaps, whilst other staff are rested to be able to run future sailings and comply with legislation.
Our ship’s crew are governed by strict working time directives, which means they may not always be able to cover a shift on their rest days or change their shifts without breaching the rules. The directives are in place to prevent fatigue and protect our staff and customers from harm.
Annual Leave is also heavily regulated, and we have a policy in place to restrict the number of crew allowed on leave at any one time.
Wightlink invests heavily in staff welfare to help prevent sickness. We have a 24-hour staff Occupational Health Service and offer Flu vaccines etc annually.
Requirements of members of the Wightlink crew?
All crew undertake ‘familiarisation’ onboard the ships they are to work on. This is completed in full and depending on the crew person’s rank can take over six months. Familiarisation includes ship specific training on critical safety equipment, emergency drills and local navigational knowledge that is bespoke for a particular ship and / or route. Crew cannot be taken from one ship to another without the familiarisation of the vessel being up to date which is why we train and familiarise by route and cannot safely take crew from one route to another at short notice. Additionally, ships officers in Portsmouth are required to sit exams with both Portsmouth and Southampton harbour masters to gain local knowledge certification which takes many months of study and practical experience to gain.
When a member of the crew is absent, why can’t a replacement quickly be sourced to cover the gap?
When a member of the crew reports an absence we will always do all we can to cover the role and avoid cancellations. However, we can only select a replacement crew member if they conform to the strict requirements of the ship’s crew that are set out in the section above.
Our Resource Planning Team have developed internal processes whereby days of high frequency sailings will trigger alerts so that additional personnel can be rostered onboard and ashore to cover any last-minute absence or assist with loading and discharging the vessels.
Wightlink is very fortunate to have a dedicated workforce with many IOW residents forming the backbone of the ship crews. When recruiting new staff one of the key qualities we look for is flexible working. This enables our planning departments to move crews around at short notice and avoid cancellations.
Why don’t you recruit more members of staff and train them in order to cover absence in the future?
Wightlink continually monitor staffing levels to ensure that we have the right number available to operate our fleet of ships. We have an excess number of crew to cover for absence already, for instance on our Lymington to Yarmouth route we have eight Masters (Captains), but only ever run a maximum of five roster turns in a day. Our crewing levels are optimised so we have spare capability across all ranks and roles, but not to a level where we are so over resourced that staff members are unproductive during times of standard operation, creating an inefficient operation.
Selected members of our management team also maintain competency levels regarding certain crewing positions, so they can step in regarding any last-minute absence.
We run regular recruitment activity and always seek to be proactive to ensure that potential staffing gaps are anticipated and mitigated. Review of future staffing needs is a core activity regarding for our business.
Who are essential members of the crew?
Certain positions onboard the ship are categorised as ‘essential’ as they form part of the number of staff that must be onboard to safely sail the ship with a certain number of passengers. The number of crew required changes with the number of passengers booked to sail.
These essential positions change dependant on route.
Portsmouth-Fishbourne: Captain, Chief Officer, Chief Engineer, Deck Officer, Senior Rating and two ratings.
Portsmouth Harbour-Ryde Pier Head: Captain, Chief Officer and Lead Rating.
Lymington-Yarmouth: Captain, Chief Engineer, Deck Mate, Bosun, ERC (Engine Room Competent Person), Senior Rating, Rating.
But it feels like Wightlink regularly cancel sailings due to a lack of crew?
We understand how frustrating it is when sailings are cancelled due to a shortage of a specific crew member, but it is a rare occurrence. Each year Wightlink carries 4.3 million people on more than 140 sailings a day, we cancel less than 1% of sailings for any reason – mechanical and crew related. However, when disruption does occur we realise the high impact it has on the plans of passengers scheduled for that sailing. As a result, we go to great lengths to arrange a replacement sailing as close to the original as possible. We understand that our timetable is our promise to customers, so we endeavour to keep disruption to an absolute minimum.
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