6.4 Effective Communication on Board: Principles, Barriers & SMCP

6.4 Effective Communication on Board: Principles, Barriers & SMCP

Core Principle: Table A-VI/1-4 contains a competence in its own right — contribute to effective communications on board ship — with two knowledge items: understanding the principles of, and the barriers to, effective communication, and the ability to establish and maintain it. Casualty investigations return to this competence more often than to any equipment failure.

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1. The Working Language

SOLAS Chapter V, Regulation 14.3 requires that a working language be established and recorded in the ship's log book. Every officer and rating must be able to understand and, where appropriate, give orders and instructions in it, and it must be used on safety notices, muster lists and the fire training manual.

Where the working language is not the mother tongue of the crew, English is used for bridge-to-bridge, bridge-to-shore and pilot communications. On a ship whose crew shares no first language, safety-critical instructions are also posted in the working language and English — the muster list, the fire safety training manual, permits to work and the garbage placard all carry this requirement.

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2. IMO Standard Marine Communication Phrases (SMCP)

Adopted as IMO Resolution A.918(22), the SMCP exist because ordinary English is ambiguous under pressure. Their most useful feature for a rating is the set of message markers, spoken before the message so the listener knows what kind of message is coming.

Supporting Conventions

• Spell with the phonetic alphabet — Alfa, Bravo, Charlie — never with improvised words.
• Speak numbers digit by digit: "one four five", not "one forty-five". Depths and drafts are spoken with "decimal": "eleven decimal two metres".
• Say again replaces "what?", read back replaces "repeat that", and correction precedes a fix to something already transmitted.
• Avoid idiom, slang and double negatives. "Don't fail to secure it" is a sentence a second-language listener may parse backwards.
• Use standard clock or relative bearings rather than "over there".

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3. Closed-Loop Communication

The single most valuable habit on a ship is the three-step loop:

   1. SENDER    -> "Port ten."
   2. RECEIVER  -> "Port ten, sir."           (reads the message back)
   3. SENDER    -> "Yes, port ten."           (confirms the read-back was right)

Helm and engine orders have always used this loop; the discipline extends equally to permit sign-offs, valve line-ups, crane and mooring signals, and BA entry control. The loop catches the two commonest failures at once: the message not heard, and the message heard as something else.

Hand signals are the non-verbal equivalent and follow the same principle. The crane driver acts only on signals from one nominated banksman, and stops immediately on the emergency stop signal given by anybody.

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4. Barriers to Effective Communication

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5. Speaking Up: Graded Assertiveness

A junior seafarer who spots something wrong needs a route to say so that does not require confrontation. The two-challenge rule is the minimum standard: if your first question is dismissed and you still believe the situation is unsafe, you are professionally obliged to challenge a second time, directly, and to escalate if it is still unaddressed.

The CUS script gives you the words:

1. "I am Concerned…" — state the observation. "I am concerned that the second wire is not on the bitts yet."
2. "I am Uncomfortable…" — state the feeling and the risk. "I am uncomfortable heaving on this line with people in the bight."
3. "This is a Safety issue — stop." — invoke stop-work authority.

Every modern Safety Management System gives every crew member stop-work authority, and a company that punishes its correct use has a safety culture problem, not a discipline problem.

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6. Structured Communication in Practice

• Toolbox talk before any non-routine job: what we are doing, who does what, the hazards, the controls, the stop conditions, and "what questions do you have?" — an open question, not "any questions?", which invites silence.
• Watch handover: position and traffic, machinery status, jobs in progress, outstanding permits, standing and night orders, anything the relieving officer must watch for. Nobody takes the watch until they have said they are ready.
• Emergency reporting: who you are, where you are, what you have, what you are doing (Section 1.5).
• Medical reporting: the ISBAR structure used for TMAS calls (Section 5.5).
• Written back-up for anything that must survive a shift change: night orders, standing orders, permit conditions, the deck and engine log books.