TM Master Rules and Regulations Interpretation For Time Sheet

STCW Manila Amendments Exception Explanation

The standard rules stated for STCW 2010 are

All persons who are assigned duty as officer in charge of a watch or as a rating forming part of a watch and those whose duties involve designated safety, prevention of pollution and security duties shall be provided with a rest period of not less than:

.1 A minimum of 10 hours rest in any 24 hour period; and

.2 77 hours rest in any 7 day period. 

3. The hours of rest may be divided into no more than two periods, one of which shall be at least 6 hours in length, and the intervals between consecutive periods of rest shall not exceed 14 hours

For the purposes of the Time Sheet function in Tm Master V2, any 24 hour period is covered by checking 24 hours into the past from the end of every work period entry.  This ensures the capture of the minimum amount of rest hours in any 24 hour period.  Similarly, at the end of each work period, the program also checks 7 days into the past (168 hours) to ascertain the minimum amount of rest hours in any 7 day period.

For sentence 3 above, we interpret it as the minimum of 10 hours rest may be divided into no more than 2 periods one of which shall be at least 6 hours in length.  This means that two of the rest periods in any 24 hour period must add up to 10 or more hours where one of them is at least 6 hours.  This allows the following permutations (only taking into account whole hours) for the minimum of 10 hours

• 6 hours and 4 hours
• 7 hours and 3 hours
• 8 hours and 2 hours
• 9 hours and 1 hour

Leaving the only unacceptable permutation as 5 hours and 5 hours.

To check for this our program checks any 24 hour period for periods of rest.  If there is any case where 2 of the rest periods in that 24 hour period do not combine to equal 10 hours (or more), where one of the periods is at least 6 hours, then it is registered as a non-compliance (unless the exception rules below are relevant).

The paragraphs about exceptions are;

Under the exception clause, parties may allow exceptions from the required hours of rest provided that the rest period is not less than 70 hours in any 7 day period and on certain conditions, namely:

1. such exceptional arrangements shall not be extended for more than two consecutive weeks;

2. the intervals between two periods of exceptions shall not be less than twice the duration of the exception;

3. the hours of rest may be divided into no more than three periods, one of which shall be at least 6 hours and none of the other two periods shall be less than one hour in length;

4. the intervals between consecutive periods of rest shall not exceed 14 hours; and

5. exceptions shall not extend beyond two 24-hour periods in any 7-day period.

(extract from the IMO website - http://www.imo.org/en/MediaCentre/PressBriefings/Pages/stcw-hours-of-rest.aspx#.VrJPhPPKyM8)

However, this is the basically the same passage from another website:

Parties may allow exceptions from the required hours of rest in paragraphs 2.2 and 3 above provided that the rest period is not less than 70 hours in any 7 day period. 

Exceptions from the weekly rest period provided for in paragraph 2.2 shall not be allowed for more than two consecutive weeks. The interval between two periods of exception on board shall not be less than twice the duration of the exception.

The hours of rest provided for in paragraph 2.1 may be divided into no more than three periods (during exceptions), one of which shall be at least 6 hours in length and neither of the other two periods hall be less than one hour in length. The intervals between consecutive periods of rest shall not exceed 14 hours. Exceptions shall not extend beyond two 24 hour periods in any 7 day period.

 The source of this version of the text is:

http://www.westpandi.com/Publications/News/Archive/STCW---Manila-Amendments-to-the-STCW-Convention-and-Code/

Note the ‘(during exceptions)’ in brackets.

A third website goes on to use a similar text adds the following comment (note the bold text)

STCW 2010 also offers the ability to apply certain exceptions which must be allowed by

Parties (Flag States) to the STCW Convention. There are two main exceptions which can be

used either together or independently of each other:

7 day exception:

Minimum hours of rest in a 7 day period may be reduced to 70 hours

This is not allowed for more than 2 consecutive weeks; and

Not allowed to be used again until twice the period of exception has been used.

24 hour exception:

The rest hours in a 24 hour period can be split into 3 periods

(provided minimum of 10 hours rest is met)

Restricted use for 2 x 24 hour periods in any 7 day period

Extract from http://www.hksoa.org/contents/attachments/2012/Annex%20A%20-%20STCW%202010%20rest%20hour%20requirements.pdf

We’ll choose to take the original text from the IMO website so let’s deal with our interpretation of each part of the exception text separately;

Under the exception clause, parties may allow exceptions from the required hours of rest provided that the rest period is not less than 70 hours in any 7 day period and on certain conditions, namely:

It is not clear from the text above or the original document who or what ‘parties’ are, but it might be referring to the competent authorities which are referenced earlier in the original document.  It is also not defined how an exception period should be defined.  Should an authorised person decide when an exception period is to be instigated for a vessel or a specific crew member or should it be defined by another process? 

For the purposes of the Time Sheet function within TM Master V2, we have decided that an exception period is defined automatically and relates specifically to an individual crew member.

This basically means that it can be classified as an exception period if the seafarer falls under the ‘any 7 day’ limit of 77 hours rest as long as it is not less than 70 hours rest in any 7 day period and on certain conditions (referring to the five following points).  However, the way it is written is slightly ambiguous.  It is unclear whether it means that all the following conditions are dependent on the 77 hour limit being broken or whether the conditions are independent of it.  The first two conditions seem to be directly related to the act of breaking the 77 hour limit, so we must assume that all the conditions are directly related to it. 

1. such exceptional arrangements shall not be extended for more than two consecutive weeks;

This must refer to the circumstance of being under the 77 rest hour limit.  As soon as the seafarer falls below this limit, they have already tolerated 7 days of this exception.  This means that they have a further 7 days to ‘climb back up’ over the 77 hour limit before a non-compliance occurs.  As soon as they do ‘climb back up’ over the 77 hour limit the end of the exception period is defined.

2. the intervals between two periods of exceptions shall not be less than twice the duration of the exception;

As stated above for point 1, as soon as the seafarer drops below the 77 hour limit, they have tolerated 7 days of an exception period.  If they manage to climb over the 77 hour limit again within the same day then the exception period will be 7 days long. (exception periods can be 7 to 14 days long).  If it is 7 days long then point 2 says that there must not be another exception period before another 14 days have passed (twice the duration of the exception period).  If the exception period was 10 days, then there must not be another exception period for the seafarer for another 20 days.

3. the hours of rest may be divided into no more than three periods, one of which shall be at least 6 hours and none of the other two periods shall be less than one hour in length;

Point 3 says that it is permitted to split up the minimum rest period (in any 24 hour period) into 3 parts instead of the normal 2.  This allows the following permutations (only taking into account whole hours) for the minimum of 10 hours

• 6 hours, 3 hours & 1 hour
• 6 hours, 2 hours & 2 hours
• 7 hours, 2 hours & 1 hour
• 8 hours, 1 hour & 1 hour

Just as a note, going below the 77 hour 7 day limit means that the seafarer would be averaging over 13 hours work per day, which means that they wouldn’t be getting much more than the minimum of 10 hours rest a day.

4. the intervals between consecutive periods of rest shall not exceed 14 hours; and

Point 4 is fairly self-explanatory and does not differ from the normal rules.

5. exceptions shall not extend beyond two 24-hour periods in any 7-day period.

Point 5 is a little confusing and should be defined more clearly, but we assume that it is referring to the text in point 3 about splitting the minimum rest into 3 periods.  If this is so, then it means that splitting up the minimum rest into 3 periods (within any 24 hour period) is only allowed twice within any 7 day period.  Again this can be a little ambiguous as it could mean that it should not extend beyond a single 48 hour period, or it should not extend beyond two separate 24 hour periods.  A scenario can occur where the splitting of the minimum rest period into 3 (in any 24 hour period) can extend beyond the initial 24 hour period where it occurred creating an exception that lasts more than 24 hours (for example the following will give you a 28 hour period of exception.  Work from 00:00 to 04:00, 10:00 to 15:00, 17:00 to 22:00 & 00:00 to 04:00).  In our opinion, this scenario (an exception lasting longer than 24 hours) should only be allowed once in any seven day period to maintain the integrity of point 5.  However, this is a very narrow view of a specific small time period which is almost impossible to test for on a bigger scale.  The only practical test that can be performed for this rule is then that an entire 7 day period is tested for conformance as a series of 24 hour periods.  If separation of the rest periods into 3 occurs more than twice within those seven 24 hour periods, then a non-compliance is registered.

Regarding Points 3,4 & 5.  As stated, there is a slight ambiguity as to whether the 24 hour period rules stated in points 3,4 & 5 are dependent on the occurrence of the initial exception (i.e. if these are only allowed if the situation of falling under 77 hours rest in any 7 day period has occurred).  Our interpretation is that they are dependent.  The second excerpt of text (from a shipping insurance operator) indicates that we are not alone in this particular interpretation by the addition of the text in brackets ‘during exceptions’. This means that, in our program, if the minimum rest period is split into 3 in any 24 hour period outside of a 7 day exception period (rest hours <77), then it constitutes a non-compliance. 

ILO convention 180 & MLC 2006

The standard rules are

1 The limits on hours of work or rest shall be as follows:

(a) maximum hours of work shall not exceed:

(i) 14 hours in any 24-hour period; and

(ii) 72 hours in any 7-day period;

or

(b) minimum hours of rest shall not be less than:

(i) 10 hours in any 24-hour period; and

(ii) 77 hours in any 7-day period.

Three of these rules are the same as the STCW standard rules, however the fourth stating that a maximum of 72 hours of work are allowed for any 7 day period is a little strange.  The rules seem to indicate that a choice can be made to either follow the hours of rest or the hours of work rules.  This will give you quite a difference in the allowed hours of work for any 7 day period (one gives you 72 hours, the other gives you 91).  Whether maximum work rules or minimum rest rules are to be used must be decided by the competent authority or maybe even company policy and will be set according to wishes in the rules and regulations set provided by Tero Marine.

Rules for seafarers under the age of 18

Article 6 of the IMO ILO rules for hours of work & rest states the following;

No seafearer under 18 years of age shall work at night. For the purpose of

this article, ‘‘night’’ means a period of at least nine consecutive hours,

including the interval from midnight to five a.m. This provision need not be

applied when the effective training of young seafarers between the ages of

16 and 18 in accordance with established programmes and schedules

would be impaired. 

This means that a period of nine hours needs to be defined that includes the hours from midnight to five a.m. (00:00 to 05:00) where crew members under the age of 18 are not supposed to work.

That means that we could potentially define any 9 hour time period from 20:00 to 09:00.  As a result this time period must be decided by company policy and will be set according to wishes in the rules and regulations set provided by Tero Marine.

As part of MLC 2006 two additional rules need to be applied for seafarers under the age of 18;

(a) working hours should not exceed eight hours per day and 40 hours per week and overtime should be worked only where unavoidable for safety reasons;

We have chosen to interpret this in the same way as the other rules, that this referes to 8 hours in any 24 hour period and 40 hours in any 7 day period, although it is not strictly stated in the same manner.