BIMCO EXECUTIVE SAYS VESSEL CREWS SIZES WON?T CHANGE IN 10 YEARS

BIMCO EXECUTIVE SAYS VESSEL CREWS SIZES WONÆT CHANGE IN 10 YEARS    Bjarne Tvilde, vice president of the Baltic and International Maritime Council, told a Danish trade conference last week that “it is believed that the new ship of five or 10 years hence will probably have a crew much the same size as that of a new ship today.”
   Tvilde said that although “the replacement of old, labor-intensive units will lead to some manpower economies … it is clear that, while the past may have seen some fairly dramatic reductions in crew sizes per ship, we are reaching the end of this process.”
   The industry will continue to see “startling changes” in “areas of recruitment,” Tvilde said. “Individual companies and even countries where there’s been a large-scale switch of personnel … to Philippine or Indian crew sources, illustrate this change most dramatically, but viewed over the whole industry, the change has been, we believe, much more evolutionary.”
   'Whether vessels will have enough qualified officers a decade from now remains an open question. BIMCO has recommended that the trainee rate needs to be stepped up to a recommended level of one in seven officers.