Crew welfare
Crew welfare at sea, starting with communication and connectivity.
Welfare on a modern ship is decided less by the gym and the video library than by whether a seafarer can reach home reliably, raise a concern safely and rest properly. This page sets out what MLC 2006 expects, what good practice looks like on board, and a checklist you can take to the next safety committee.
Communication and connectivity.
High-throughput satellite service has removed the technical excuse for keeping crew offline, and the MLC amendments have removed the regulatory one. What remains is policy: how much data, to whom, at what hours, on which network, and what happens when the link drops. Six practices separate a good installation from a good welfare outcome.
Publish the allowance, not just the password
Crew trust collapses when the data policy is verbal and changes with the master. Post a written policy: how much data per rank per month, whether it is free or charged, what the fair-use throttle is, and who to ask when it runs out. A predictable 2 GB beats an unpredictable 10 GB.
Protect calls home at watch-friendly hours
Bandwidth shaping that prioritises business traffic during the working day is reasonable. Shaping that leaves the 8-to-12 watch with unusable video calls at the only hours they are awake is not. Rotate any restricted windows against the watch bill so the same crew are not always the ones cut off.
Cover the ports and the transits, not just the average
Coverage gaps cluster: at anchor outside congested ports, in high-latitude transits and during the beam switches. Log where connectivity actually failed rather than relying on the monthly uptime figure, and give crew the schedule in advance so they can plan a call rather than discovering the outage.
Keep welfare traffic off the business network
Separate the crew SSID and VLAN from ship business and OT systems. It protects the vessel under IMO cyber risk management expectations and it protects the crew, whose personal accounts and medical or family correspondence should not sit on a network the company monitors.
Never make connectivity the payment for overtime
Data used as a reward or a sanction turns a welfare provision into a discipline tool. It is the single most common complaint inspectors hear about shipboard internet, and it converts a good installation into a retention problem.
Make one channel work when everything else is down
Satellite fails. Crew need one guaranteed route to the company, the flag, the P&I club and a helpline that does not depend on the same link — a printed card at the mess with numbers, the DPA contact and the shipboard complaint route, plus the ability to send a message that queues and delivers when the link returns.
When the link is down, the record should not be.
Coverage gaps are where welfare records quietly fail: rest hours filled in from memory three days later, a near-miss never written up, a complaint that waits for the beam to come back and then never gets raised. Full Ahead is built offline-first, so entries made mid-ocean are captured at the moment they happen and sync automatically when connectivity returns — the same behaviour that keeps planned maintenance honest.
The six areas welfare is actually judged on.
Connectivity
Written data policy, per-rank allowance, crew network segregated from ship business, coverage gaps logged and communicated in advance.
Communication
Reliable contact with family, a working shipboard complaint route, access to the DPA, and messages that queue offline and deliver on reconnection.
Rest and hours
Hours of rest recorded against STCW and MLC limits, non-conformities visible before they become fatigue, port call peaks planned rather than absorbed.
Health
Medical certificate expiry tracking, telemedical access, mental-health first-aid contacts, and a route to raise a concern without it going through the person it concerns.
Social life on board
Shore leave granted and recorded, recreational facilities maintained as equipment rather than as an afterthought, mixed-nationality crew supported in a common working language.
Training and progression
STCW and certificate renewals planned around rotations, familiarisation and drills recorded, cadets and juniors given a documented development path.
Twelve things to verify before the next inspection.
- Written crew internet and data policy posted where crew can read it, in the working language
- Per-rank monthly data allowance defined, and what happens when it is exhausted
- Crew network segregated from ship business and OT systems
- Coverage-gap schedule for the voyage shared with crew in advance
- Printed contact card: company, DPA, flag, P&I, seafarer helpline
- Onboard complaint procedure posted, with a route that bypasses the person complained about
- Hours of rest recorded and reviewed weekly against STCW and MLC limits
- Shore leave requests and grants recorded per port call
- Medical certificates and mandatory training expiries tracked with lead time
- Recreational equipment on the planned maintenance schedule, not on goodwill
- Welfare item as a standing agenda point at the monthly safety committee
- Mental-health and bereavement support contacts available and known to the crew
Crew welfare questions.
Welfare you can evidence, not just intend.
Certificates, rest hours, drills, shore leave and complaints tracked per seafarer and per vessel — offline at sea, in sync ashore. Thirty days free, no card.