Safety standards raised only after series of tragedies

Fewer and fewer staff who work on cross-Channel ferries are being trained to deal with emergencies, ships' officers said yesterday.

While full-time employees receive a high standard of instruction, the officers' union Numast claims ferry companies are hiring more casual workers with minimal training.

Allan Graveson, national secretary at Numast, said that while engine room personnel and deck hands all had the necessary qualifications, catering staff – who are expected to help in emergencies – were increasingly temporary workers with little or no training.

Mr Graveson also said that cost-cutting measures meant ships' crews had been cut to a minimum so that the numbers able to deal with passengers and cope with the emergency were at a minimum.

There are two major concerns over safety on ferries: one is the potentially disastrous effect of fires and the other is the difficulty of evacuating passengers. Fear of collisions is ever present, especially in the English Channel, which is the world's busiest seaway.

Fires are the greatest fear for seafarers, accounting for some 30 per cent of casualties in shipping. Most fires start in the engine room, where pipes full of combustible fuels and lubricants are present in a part of the vessel that generates very high temperatures.

Pipes can develop holes – often quite small – which then emit a combustible vapour. Engine room temperatures mean the gas can ignite with potentially disastrous results.

The modern ships operating as cross-Channel ferries have fireproof doors that can be closed to isolate a fire.

But the constant worry is the difficulty of evacuating passengers and getting them on board lifeboats, said Mr Graveson. During fires people become disoriented and no number of drills can surmount all the difficulties involved, said the Numast official.

Safety standards have improved since the Herald of Free Enterprise disaster at Zeebrugge in March 1987, in which 193 people lost their lives. The disaster was caused by the vessel putting to sea with its bow doors open and the car deck became flooded. But the subsequent inquiry described management at all levels of P&O European Ferries, the operator of the vessel, as "infected with sloppiness".

On a practical level, the accident led to the fitting of warning lights on the bridge to show if the bow doors were open, with closed-circuit television cameras as back-up. But it took another disaster before standards were raised to tackle ferries' vulnerability to capsizing. In 1994, some 852 passengers and crew died when the Estonia sank in the Baltic. Only 137 people survived. That led to the Stockholm Agreement in 2000, which set still more stringent rules. Vessels must now be divided so areas where seawater has penetrated can be isolated. Ferries must be able to remain afloat even when there is 50cms of water on car decks.

Michael Grey, a master mariner and specialist writer at Lloyd's List, believes standards have improved largely because of "ferocious policing" by the shipping authorities.