Marine Policy 25 (2001) 293–301

An analysis of the employment durations of UK seafaringofficers 1999

David Glen*, James McConville

Centre for International Transport Management, London Guildhall University, 84 Moorgate, London EC2M 6SQ, UK

Received 24 January 2000; accepted 9 April 2001

Abstract

This paper presents the results of an analysis of the duration of voyages undertaken by National Union of Marine AviationShipping Transport (NUMAST) deck and engineer officers during 1998–99. It provides a snapshot of the employment profile of theofficers, and compares voyage patterns across Organisation Type, Company Nationality, Flag of Registry, and Ship Type.Analysis of the various cross-tabulations of employment duration appears to show that the key driver is ship type, which it is

argued, is a proxy for different markets, which have different employment requirements for its seafarers. Further work is needed todetermine the factors which help to explain the observed variations in voyage durations.The paper is completed with an analysis of the age profiles of NUMAST officers by Flag of Registry. It is shown that significant

variations in age profiles exist, with those working under Open registers being slightly older than those in the UK or UK relatedregisters. r 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: UK seafaring officers; Employment Duration; Organisation Type; Company Nationality; Flag of Registry; Age profiles

1. Introduction

This paper presents the results of an analysis ofpatterns and duration of voyages undertaken byNUMAST (National Union of Marine Aviation Ship-ping Transport) deck and engineer officers during 1998–99. It provides the first snapshot of the working patternsof UK officers since Hill’s study of UK Seafarers [1].The results provide an extra dimension to the knowledgebase of UK officers built up over the past few years,results which together provide the most complete pictureof this group since 1971.

The survey of the 13,400 NUMAST members wascarried out with the co-operation and support of theunion’s officers. There were two principal objectives ofthe survey. Firstly, to obtain evidence to fill in elementsof knowledge about UK deck and engineer officerswhich were not obtained from the previous research [2].Secondly, the opportunity was taken to obtain informa-tion on voyage patterns so that the personal character-istics of officers could be matched to some of the

characteristics of the vessels on which they served. It isthis latter objective that forms the subject of this paper.

2. Data collection and aggregation

In 1999, the authors, in co-operation with NUMAST[3] carried out a large-scale survey of its deck andengineer officer memberships. Some 2000 responses wereanalysed; their characteristics were summarised in anearlier paper [2]. The responses to the survey were usedto develop a profile of the officers’ working patterns,using information on the start and end dates ofrespondents’ last three voyages. A representative pictureof recent employment patterns of NUMAST officers isthus created, which can be analysed in terms of thepersonal characteristics of the officers, as well as otherdimensions, such as Organisation Type, CompanyNationality, Flag of Registry, and Ship Type.

Each respondent was asked to give details of the lastthree voyages they had undertaken. They were asked toprovide information on the vessel name, Ship Type, callsign, IMO number, and Flag of Registry, as well as thestart and finishing dates of the voyage. Not allrespondents provided three voyagesFbut some 3021

*Corresponding author. Tel.: +44-207-320-1605; fax: +44-207-320-

1463.

E-mail address: glen@lgu.ac.uk (D. Glen).

0308-597X/01/$ - see front matter r 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

PII: S 0 3 0 8 - 5 9 7 X ( 0 1 ) 0 0 0 1 3 - 6

observations were generated from the 2000 officers whohad responded.

As the question was of the ‘Open’ format, responseshad to be categorised in some way. Whilst the durationof voyages could possibly be left as an individual data,the answers obtained for ‘ship types’ ran to several pageswhen analysed on this basis. There was a clear need toaggregate the data in some way before trying to analyseit.

Aggregation was applied to three key measures:Employment Duration, Ship Type, and Flag of Reg-istry. The criteria employed for developing thesemeasures are now discussed. These created measureswere used in the cross tabulation of employmentduration with a number of salient variables.

2.1. Employment duration

Employment duration is obtained by taking thedifference (in days) between the start and end dates foreach voyage. This generated nearly 3000 work periods,the salient features of which are summarised in Table 1.

The first column is based on the full sample of 3022respondents. The very high number of 9649 days (26years!) arises because a number of respondents haveindicated when they started their employment. Thisoccurred in a number of cases with respondents whowere employed in the ferry sector, and who wereeffectively employed on a regular ‘nine-to-five’ basis.

Columns 2 and 3 in Table 1 show the happeningswhen the sample is progressively restricted to anyresponse with a duration of less than 1000 days, or368 days respectively. About 5% of the total samplereturned an employment duration statistic of 1000 daysor more. Such responses clearly bias the mean andstandard deviation, as can be seen from the data forsample means and standard deviations.

All the above data relate to the overall sample. Thefinal column analyses the responses such as (a) whoprovided valid start and end dates for employment, (b)who are UK males with valid seagoing certificates and(c) whose overall employment duration is less than a

year. The value of 368 days was selected by scanning thecumulative distribution for the data, to look forconvenient breaks in the data that could be used foraggregation criteria. It can be seen that refining the datato just UK males makes no significant difference to themean and standard deviation, which are more or lessidentical in the last two columns. In other words, thedata are dominated by UK males with valid certificates.

The aggregated measure used in what follows(employment duration (months)), is defined as a 30day period from periods 1 to 11. Period 12 was definedas a 35 day period (331–365), so the first 12 periodscover a full year. Period 13 was defined as any durationgreater than 365 days. It is thus important to note thatthe intervals are not constant, especially the open-endedperiod after 1 year.

Figs. 1(a) and (b) shows the resulting distribution ofemployment for all UK males with valid certificates, inboth absolute and percentage terms. The concentrationof employment periods in the first 5 months is verymarked. It would appear that the ‘modal’ voyage lasts 2months, with the great majority of voyage durationsbeing 1 or 2 months. The distribution appears to havetwo peaks, but it is worth pointing out that the peak atperiod 13 has to be interpreted with care, because of theopen-ended nature of this category.

2.2. Ship types

Respondents were asked to indicate the type of vesselin which they served. Aggregation of the large variety ofdifferent types was carried out by keeping close to thetypology developed and employed by Lloyds Register[4]. Table 2 presents the categories developed from the

Fig. 1. (a) Distribution of Employment Duration. (b) Distribution of

Employment Duration (%).

Table 1

Properties of Employment Duration dataa,b

Employment

Duration

(days)

Full

sample

Restricted

(1)

Restricted

(All)

Restricted UK

males

Mean 220.32 109.8 89.6 89.9

Minimum 2 2 2 2

Maximum 9649 983 367 367

Standard Deviation 683.8 130.0 76.5 76.7

aSource: Survey.bNotes: (1) Sample restricted to less than 1000 days; (All) sample

restricted to less than 368 days.

D. Glen, J. McConville / Marine Policy 25 (2001) 293–301294

survey, expressed in the order of frequency. There are anumber of idiosyncrasies in the table, reflecting theauthors’ own categorisations.

The Royal Fleet Auxiliary (RFA) is not a ship type,but it was felt that keeping this element distinct from themerchant fleet, and at the same time identifiable, was auseful distinction (3.3% of the sample is in thiscategory). On the other hand, ‘Oil’ contained bothVLCC and product carriers, and ‘Offshore’ and‘Standby’ are often difficult to distinguish.

The Survey results differ quite sharply from thosepublished by the UK Chamber of Shipping in its 1999Manpower Survey. Their results are reproduced inTable 3. The RFA proportion is markedly differentbetween the two sources, as is ‘Specialist/Research’. Onthe other hand, ‘Offshore’ and ‘Standby’ account for22.4% in Survey, compared to 25% in the Chamber. Itwould have been useful if the terms deep-sea and shortsea could be employed in analysing the NUMAST data,but this was not possible.

2.3. Flag of registry

The aggregate measure, ‘Flag of Registry’ wasconstructed by allocating the individual flag of thevessel to one of the six broad categories. They are shownin Table 4 (details are provided in Appendix A).

These are slightly different from the categories whichwere employed in the ‘closed questions’ of the earlierpart of the questionnaire, which did not permit thechoice of ‘Blue Ensign’, and did not distinguish OpenRegisters as an entity. The distribution of NUMASTofficers over the above categories is presented in Table 5.

Interestingly, the data reveal that 61% of allresponding officers worked on Red Ensign, Red Ensign

related, or Blue Ensign flagged vessels. This is similar tothe response obtained from a closed question concerningcountry of registry for the census date of 1 November1999, which generated a proportion of 65%. Both thesefigures are well in excess of the 55% figure usedelsewhere [2] to determine the split between UK basedand foreign based seafarers when assessing the existingdisposition of UK seafaring officers. In addition, 30% ofNUMAST officers have worked on an ‘Open Register’vessel in their last three voyages.

The following section presents the results of analysingthe data to see if there are any differences in theconstructed profiles of employment across four differentdimensions. These are:

1. Organisation Type2. Company Nationality3. Flag of Registry4. Ship Type

3. Analysis of employment duration by organisation type

Table 6 presents the comprehensive results ofdisaggregating the period of duty (in months) byOrganisation Type. It is clear that only three of thetypes are really useful, as might be anticipated, as theyrelate to the alternatives for the organisations involvedwith active seafarers. The distributions for Port Autho-rities, Educational Establishments, and Others containinsufficient responses for their analysis to be reliable.

Table 2

Aggregated Ship Typesa

Frequency %

Ferry/Passenger 534 17.68

Offshore 514 17.01

Oil 488 16.15

Specialist 351 11.62

Container 277 9.17

Standby 163 5.40

Royal Fleet Auxiliary 100 3.31

Dry Bulk 98 3.24

Cruise 81 2.68

Dredger 73 2.42

Chemical 70 2.32

Research 70 2.32

Others 196 6.49

Unknown 6 0.20

Total 3021 100.00

aSource: Survey.

Table 3

Estimated sector shares of UK officers 1999a

%

Deep Sea Liner/Bulk 24.1

Ferry & Passenger 27.0

Offshore Support 13.4

Ship Standby Operators Association 12.5

Royal Fleet Auxiliary 9.9

Short Sea Bulk 11.9

Specialist/Research 1.1

Total 100.0

aSource: Dowden [5].

Table 4

Flag definitions

The Red Ensign (UK)

Red Ensign Related (UK related)

Blue Ensign

Other EU

Open Registers

Others

D. Glen, J. McConville / Marine Policy 25 (2001) 293–301 295

Converting the responses in Table 6 to percentagesallows the comparison of the employment profilesacross the three principal organisation types. Theresults are shown in Table 7, which reveals that thereis a marked concentration of employment periods upto six months across all three types, which is not reallysurprising, given the nature of the industry. Thepercentages of those giving valid responses are 76.6%,82.7% and 89% for Shipping Companies, Ship Manage-ment companies, and Crewing/Manning agencies,respectively. This suggests that ‘irregular or casualemployment’ duration may be shorter than thosefor the traditional employers, a suggestion that isreinforced by examining the percentages for the firsttwo months, which are 35.4%, 42.3%, 52.9% for thethree groupings, respectively. The large proportion ofshort duration periods for Crewing/Manning Agencystaff is apparent.

4. Analysis of employment duration by company

nationality

The above analysis was repeated for CompanyNationality and Employment Duration, with the resultsshown in Table 8. Deck and Engineer Officers wereanalysed separately, but the distributions do not appearto differ significantly.

There is a greater proportion of engineers workingwith foreign based companies than deck (35% and 40%,respectively).

Table 9 reveals a number of differences between thedistributions of employment duration between UK andforeign deck and engineer officers. Deck and engineroom officers working for UK based companies have amodal duration period of 1 month, compared to 2months for foreign based company employees. Con-sidering all the employment durations up to 6 months

Table 5

Distribution of flag for NUMAST officersa,b

Flag Numbers % Numbers %

UK males UK males

UK 1199 39.7 1149 39.1

UK related 518 17.2 504 17.2

Blue Ensign 126 4.2 126 4.3

Other EU 57 1.9 53 1.8

Open Registers 880 29.1 867 29.5

Others 220 7.3 217 7.4

Unknown 21 0.7 21 0.7

Total 3021 100.0 2937 100.0

aSource: Survey.bN.B. Relates to all valid employment, not the census date responses.

Table 6

Cross tabulation of Employment Duration by Organisation Typea

(UK male valid)

Emp. Duration

(months)

Unknown Shipping Co. Ship Management Co. Manning/Crewing Agency Port Authorities etc Educational Other Total

1 63 253 144 106 5 3 6 580

2 46 303 142 81 1 3 3 579

3 26 244 70 27 2 1 370

4 16 202 77 33 1 2 2 333

5 20 166 93 50 3 2 334

6 20 37 32 17 2 108

7 11 35 11 7 1 1 66

8 6 21 13 3 43

9 6 17 3 2 2 30

10 3 11 5 1 20

11 1 9 5 0 15

12 6 41 12 1 60

12+ 32 151 45 12 6 246

Unknown 13 84 23 13 3 6 142

Total 269 1574 675 353 24 12 19 2926

aSource: Survey.

D. Glen, J. McConville / Marine Policy 25 (2001) 293–301296

gives cumulative market shares of 80.2% and 74.9% forforeign and UK based deck officers; the correspondingfigures for engineer officers are 85.3% and 77.3% forforeign and UK based companies, respectively. Itappears that officers working for UK companies haveshorter employment periods than those working forforeign based companies. This effect is probably more todo with differences in the markets in which these officersare employed (e.g. employment on short sea ferries, andoffshore) rather than any intrinsic differences in workpatterns.

5. Analysis of employment duration by flag of registry

The next issue to be explored is the question ofdifferences in employment profiles across flags. Crosstabulation of employment duration by the six broadcategories of flag of registry reveals some interestingdifferences. The results are presented in Tables 10and 11.

The cumulative percentages for 3 months are 57.0 forthe UK, 50.8 for UK related, 30.2 for Blue Ensign, 51.9for Open Registers, and 62.3 for Other EU. Blue Ensignemployment distribution is clearly quite different fromthe rest, with 40% of respondents reporting durationslonger than 5 months. The flag with the greatestproportion of employment of 3 months or less is ‘OtherEU’, with the UK register being the second. Both theseregisters appear to have significantly larger proportionsthan other Flags of Registry.

The cumulative percentages for 6 months are 70.7%,(UK), 87.3%, (UK Related), 54.6% (Blue Ensign),86.5% (Open Registers), and 77.4% for other EU. It isalso worth noting that the UK Register contains asignificantly larger proportion of long term employment(13.8%).

6. Analysis of employment duration by ship type

Analysis of the employment duration by ship typereveals some very interesting differences. The full detailsof the cross-tabulation are shown in Table 12, with ShipTypes presented alphabetically.

The most notable feature of this table is thewide variation in the distribution of employment

Table 8

Distribution of Employment Duration by Company Nationalitya

Duration (months) Deck Engineers

Foreign UK based Unknown Foreign UK based Unknown Total

1 95 284 15 47 135 4 580

2 122 208 9 106 126 8 579

3 71 112 4 81 101 1 370

4 64 96 3 81 86 3 333

5 85 97 4 73 74 1 334

6 32 21 3 23 27 2 108

7 14 26 6 20 66

8 5 21 5 12 43

9 7 13 1 9 30

10 3 5 5 7 20

11 5 7 1 2 15

12 15 21 10 15 61

12+ 43 105 3 30 62 3 246

Unknown 20 76 13 33 142

Total 581 1092 41 482 709 22 2927

aSource: Survey.

Table 7

Percentage distribution of Employment Duration by Organisation

Typea

Employment

Duration (months)

Shipping

Co.

Ship

Management Co.

Manning/Crewing

Agency

1 16.1 21.3 30.0

2 19.3 21.0 22.9

3 15.5 10.4 7.6

4 12.8 11.4 9.3

5 10.5 13.8 14.2

6 2.4 4.7 4.8

7 2.2 1.6 2.0

8 1.3 1.9 0.8

9 1.1 0.4 0.6

10 0.7 0.7 0.3

11 0.6 0.7 0.0

12 2.6 1.8 0.3

12+ 9.6 6.7 3.4

Unknown 5.3 3.4 3.7

Total 100.0 100.0 100.0

1574 675 353

aSource: Survey.

D. Glen, J. McConville / Marine Policy 25 (2001) 293–301 297

duration across Ship Types. The discussion that followsconcentrates on the seven ship types with total responsesof more than 100, namely Ferry/Pax (524), Offshore(503), Oil (481), Specialist (336), Container (267),Standby (152) and RFA (100).

Standby, Offshore, and Ferry/Pax all have largeproportions of their employment duration consistingof 1 month or less. The proportions are 51.9%, 43.1%and 20.2%, respectively. The other types show muchsmaller proportions for the same duration; Specialist(11.6%), Oil (8.9%), RFA (5%),with Container (4.9%)being the smallest of the seven.

Ferry/Pax, Offshore, Standby all tend to haveemployment distributions that decline from the shortestduration (1 month), to 6 months. They also have a

number of respondents who appear to have worked formore than 12 months, but they appear to be individualswho have interpreted the employment contract in termsof regular employment with a company, rather thanspecific voyage employment.

Container, Oil, Specialist and RFA distributions havepeak responses greater than 1 month and less than 6months. The peak month for Container is 3, 4 for Oil,and 2 for Specialist. Thus there are differences inemployment duration which are consistent with thenature of the workFoil and container ships will be atdeep sea, although the categorisation is approximate.

The overall impression gained by the above analysis isthat the principal reason for differences in employmentduration profiles is the fact that different markets have

Table 9

Distribution of Employment Duration by Company Nationality (%)a

Duration (months) % Deck %Engineers

Foreign UK based Unknown Foreign UK based Unknown

1 16.4 26.0 36.6 9.8 19.0 18.2

2 21.0 19.0 22.0 22.0 17.8 36.4

3 12.2 10.3 9.8 16.8 14.2 4.5

4 11.0 8.8 7.3 16.8 12.1 13.6

5 14.6 8.9 9.8 15.1 10.4 4.5

6 5.5 1.9 7.3 4.8 3.8 9.1

7 2.4 2.4 0.0 1.2 2.8 0.0

8 0.9 1.9 0.0 1.0 1.7 0.0

9 1.2 1.2 0.0 0.2 1.3 0.0

10 0.5 0.5 0.0 1.0 1.0 0.0

11 0.9 0.6 0.0 0.2 0.3 0.0

12 2.6 1.9 0.0 2.1 2.1 0.0

12+ 7.4 9.6 7.3 6.2 8.7 13.6

Unknown 3.4 7.0 0.0 2.7 4.7 0.0

Total 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0

aSource: Survey.

Table 10

Distribution of Employment Duration by Flag Typesa,b

Duration

(months)

UK UK

related

Blue

Ensign

Open

Registers

Other

EU

Others

1 258 105 17 161 14 22

2 216 109 13 191 13 38

3 181 42 8 98 6 34

4 87 79 6 125 3 32

5 52 81 17 136 5 43

6 18 24 8 39 0 17

7 24 8 14 19 0 2

8 15 2 11 9 0 6

9 9 3 7 6 2 3

10 4 6 3 5 2 0

11 6 4 1 3 1 0

12 32 12 5 11 0 2

12+ 158 23 8 39 5 12

Missing 89 6 8 25 2 6

1149 504 126 867 53 217

aSource: Survey.bNB: UK males with valid seagoing certificates.

Table 11

Percentage distribution of Employment Duration by Flaga

Duration

(months)

UK UK

related

Blue

Ensign

Open

Registers

Other

EU

Others

1 22.5 20.8 14.4 13.6 26.4 10.1

2 18.8 21.6 11.0 14.4 24.5 17.5

3 15.8 8.3 6.8 12.3 11.3 15.7

4 7.6 15.7 5.1 19.5 5.7 14.8

5 4.5 16.1 14.4 19.8 9.4 19.8

6 1.6 4.8 6.8 6.1 0.0 7.8

7 2.1 1.6 11.9 2.4 0.0 0.9

8 1.3 0.4 9.3 1.6 0.0 2.8

9 0.8 0.6 5.9 1.1 3.8 1.4

10 0.4 1.2 2.5 0.5 3.8 0.0

11 0.5 0.8 0.8 0.3 1.9 0.0

12 2.8 2.4 4.2 1.3 0.0 0.9

12+ 13.8 4.6 6.8 4.5 9.4 5.5

Missing 7.8 1.2 6.8 2.4 3.8 2.8

100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0

aSource: Derived from Table 10. Sums may not add to 100 because

of rounding.

D. Glen, J. McConville / Marine Policy 25 (2001) 293–301298

different employment needs, and this is best approxi-mated by the ship type data. Ship types are in effectproxies for different shipping markets. In a competitivemarket, it is unlikely that systematic differences inemployment profiles will exist across the OrganisationType, Company Nationality, Flag of Registry or ShipType unless there are deeper factors at play. The mostobvious element that would explain the observeddifferences would be the underlying market segmentsof the shipping markets themselves. Those officersserving on short-sea ferries will have very differentworking patterns than those who are employed on deepsea container services. Workers in the Offshore supplysegment will also have quite distinct work routinescompared to those in the cruise sector. The next stage ofthis research is to determine if any statistically sig-nificant factors can be found to ‘explain’ the observedvariation in measured employment durations at anindividual level.

7. Officer age profile and flag of registry

In an earlier research, McConville et al. [6] establishedthat 71% of all certified UK officers were aged 40 yearsor more. The new data allowed the issue of differences inthe age profiles across different flags to be explored.

This section of the paper presents the results of ananalysis of the age profile of NUMAST officers by thebroad groupings of Flag of Registry developed earlier.

Table 13 provides the summary data for deck,engineer and combined officer age profiles analysed byFlag of Registry of the vessels they were most recentlyemployed to work on. The data was derived by selectingonly those who were holding a valid seagoing certificate,and is based upon voyages made within the year prior tothe survey date of 30 November 1999.

The key data is contained in the final row of thefollowing table, which shows the proportion of theofficers who are aged 40 or more. This varies quiteconsiderably between Flags. The greatest proportionwas for ‘Others’ at 80%, the lowest being, ‘Other EU’and ‘UK Related’, at 68%. About 76% of all OpenRegisters officers were aged 40 or more, whilst thefigures for ‘Blue Ensign’ and ‘UK’ were calculated at73% and 72%, respectively. The figure for the UK isextremely close to the 71.6% observed from the previousresearch.

Why should there be any difference at all? It can beargued that age profiles for NUMAST officers would bebroadly similar across flags, if employment conditions,retirement ages, and fiscal treatments are all identical.The most likely explanation for the older age distribu-tion for Open Register workers is that they have left theemployment of UK based companies, perhaps takingearly retirement, and re-entered the market with non-T

able

12

EmploymentDurationbyShip

Typea

UK

male

validseagoingcertificatesonly

Emp.

Duration

(months)

Unknown

CarrierChem

icalCoastalContainer

CruiseDredger

Dry

Bulk

Dry

cargo

Ferry/

Pax

Fishing

related

Gas

tanker

General

cargo

Multi-

purpose

Off

shore

Oil

Other

ships

Research

RFA

Specialist

StandbyTugAll

types

11

713

525

10

2106

83

2217

43

311

539

79

4583

21

28

63

10

38

970

32

42

160

76

520

10

84

41

2582

31

417

94

21

315

130

23

10

129

59

74

62

61

369

42

117

147

15

213

225

29

62

81142

75

49

41

332

54

17

25

19

24

226

12

52

21183

617

49

3334

61

13

71

10

614

31

725

11

819

107

73

37

22

11

310

113

367

81

22

13

15

46

111

51

43

91

13

91

57

330

10

11

91

23

320

11

11

91

11

115

12

11

11

35

28

21

33

462

12+

31

33

20

23

117

31

11

38

15

13

610

87

246

Missing

11

11

91

13

21

47

11

119

94

87

10

5141

Total

619

67

9267

79

72

97

28

524

22

33

30

12

503

48119

66

100

336

152

15

2931

aSource:

Survey.

D. Glen, J. McConville / Marine Policy 25 (2001) 293–301 299

UK based companies which have different retirementpolicies. This view receives some support from theanecdotal evidence derived from the comments therespondents made in their questionnaires, which sug-gested that certain staff have taken retirement from aUK based company, and then found employment with anon-UK based company whilst being in receipt of acompany pension.

8. Concluding remarks

This paper has presented the outcome of the results ofa study of the employment patterns of UK deck andengineer officers working under the auspices of NU-MAST. The study is unique in generating links betweenthe personal details of the survey respondents and somekey features of the vessels on which they served.Individual voyage data were aggregated into monthlyperiods, and the resulting distributions were comparedacross Organisation Type, Company Nationality, Flagof Registry and Ship Type. A wide variation in theemployment patterns was revealed, which is likely to bedriven by variations in employment needs of thedifferent market segments. These findings suggest thehypothesis that some of the observed variation inemployment duration is driven by the different needsof the markets which they serveFa hypothesis that willbe tested in further research work. In addition, ananalysis of the age profile of NUMAST officers by Flagof registry revealed that an even greater proportion ofserving officers were aged 40 years or more compared tothose serving under UK and UK related flags. Thissuggests that short-term efforts to increase the supply ofofficers capable of serving on UK flagged vessels may beunsuccessful.

Appendix A. Allocations of individual Flags of

Registry to the aggregates

UK Related Other EU OpenRegisters

Others

Bermuda Belgium Bahamas AzerbaijanCaymanIslands

Denmark Barbados Brunei

FalklandIslands

Finland Belize China

Gibraltar France Cyprus ColumbiaIsle of Man Greece Liberia Egypt

IrishRepublic

Malta Hong Kong

Italy MarshallIslands

Iran

Luxembourg Norway I. S. JamaicaNetherlands Neth.

AntillesJapan

Panama KuwaitSt. Vincent MalaysiaVanuatu Norway

QatarRomaniaSaudi-ArabiaSingaporeSouth AfricaSri LankaSudanTasmaniaUAEUSAYemen

In addition, there were categories for the UK and theBlue Ensign.

Table 13

Age profiles by Flag of Registrya

Age (yrs) Blue Ensign Open Registers Other EU Others UK UK related Unknown Total

o20 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

20o25 7 23 1 0 46 33 0 110

25o30 6 37 8 11 62 41 0 165

30o35 9 60 3 5 67 20 0 164

35o40 12 92 5 27 150 67 1 354

40o45 31 162 11 53 245 106 0 608

45o50 21 191 11 33 234 90 5 585

50o55 17 191 2 47 199 89 5 550

55o60 22 82 5 27 115 47 9 307

60o65 1 24 7 14 25 11 1 83

65+ 0 4 0 0 3 0 0 7

Total 126 866 53 217 1146 504 21 2933

%>40 73.0 75.5 67.9 80.2 71.6 68.1 95.2 73.0

aSource: Survey.

D. Glen, J. McConville / Marine Policy 25 (2001) 293–301300

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affecting joining, serving, and leaving the merchant navy.

London: Centre for Applied Social Research (Tavistock Institute),

1972.

[2] Glen D, McConville J. Employment characteristics of

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2000.

[3] National Union of Maritime, Aviation, Shipping Transport, the

sole UK union for deck officers, and the principal union for marine

engineer officers.

[4] Lloyd’s Register, world fleet statistics, Colchester: Lloyd’s Register

of Shipping, 1997.

[5] Dowden J. Fleet & manpower inquiry. London: UK Chamber of

Shipping, 1999.

[6] McConville J, Glen D, Dowden J. United Kingdom seafarers

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D. Glen, J. McConville / Marine Policy 25 (2001) 293–301 301