MULTINATIONAL CREWS AND THEIR POSSIBLE INFLUENCE ON INCIDENTS WHICH ATTEMPT AGAINST ENVIRONMENT IN PORT

In the last decades the number of multinational crews on board ships is increasing. It is a phenomenon that is closely related to Flags of Convenience and the employment of eventual crews of the 3rd World countries, through manning agencies.

The problems regarding the join of different languages and cultures, and the questions about professional qualifications, induce us to presume that vessels with multinational crews are expected to suffer more incidents that can damage the environment, that others. In order to carry out with this investigation, it was made an analyse about the flags of the ships entered in Barcelona, Tarragona and Valencia in the last 3 years, to know the percentages of Spanish, foreign and convenience flags. The second step was to get a list of the incidents happened in those ports in the period between 1994 and 1999. From it we have try to establish a relation between risk of incidents and composition of crews. The third step was to collect opinions of ship agents.

This paper cannot be used as determinant, but it let us take some first conclusions in order to warn the maritime community about the importance of composition of crews for safety and environment protection.