Procedural competence of foreign workboats in domestic waters

Professional Mariner Forum
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I recently read this article. All I could think of is, “you get what you pay for.” In my opinion, incidents like this are the result of nations like the UK allowing foreign vessels to operate in their waters. By selling out their Mariners to the lowest bidder, they’ve sacrificed the skill, competence, and professionalism required to complete operations safely. This creates an unacceptably high risk to crew safety and the environment. It is a race to the bottom for costs, but also for talent, safety, working conditions, wages, benefits, competence, etc.

Of course maybe I’m reading the situation wrong. As an American, I’m not super familiar with the state of the workboat industry in Northern Europe. What are you’re all’s thoughts.

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What they fail to mention in the article is the SHEARWATER was UK flagged up until 2018.

If you read the article, you see:
“The owner attempted to proceed to sea without a licensed master aboard in 2014, and in 2017, the vessel had left a yard in Southampton in “dangerously unsafe” condition, MCA reported.”

Obviously had issues under national Flag as well.

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Haven’t had to be British ( or from the Commonwealth) to work on a British ship for many years. I was on a ship about 2010 when the owners decided to change manning to a Norwegian manning agency. Top 4 were Ukrainian/Russian, the rest Filipino.

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There was also this correction added:

[Correction: An earlier version of this article suggested that Shearwater was flagged with St. Kitts at the time of the casualty. This is not accurate: she was flagged in the UK in April 2020, and St. Kitts accepted her into its registry several months after the casualty, according to her Equasis record. In her first port state control inspection as a foreign-flag vessel, UK inspectors identified 11 deficiencies, including violations related to her fire pumps, firefighting equipment, crew training and Maritime Labor Convention compliance.]

Also, there is no mention of the nationality of the crew except for the Croatian paper captain. I think the biggest problem was not the nationality of the crew or the registration of the vessel but a total cowboy owner with clearly no concept of maritime safety whatsoever.