THE crewing crisis facing the shipping industry is going to get worse before it gets better, according to some of the world’s top ship managers.

“To say that the shipping industry is facing an unprecedented crisis in terms of the quality and number of seafarers is an understatement. The crisis is now squarely upon us,” V. Ships marine human resources director Brian Martis told the Lloyd’s List Seafarers 2008 conference in Singapore.

With fewer senior officers available, the vast number of newbuildings on order is now a major cause for concern in terms of how they will adequately be crewed.

Ole Stene, president of Intermanger and managing director of Aboitiz Jebsen bulk transport, noted that 10,000 ships were being built, requiring 400,000 seafarers. “This is a frightening scenario given the problems the industry is facing today,” he said. “The chickens have come home to roost.”

Commenting on the global fleet expansion, Bernhard Schulte Shipmanagement’s chief operating officer Rajaish Bajpaee said: “We do not even know where we will get the manpower to man them”.

Looking more specifically at the LNG sector, one of the first to encounter a serious shortage of qualified senior officers, Ravi Sinha, a marine superintendent for Thome Shipmanagement, said a fleet of 384 ships expected by 2011 will require 2,412 officers, compared to the 1,098 officers needed by the LNG fleet today.

Capt Ravi said that a failure to act now could see ships laid-up, or “even worse”, accidents. “The safety record for the LNG fleet has been excellent, but for how long,” he asked.

He sees the conversion of tanker officers to LNG qualified seafarers as excellent short term solution. However this will also create a problem in other sectors as has already been seen.

The quick fix of poaching crew came under heavy fire, as making things worse than providing any sort of solution.

“Poaching is not only a quick fix it introduces a new problem,” commented Neptune Shipmanagement Services’ director of training Yeow Kok Kean.

“Without a doubt poaching is a lack of interest in the future,” said Mr Stene. This is a situation that is exacerbated by investment owners being interested only in asset play rather than a long-term future in shipping.

Mr Bajpaee said that he saw poaching as a disincentive for owners that do invest in training to continue doing so.

In terms of a solution to the issue, much focus was put on the image of the industry and increasing the attractiveness of seafaring as a career to young people.

“We need to rebrand seafaring as career,” said Mr Yeow.

Mr Stene said that the problem was that the industry had no image at all.

He said that seafaring was a career that offered vast rewards both in terms of high quality training and very good rates of pay.

“Do we really sell the benefits when we go out and look for staff?” he asked.

Mr Martis believes it will take the involvement of chief executives of shipowners in the issue for any real change to happen.

“If there is no commitment from the top, nothing is going to work,” he said.