Operations

Cremers issues New Year’s resolution for his deck officers

Don’t forget the bridge of a ship is a place of work, not a social hub. That’s the message from shipmanagement veteran, Peter Cremers, in the latest issue of LeaderShip, the in-house magazine of Anglo-Eastern.

Cremers, executive chairman of the shipmanagement giant, told deck officers in his foreword to the magazine to make the following New Year’s resolution: “The bridge of your ship is a place of work. And with major shipping routes getting more busy all the time, a pretty busy workplace it has become!”

Cremers urged his employees working on the bridge to cut the chit-chat and social media interactions until after hours.

He also used the foreword to the magazine to remind deck officers to use the lessons they had learned from simulator training when working onboard ship. As an example, he called on deck officers to reduce speed occasionally, rather than overtaking close to or at the wrong side of the separation lane.

“The payback is going to be enormous, trust me, and your management team will certainly sleep better at night,” Cremers concluded.

Cremers, who will turn 70 this year, has been in shipping since 1975. Along with Marcel Liedts and Richard Wong, he bought out Anglo-Eastern in 1997 and has since grown it to become the second largest shipmanager in the world with mergers including Univan and Denholm over the past 20 years.

Sam Chambers

Starting out with the Informa Group in 2000 in Hong Kong, Sam Chambers became editor of Maritime Asia magazine as well as East Asia Editor for the world’s oldest newspaper, Lloyd’s List. In 2005 he pursued a freelance career and wrote for a variety of titles including taking on the role of Asia Editor at Seatrade magazine and China correspondent for Supply Chain Asia. His work has also appeared in The Economist, The New York Times, The Sunday Times and The International Herald Tribune.

Comments

  1. Autonomous ships + redundant deck officers = Future , why do we even need to think of men on bridge? Everything runs from down below and they are the main representatives everywhere (along with the UMS) of course.So let them stand watches , do stations, do cargo ops , do tank cleaning in continuous cycles .( So much for after-hours).

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