Shame and shipowners

Op-Ed by John Guy

When the Korean ferry Sewol sank it killed over 300 children. Everyone was quick to blame the master, and he was to blame. But only partially. Two things conspired against him. Bad regulation and a bad shipowner. The simple fact is that the ship was not properly equipped, it had no lifeboats and no easily accessible liferafts, and it was often improperly loaded but was never stopped by the authorities. So the Korean authorities are partly to blame. But the real villain was the owner, reputed billionaire Yoo Byung-un.

It was the owner who bullied his crews into overloading the ship and sailing the ferry in an unstable condition. Not once, not just this time, but regularly. Now he has been found dead, apparently having committed suicide.

Good riddance to him, but little comfort and no justice for the families of the victims. No opportunity to haul him up in court and rake over all his business practices. No way now to shine a light into how he ran his ferries. So no way to shame other bad owners into better practices.

Fear of public shaming may have led Yoo Byung-un to kill himself. A little of that public shaming might have given pause for thought to the tiny minority of shipowners who run unsafe ships.

How can they get away with it? Why don’t ship masters and crews blow the whistle? Because all too often, and to our shame, we want to keep our jobs and we always expect to get away with things. Bad owners take advantage of that.

Here’s my shame. Thirty-four years ago, when I was studying for Extra Master, I took a summer job as Mate on a mini bulker. British flag, owned and managed in Scotland. When I joined the ship I found it was totally unsafe. Watertight doors that didn’t shut. Windlass that didn’t work. Leaky rivets and cracked side plates. And a crew all of whom had some reason to be grateful for the job, grateful enough to risk their lives. The Mate I took over from had such a reason, but he had gone sick so I was slotted in.

I had no such reason. I told the company the ship wasn’t safe and said I would report them to the Board of Trade. The next day I was given an air ticket to another port and a cozy berth as Mate on a brand new mini bulker in the same fleet. So I didn’t report them. Some years later I discovered that a few months after I had left the ship it had had a name change, moved to the Cayman Islands flag, and been lost with all hands. All the same crew that had been there when I had refused to sail and did not report the ship to the authorities were drowned.

That’s my shame, and the culture of not reporting problems and near accidents and dodgy shipowners is still alive in some dark corners of shipping. That’s the shame of all of us.

John Guy served on merchant ships and warships for sixteen years before becoming a ship inspector and then a journalist. He advises companies and organizations working in the global shipping industry on media and crisis management. His latest novel is The Golden Tide.