It was decades ago that I was told by some old technical superintendent that if you neglect to maintain and repair a ship, you never ever catch up that lost time and effort.
It was probably during that awful period in the 80s and 90s when oversupply had become endemic, freight rates dire, and lay-ups normalised. Neglect during this era was often obvious and visible, although what you did not see in the tanks and machinery spaces was invariably just as bad.
It may have been this same retired person who told me that during this awful period, there were quite a lot of technical supers whose job had changed dramatically from a positive role in helping to keep ships up to scratch. Now they were principally charged with reducing the costs of maintenance and repairs by postponing what in better times would have been done and fighting off any attempts by regulators or classification societies to undertake this work.
They became adept in arguing for hours, days even, with the class surveyor, who wanted some steel replacement or machinery overhaul, putting off the inevitable for another few months. I can remember him telling me it was not a role that gave him much job satisfaction.
It was a major contributor to the terrible scandal of sub-standard ships and the bulk carrier losses, which cost so many lives.
Nonetheless, maintenance and repairs really matter. I can recall him showing me a series of “before” and “after” photographs he had taken of serious structural corrosion in a ship and how he had been successful in minimising the amount of steelwork replacement that had been eventually agreed. It was the most perfect example of what can happen, with surprising speed, when corrosion in a hostile marine environment is allowed to get out of control.
It was also an era where the economic downturn coincided with the growth in ship sizes and the ruthless cutbacks in crew numbers. Ships had become just too big for their crews to make any sort of impact upon the maintenance burden, which increasingly became the responsibilities of repair yards and a huge increase of attendant costs.
Putting off what needed to be done, by every possible method, became the order of the day. It was a major contributor to the terrible scandal of sub-standard ships and the bulk carrier losses, which cost so many lives.
I was reminded of this awful period in shipping reading the obituary of the Honourable Peter Morris, who among his many political accomplishments in Australia was an effective international campaigner for marine safety for many years. The “Ships of Shame” report that he chaired needs to be dusted off every so often as it contains so many clear references to the need to never neglect repairs and maintenance.
Things may be so much better today, but the rustbucket has never entirely gone away.
Eventually the money may be found, but by that time, the work required will be more expensive, and more of it necessary.
All of this is well understood by those running responsible commercial shipping. But what of governments, which seem to think nothing of the apparent neglect of naval units?
You see them in military dockyards all around the world: modern units of every description, mouldering away in anchorages or dockyard basins while they deteriorate, until there is the budget available to repair them. They come back from operations, with a list of deficiencies, equipment repairs and things that only the dockyard can fix, but there is no budget available for this work and they go to the back of the queue.
Weeks give way to months, often to years, and the ships, built for a king’s ransom and with years of operational notional life in them, simply sit idle.
Eventually the money may be found, but by that time, the work required will be more expensive, and more of it necessary. In this unstable world, when it might be seen as prudent to have units ready to go at short notice, there is not a chance of this happening.
It might seem to be terribly clever to be extra careful with the taxpayers' money, but there is an obvious downside. The old adage of never neglecting repairs, whether on a middle-aged bulker, or a US$1 billion warship (because you will be caught out when you don’t), will come back to haunt you.