Retiring MLC Rest-Hour Paperwork for a Live Bridge Dashboard

A 2014 Paris MoU concentrated inspection campaign tied 14% of detentions to rest-hour records not properly kept. A decade later, an ITF and WMU survey found 64.3% of seafarers admit to adjusting their own records. The paper form is the problem, not the compliance itself.

The ILO Maritime Labour Convention sets the minimum rest pattern — ten hours in any 24-hour period and 77 hours in any seven-day period. The Paris MoU concentrated inspection campaign of 2014 found that 14% of detentions in that window tied back to rest-hour records that were not properly kept. The 2022 joint Tokyo and Paris MoU campaign on STCW reinforced the pattern — records did not reflect reality. On VLCC and ULCC hulls crossing the Singapore Strait every 14 days, the mismatch between the form and the watch log is close to routine. On a Feeder container vessel running a North European 7-day rotation with five port calls, the form and the lived reality diverge inside the first 48 hours, and the Chief Mate spends the rest of the voyage backfilling numbers that the PSC officer will accept.