The 11.5-hour day
What an officer actually carries in a day at sea, and why the paperwork lands after the work is done.
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The human cost
A day in their life
Each figure represents one in a hundred officers serving today.
Hover a figure to meet them. Toggle the view to see what they carry.
These conditions are routine, not exceptional.
Source — Bhatia et al., WMU Seafarer Welfare Report 2025 →Average work day: 11.5 hours
Legal cap under MLC 2006: 14 hours per day
9 in 100 work past the legal cap
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The workload
The workload
Fatigue is not random — it concentrates around the moments precision matters most: port calls, cargo operations, inspection windows. The day stretches because the work-list does, not because the crew chooses to.
On oil tankers, first and second officers breach the 14-hour daily cap in at least 80% of cargo operations. On multi-port voyages, the workload never returns to deep-sea rest between calls — it ratchets through the rotation.
The drivers are structural — manning levels, administrative load, inspection prep.
Sources — Uğurlu, Maritime Policy & Management (2016) · Baumler, Marine Policy (2020) · Rajapakse & Emad, Marine Policy (2023) →