A seafarer, a construction worker, a painter, a bricklayer, an electrician and a carpenter. Fairway keepers are multi-talented experts in waterway maintenance and they must master their work utilizing many different skills. It is also required of fairway keepers that they have perseverance and courage: the highest navigation boards that the fairway keepers of Meritaito Ltd climb are 45 metres high. Would you yourself dare to climb?
The sun is shining in the sky and the wind is blowing from the south. It is just such a day when landlubbers step on to a ship and admire the splendour of seafarer’s work. Oh, the heat of the summer and the beauty of nature!
”They should come here in November, when it is blowing and you are climbing up to repair the edge marks of the navigation boards. All around you there is darkness, a raging sea and sleet lashing against your face”, says Juha Kuronen with a wink in his eye, the Captain of Meritaito 1310, Meritaito Ltd’s fairway maintenance ship.
Fairway keepers and fairway master hands, who are member of the Finnish Seamen’s Union FSU, maintain and look after Finland’s waterways. The common waterways, which have been marked on the maps, are about 19,500 kilometres in total. The basic maintenance of the waterways includes the service and maintenance of the waterways and maintenance dredging. The work which takes up most of the fairway keepers’ time is connected to the maritime safety equipment, i.e. the aids to navigation, of which there are over 32,000 along the waterways. They are checked and maintained at regular intervals. Fairway keepers also receive information concerning damaged maritime safety equipment directly from the vessels.
Difficult icy winter conditions cause buoys and signs to move far from their places
Following last year’s icy winter, the fairway keepers were kept very busy. Many of the aids to navigation were left stuck under ice and they were damaged. Ice also pushes the buoys and signs far away from their original positions. According to the service target of the Finnish Transport Agency, the maritime safety equipment should all be located back into their original positions within two weeks of the ice melting in the area in question. Particularly in regards to last winter, the work is a challenge – and even impossible within the timetable imposed and with the resources available, which are becoming smaller and smaller.
The number of personnel working in Meritaito Ltd has been significantly reduced during the years. For example, when somebody retires they have not been replaced by new skillful people. However, the demanding profession needs a quick influx of many new workers because the average age of the fairway keepers is high. Even though the number of fairway keepers has been reduced, the amount of work and the speed of service demands have increased. Previously, there were many waterway maintenance stations located in the Gulf of Finland, but now only a few of them are left. In practice this means that the fairway keepers must take care of more extensive areas than before with less resources. In the sea areas, the fairways of the mercantile shipping are especially challenging: in these areas, the aids to navigation must be in working condition and in their proper places as soon as possible so that large merchant ships or tankers do not stray out of the fairways.
”Just like swinging from the edge of a stick”
The jobs of the fairway keepers are often situated in difficult places to reach, such as in reefs, in the shallow waters along the edges of the waterways and on rugged islands. Wind, darkness and rain – in one form or another are the rule rather than the exception in the profession of fairway keepers. In accordance with the weather conditions, it is necessary to evaluate whether or not it is possible to go ashore at the moment in question.
”The work involves a continuous fight against natural conditions. The length of a working day is 8 hours but this can easily be stretched to 12 hours”, says Reijo Nikkanen, a fairway keeper, who has already worked for 34 years maintaining the Finnish waterways.
It does not matter what kind or where the maritime safety equipment is, the fairway keeper must ensure that the equipment is functioning properly. The most challenging aids to navigation to be maintained and repaired are those standing in the middle of high seas. Climbing to the edge of the “stick” i.e. to the edge mark, which is swaying in the wind, demands courage. However, there is no point being completely foolhardy. Each job always demands an evaluation. Is it possible to carry out the maintenance in the conditions prevailing?
”Sometimes I have needed to think once – twice, do I dare to climb up to the edge mark, which is many tens of metres high, when a really heavy storm is lashing”, says Juho Kuronen and Reijo Nikkanen who are looking at each other.
The fairway keepers are worried about the deficiencies in occupational safety
Investing in occupational safety is a prerequisite for fairway keepers who are working in demanding conditions: if people are working sloppily it can be a “bullet and death”. The fairway keepers working for Meritaito Ltd tell that they take a very serious attitude towards occupational safety and they also tell that they are worried about the deficiencies in occupational safety, which are appearing in the sector and which in recent times have become more and more noticeable. In the fairway keepers’ opinion, the deficiencies are the consequences of competitiveness in the sector.
The Finnish Transport Agency opened up the sector to competition just under a couple of years ago. There are now many companies operating in the branch of fairway maintenance and the level of the condition of the equipment and the professional skill of these operators varies considerably. The competition for contracts has intensified and the monetary resources available for use in the maintenance of waterways, has correspondingly been decreased every year. At the same time, the amount of maritime safety equipment has continuously grown along with an increase in the safety requirements of the waterways. Therefore the fairway keepers working for Meritaito Ltd are worried that the continuous searching for cost-efficiency will begin to be seen sooner or later in the condition of the waterways and in the worst scenario could even cause accidents.
Waterway maintenance is one part of the reliability of maintenance
Meritaito Ltd’s fairway keepers have decades of experience in the taking care of Finnish waterways. The safe movement of vessel traffic in Finland’s territorial waters is in their opinion a matter of the reliability of maintenance. In the profession, the pro-active work is the most important issue: trying to service maritime safety equipment before any defects or damage appears. Like roads, the waterways are a part of Finland’s basic infrastructure and only well maintained waterways guarantees safe sailing in Finland’s maritime and inland waters.
Text and pictures: Saana Lamminsivu
>> Picture gallery...
