Maritime & Shipping · New Zealand
Seafarers stand watch systems such as six-on/six-off for weeks at a time, with broken sleep, noise and motion. Fatigue on watch raises the risk of grounding, collision and injury.
Reg Watch
Regulatory change that affects how you manage fatigue in maritime & shipping: what has changed in the last 12 months, and what is on the way.
Recent changeFrom 9 July 2026
Applies across industries in New Zealand
The Health and Safety at Work Amendment Act 2026 became law on 9 July 2026. Your duties do not change until most of it commences on 1 April 2027, so use the lead time to evidence fatigue as a serious-harm risk.
Read the changeUpcoming changeExpected from 1 April 2027Within 12 months
From 1 April 2027 HSWA centres on 'critical risks'; fatigue is not on the Schedule 1A list. Where the Maritime Transport Act manages the same risk, complying with it can satisfy the matching HSWA duty. Separately, Maritime Labour Convention amendments are expected in force on 23 December 2027; hours of rest are unchanged.
Regulatory changes checked as at 1 October 2026.
Regulation
Maritime is one of the few New Zealand industries with hard numeric rest rules, but they do not cover the whole fleet. Ships caught by Subpart B of Maritime Rule Part 31 - SOLAS ships, and commercial passenger and non-passenger ships operating beyond restricted limits - must give watchkeepers and seafarers with designated safety duties at least 10 hours' rest in any 24 hours and 77 hours in any 7 days. Documented fitness-for-duty procedures naming fatigue bind those ships and fishing vessels working beyond inshore limits. Smaller domestic vessels fall outside both and rely on the general safety duty.
Maritime NZLogos identify the regulator and don’t imply endorsement.
Maritime New Zealand is both the maritime safety regulator and the designated health and safety regulator for work on board ships, ships as workplaces, and major ports - it prosecutes under the same Health and Safety at Work Act that covers every other employer. WorkSafe New Zealand covers shore-based work outside those areas, and the Transport Accident Investigation Commission independently investigates maritime accidents.
If you operate a SOLAS ship, or a commercial passenger or non-passenger ship beyond restricted limits, you must establish and enforce rest periods to the international standard: at least 10 hours' rest in any 24-hour period and 77 hours in any 7 days, in no more than two blocks with one of at least 6 hours, and no more than 14 hours between the start of consecutive rest periods. You and your masters must also have documented fitness-for-duty procedures addressing fatigue specifically, alongside stress and substance use - and that obligation reaches fishing vessels beyond inshore limits too. General safety duties apply to every vessel regardless.
Maritime New Zealand can detain a vessel, issue directions and prosecute. Because it is also the designated health and safety regulator for work on ships and at major ports, a fatigue failure is not handled through some lighter maritime-only channel - it is prosecuted under the same Health and Safety at Work Act, with the same offence tiers, fines and reparation orders that apply to any employer, and officers can be charged personally. That is what happened after a stevedore was killed at Ports of Auckland: Maritime New Zealand charged the company and its former chief executive, whose conviction was upheld on appeal in 2026. Rest-hours breaches can also be enforced separately under maritime transport law.
A fatigue failure on a covered ship or at a major port is prosecuted on the general safety scale: up to $500,000, $1.5 million or $3 million for a company across the three offence tiers, and $100,000 to $600,000 for an officer personally, with reparation on top. Ports of Auckland was fined $561,000 plus $90,000 costs after a stevedore was killed, and its former chief executive ordered to pay $190,000 in fine and reparation.
Sources: Maritime Rule Part 31 (Crewing and Watchkeeping), rules 31.29 and 31.30; STCW Code section A-VIII/1; Maritime Transport Act 1994; Health and Safety at Work Act 2015 and the Maritime New Zealand agency designation; TAIC inquiry MO-2024-201.
Fatigue-critical roles
The roles where a fatigued worker is most likely to cause serious harm, the tasks that carry the risk, and why fatigue builds up in them.
| Role | Risk | High-risk tasks | Why fatigue builds |
|---|---|---|---|
Watchkeeping deck officer / masterRules
| Critical risk | Keeping a bridge watch alone in the 00:00-04:00 or 04:00-08:00 watch; collision avoidance in coastal traffic; port arrival straight after cargo work | 6-on/6-off or 4-on/8-off watches, port-call cargo work eating rest, time-zone changes, months-long tours |
Marine engineerRules
| Critical risk | Unmanned machinery space on-call alarm response at night; engine-room watch; bunkering, fuel changeover and blackout recovery after broken sleep | UMS on-call nights with repeated alarms, port maintenance during rest periods, heat and noise |
Harbour pilotRules
| Critical risk | Conning large ships through pilotage waters at night; boarding by pilot ladder in swell; back-to-back jobs and long coastal pilotages | 24/7 on-call job lists, night jobs, long transits and travel between jobs, irregular rest |
Tug masterRules
| Critical risk | Ship-assist and harbour towage at night on short notice; towline handling near girting risk; coastal barge towing on two-watch systems | On-call 24 h harbour rosters, two-watch towing (6-on/6-off), back-to-back jobs |
Skipper / master (domestic ferry, fishing vessel)Rules
| Critical risk | Skippering a ferry or workboat with minimum crew on long days; night fishing then steaming home after hauling; lone watch on small vessels | Long seasonal days, early starts, split shifts on commuter ferries, multi-day trips with fragmented sleep |
Able seafarer (watch rating)Rules
| High risk | Lookout and helm on night watches; mooring and anchor work during port calls that cut into rest; fire rounds | Watch rotations, port-call work in rest periods, long tours |
Stories
Published findings and prosecutions from regulators, courts and investigators in New Zealand.
Story 1 of 18
How the suite fits
Grades describe how strongly a product connects to an obligation. None discharges an obligation, and none carries a compliance warranty.
Maritime Rule 31.29 requires owners and masters of ships under Part 31 subparts B and C to keep procedures ensuring each seafarer is fit for duty, taking account of impairment, especially fatigue. Sleepfit supports them. It screens; diagnosis stays with your clinicians.
Assessed by reference to Australian regulation.
About SleepfitMaritime Rule 31.29 requires procedures ensuring each seafarer is fit for duty, taking fatigue into account, on ships under Part 31 subparts B and C. It names no check. A fitness-for-duty check, not a fitness-for-duty decision - the duty call stays with you.
About Fatiguefit4DutyMaritime Rule 31.29 requires fitness-for-duty procedures that account for fatigue on ships under Part 31 subparts B and C; it does not name training. Awareness eLearning supports those procedures with fatigue and sleep content.
About Awareness eLearningMaritime Rules Part 31 names no fatigue assessment after an accident, and your notification duty under s 56 of the Health and Safety at Work Act 2015 names no cause. Was It Fatigue? supports your review. A structured judgement aid, not a determination of cause.
Assessed by reference to Australian regulation.
About Was It Fatigue?No New Zealand maritime rule reaches sleep in new-parent households; Part 31 concerns seafarers on duty. SleepWellBaby is offered to parents of infants in your workforce as a benefit, not a compliance step.
About SleepWellBabyRecommended bundle
Every bundle is priced on prevalence: your whole cohort gets access, and you pay for the share predicted to need each product. How pricing works.
Proactive fatigue risk: assess, manage and train, with sleep screening underneath.
Assess, manage, investigate: from the Census to the point of duty to the post-incident review.
Why this pairing in New Zealand
Maritime Rule 31.29 requires procedures keeping each seafarer fit for duty, taking account of fatigue. Fatiguefit4Duty supports them with a pre-watch check, Sleepfit screens crew and Awareness eLearning trains. Fatigue Lifecycle adds Was It Fatigue? for accident review.
Tell us roughly how many people you employ. Your snapshot models how many are likely sleeping poorly and what it costs, from published research for maritime & shipping. Then choose who you’d cover, and we’ll take you to the right next step.
