Let’s dissect Maritime Competence:
How much of your last classroom training do you truly remember?
The 70-20-10 rule tells us something profoundly simple: When it comes to skill development
- 10% of learning comes from formal classroom training.
- 20% comes from social mentorship, coaching, and peer interaction.
- 70% comes from experiential learning—doing the job, making decisions, handling real pressure and making mistakes.
Various studies suggest that the retention of lecture-style training may be as low as 5–10%. This is also true for most e-learning options today. This aligns disturbingly well with what we see in shipping. We either conduct a workshop or ask the seafarer to complete an e-learning course. We tick the box. Thirty days later, 90% is forgotten.
Skill gaps exist on board. These gaps show up as accidents, detentions, claims, poor SIRE or Rightship Inspection results, loss of morale, delayed promotions and several other ways.
When a seafarer faces a real situation on board, we expect textbook answers and checklists to translate into flawless execution.
That is not how human beings learn. And certainly not how seafarers learn.
Maritime Work Is Skill-Based, Not Knowledge-Based
Swimming is not knowledge. It is a skill. You cannot read a manual on swimming and jump into the ocean confidently. You must enter the water to learn. So is the
Shipboard operations are no different.
Whether it is rigging a pilot ladder, checking a lifebuoy grab line, overhauling a valve, or responding to an oily water separator anomaly—these are not theoretical constructs. They are tactile, sensory, judgment-based actions, often involving all your senses.
Yet, what tools are we giving the seafarers to empower them to execute? Most of them are still knowledge-heavy, in the form of long checklists; dense written procedures, classroom PowerPoints and Circulars emailed from shore.
While we know that text instructions and traditional training are not as effective, the industry continues to lean on that 10%.
Why? Because it produces certificates. Because it satisfies audit requirements.
But does it build core-competence? Today, vessels are subject to a very different brand of audit and inspection requirements. With the OCIMF SIRE 2.0 and Rightship’s New RISQ 3.2, a vessel is judged not just on the basis of physical conditions, but also on the compliance culture.
Seafarers are judged by their practical skills, not theory.
Mentorship at Sea
Let’s talk about the other 20% that we tend to rely on.
Learning from seniors still stands out as the best way to learn your job. We have all learnt from those few individuals who have shaped our professional lives – seniors we will never forget. However, is this trickle-down mentorship always happening?
There are busy ships, cultural differences, interpersonal problems, language barriers, juniors who are shy and introverted and scared to ask questions, seniors who may be good performers but not good mentors, and so on.
Reasons vary, but mentorship from seniors is, at best, unreliable.
Good senior officers are priceless — but rare. Workload is real. Time is scarce.
Real learning — And Why It Matters
It was back in 2012 that the industry began to notice the gap between being qualified and being competent. Terms like ‘Competency Management System’ began to emerge. That big gap in STCW, which no one was addressing – the fact that simply being qualified to join a ship does not make you competent in your role. Many seafarers struggle to achieve maritime competence, often out of no fault of their own, because the system is broken.
The struggle is because the real learning never happened where it mattered — at work.
The classroom gave you 10%. Conversations may give you 20%. But ships run on the 70%. And that 70% lives on deck, in the pump room; In the engine control room. For many years, maritime training systems have overfed the 10% and starved the 70%.
Five years back, at Navguide Solutions, that is the imbalance we set out to correct.
A pocket mentor for every seafarer
We developed Guide2Inspections – A pocket mentor for every seafarer.
Our vision was clear.
A digital mentor for the seafarers, packed with hundreds of years of field experience; a go-to guide for seafarers to perform their jobs at the point of need. With hundreds of short microlearning videos (3-5 minutes each) and thousands of photo and gamified guides, this would be a 24×7 mentor on board every vessel. Just like you reach out to Uber to call a Cab, this would help you do your job.
Imagine if every vessel had a dedicated training superintendent who would be super-smart, super-energetic, who would never sleep, and would guide every seafarer without judgment, as many times as needed, until they reached perfection. That’s what we wanted to create.
But that only covered the mentorship layer – the 20%. What about the 70% – how do we put the seafarer through experiential learning and not one-way conversations?
Guide2Inspections™ — Learning in Work Mode
With a simple hack, we figured out a way to solve the problem. Instead of a training App, we created a Self inspection App for every seafarer.
Guide2Inspections™ does something deceptively simple. It does not pull a seafarer away from work to “train” him. It places him inside the work and mentors him there. When you are preparing for a SIRE or Rightship Inspection using Guide2Inspections, you are acting as an inspector for your own area. If you are the second officer, you inspect the Bridge; if you are the second Engineer, you inspect the Engine room. You use it to check readiness.
You are already in work mode. And while you work, it nudges you. It prompts you. It asks the kind of questions an inspector would ask. It shows you what to look for. It sharpens your eye.
That is the missing 70% of Maritime Competence.
You are not memorising. You are executing.
Measurable Results in SIRE 2.0 & Rightship
Today, major tanker and bulk carrier operators work with us not because they need more training. We work closely with the HSEQ and Vetting departments to deliver tangible, measurable improvements in SIRE 2.0, Rightship, and Port State Inspections.
Through a blend of self-inspection routines and embedded mentorship, this approach has begun to show game-changing results. It organically develops practical skills by bringing the classroom into the field.
It standardises expectations across fleets. It reinforces inspection thinking. It aligns the junior officer with what the HSEQ head expects ashore. Inspection performance is just one of the many remarkable outcomes.
Reimagining Maritime Competence
The future of maritime skill development is not more certificates. It is a predictable, repeatable process that can empower any seafarer, giving them the confidence that comes from clarity. From structured exposure to real inspection scenarios.
Navguide is working on the missing link — when you strengthen the 70% and support it with the right 20%, the 10% finally makes sense.
And competence becomes visible.
