Perceived Crisis-Management Training Adequacy and Wellbeing Indicators Among Seafarers During the Red Sea Crisis: An Exploratory Survey

Global shipping carries over 80% of world trade, yet existing supply-chain-resilience theory models resilience at the level of the firm, node and network, without treating the workforce operating those nodes as a variable. This exploratory study addresses that gap using the 2023–2026 Red Sea/Houthi crisis as its empirical setting. A pilot-scale, cross-sectional online survey of 64 serving seafarers combined closed-ended items with qualitative content analysis of two open-text questions. Seafarers who had witnessed or been directly involved in a security incident rated STCW crisis-management training as less adequate for conflict-area risk than those without such exposure (Mann–Whitney U = 227.0, p = 0.007, r = 0.34), the only comparison that remained significant after Holm adjustment within its family of tests; Red Sea transit or Cape of Good Hope rerouting without an incident was not associated with lower ratings. Open-text responses identified situational information and realistic scenario-based drills, rather than generic compliance training, as the specific gap, and a minority questioned seafarers’ right to decline a high-risk voyage. Because fatigue and psychological distress could be captured only through single, non-validated items, findings on these outcomes are indicative only. Building on these results, the study proposes, as exploratory propositions for future testing rather than established relationships, two human-factor pathways through which geopolitical risk may affect operational resilience: a training-competence pathway and a retention/psychological-contract pathway. The study contributes hypothesis-generating evidence, gathered directly from an affected workforce, and derives practical and policy recommendations for STCW training content and seafarer consent protections.