Are warning devices becoming the cause of safety risks?
Beep. Beep. Beep. It’s the unrelenting soundtrack to a captain’s or engineer’s life. For many crew members, this has become the reality of modern yachting: an alarm system that shouts so often it’s hard to know when to listen.
According to a Lloyd’s Register report, alarms have increased by 197 percent over the last two decades, with some ships experiencing up to 22,500 alarms in a single day. For crew, the sheer volume has turned safety systems into a double-edged sword. Designed to protect, they now risk undermining safety by breeding complacency, where vital warnings are lost in a sea of noise. While the report looks at commercial shipping, yacht captains and crew are no strangers to alarm fatigue.
“Too many uncoordinated alarms lead to confusion and missed actions,” explains Duncan Duffy, LR’s Global Head of Technology.
During maneuvers alarm overload can disrupt concentration. “When maneuvering or in tight quarters, the frequency and pitch of all the alarms going off is unnecessary,” says one captain.
Alarm flooding can also foster a dangerous culture of disengagement. Officers often silence alarms without reading them, systems are muted entirely and critical warnings blend into the background noise. On some ships, the problem has become so severe that officers silence alarms to keep the bridge or engine room functional. “We take turns to sit and mute alarms during arrival,” says one officer, an admission that shows how overloaded systems are failing their users.
One real-world example is the MS Stena Scandica. During a fire, a critical power failure was buried in a deluge of beeps and buzzes. The crew spent 45 minutes trying to prevent a blackout, unaware of the generator’s failure until it was too late. Passengers and crew had to be evacuated.
Solutions to alarm overload are available but require a focused effort. By suppressing irrelevant alarms during predictable scenarios, engineers transformed a chaotic system on board a passenger ship, which officers found “immensely helpful.” Aggregation, which combines similar alerts into a single actionable warning, can further reduce the noise. These ideas are standard practice in aviation and other industries where lives depend on quick decisions.
Alarm systems need to enhance safety, not hinder it. Rationalization and smarter design can ensure that alarms are tools — not distractions — so that when they do sound, they’re worth listening to.