The Effect of a Long Simulated Voyage on Sailors’ Alertness

Aiming at the long-term voyage demand of ships, a long voyage simulated experiment was carried out in the self-developed experimental chamber in this study, to probe the crews’ alertness changing and the optimal performing opportunity of alertness maintenance measures during the simulated long voyage. The results showed that the fatigue level of the subjects increased and the alertness decreased during the simulated long voyage. Participants’ alertness had begun to decay from the second stage of the simulated voyage, and they were unable to maintain their alertness as same as the general people’s level after the first two stages of the simulated voyage. It means that alertness maintenance measures need to be carried out from the start of the voyage and execute intensive intervention before (preventive intervention) or on (immediate intervention) the second stage end to reduce safety problems caused by increased fatigue and decreased alertness.