Category Archives: Uncategorized

Two ABs work­ing on the main deck of a PSV ser­vic­ing an off­shore instal­la­tion are lucky to be walk­ing around, fol­low­ing a close call involv­ing the load­ing of a secion of crane boom accord­ing to a safety alert issued by the Aberdeen-based Marine Safety Forum.

Says the safety alert

“A recent high poten­tial near miss occurred on a PSV dur­ing the back load­ing of a crane boom sec­tion from an off­shore instal­la­tion. Although no injuries were sus­tained as a result of this inci­dent, two ABs work­ing on the main deck at this time could poten­tially have been crushed result­ing in 2 fatalities.

“Inci­dent:
At the time of the inci­dent, the PSV was star­board side along­side the instal­la­tion back load­ing the sec­ond sec­tion of a crane boom.

This back loaded crane boom sec­tion was first landed on deck with no clear­ance from adja­cent tote tanks. How­ever, the ABs had to pass between these tote tanks and the back loaded crane boom sec­tion to access the crane hook for unlatching.

There­fore, the crane oper­a­tor was asked to move the back loaded crane boom sec­tion towards the port side of the main deck to cre­ate a gap to allow the ABs clear access.

The crane oper­a­tor moved the back loaded crane boom sec­tion 1–2 meters to port and asked the bridge whether the new posi­tion was sat­is­fac­tory. The Bridge then con­firmed with the ABs on deck that this new posi­tion was accept­able for them and then advised the crane oper­a­tor accordingly.

The crane wire was then slack­ened down and the ABs started to pass between the back loaded crane boom sec­tion and the nearby tote tanks to unlatch the crane hook.

The crane oper­a­tor then started to heave and raised the back loaded crane boom sec­tion by about 1 metre to approx­i­mately waist height with the ABs posi­tioned between this back loaded crane boom sec­tion and the tote tanks. This resulted in a poten­tial for the ABs to be crushed between the back loaded crane boom sec­tion and the tote tanks.

The bridge shouted a warn­ing on the UHF radio to the ABs who were already aware of the haz­ardous sit­u­a­tion and were mov­ing to a safe posi­tion. The crane oper­a­tor also then low­ered the back loaded crane boom sec­tion to deck.

The pre­vail­ing weather con­di­tions at the time of the inci­dent were within accept­able work­ing lim­its, con­sist­ing of a wind speed of 19 knots and sea con­di­tions with a sig­nif­i­cant wave height of between 1.5 and 2.0 meters.

Main Find­ings and Rec­om­men­da­tions:
The crane oper­a­tor lifted the back loaded crane boom sec­tion off the vessel’s deck but failed to effec­tively com­mu­ni­cate his inten­tion to the ves­sel per­son­nel. The crane oper­a­tor also assumed that the vessel’s deck was clear of per­son­nel.
The inves­ti­ga­tion of this inci­dent iden­ti­fied the need to instruct crane oper­a­tors to:-

• com­mu­ni­cate their actions to the ves­sel before pro­ceed­ing with lift­ing operations

• ensure that all com­mu­ni­ca­tions are fully under­stood and ver­i­fied by all rel­e­vant instal­la­tion and ves­sel per­son­nel before pro­ceed­ing with any lift­ing operation

• avoid mak­ing assump­tions and to ver­ify with the ves­sel that the deck area is clear of all per­son­nel before pro­ceed­ing with lift­ing operations.”

Down­load the safety alert here

Or read online here: