Safety Digest from the UK’s Marine Accident Investigation Branch, MAIB, frequently covers the more unusual ways of causing grief aboard ship and the latest issue is no disappointment: It reports and incident in which a vessel was flooded by own freshwater tank.
Says MAIB: “Poor planning and lack of procedures led to approximately 100 cubic metres of fresh water flooding accommodation and machinery compartments on board a large cargo ship.”
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Don Cockrill is a familiar name to MAC. He is chairman of the UK Maritime Pilots Association, a Pilot at Port of London Authority and, like MAC, a gorilla enthusiast. To be more precise, an invisible gorilla enthusiast.
The invisible gorilla differs from that other member of the human factor menagerie, the Elephant In The Room, in that everyone knows the elephant is there but nobody wants to admit seeing it while folk don’t see the gorilla in the room because they are too focussed on one task and loose situational awareness.
In the latest MAIB Safety Digest Don writes: “Being aware of our own fallibility adds a significant enhancement to any training regime or the compliance with an operational code of practice. There are numerous published works on the subject, but one I can recommend that amusing and very relevant is the memorably titled The Invisible Gorilla“. Continue reading »
MAIB’s Safety Digest, the mariner’s version of a Stephen King horror novel is back online. Production was suspended by then MAIB Chief Inspector Stephen Meyer after a maritime publication publicly identified vessels which had failed to respond to a distress signal from a fishing boat in the channel following a hit-and-run collision.
With the UK government battening down the hatches and limiting Royal Navy patrols to a corner of the paddling pool in Hyde Park Safety Digest production, now in the capable hands of Stephen Meyer’s successor Stephen Clinch, has been cut to two a year for the forseeable future.
As always, Safety Digest is a good, sometimes chilling read.
Download your copy here and spread it around.
Britain’s Marine Accident Investigation Branch has suspended publication of its regular Safety Digests following what it describes as a “sensationalist account” in Lloyd’s List based on a recent “carefully worded article” which the branch says “it has significantly harmed the MAIB’s ability to improve safety at sea”.
Safety in the fishing industry isn’t what it should be and the latest Safety Digest from Britain’s Marine Accident Investigation Branch offers worrying statistics from mouths for survivors – and those who have watched helplessly as workmates died because safety equipment wasn’t used or procedures not in place.
Raymond Strachan, skipper of Maggie Ann, remembers: “…one of my crew
lost his balance when a rope parted that was attached to one of the scallop bellys.
Risk assessments, often, and unwisely, seen as little more than mere paperwork by busy seafarers are the focus of MAIB Chief Inspector Stephen Meyer in his introduction to the latest MAIB Safety Digest.
Writes Meyer: “It is only a year since I last wrote about the importance of risk assessments. However, in the past 12 months, so many deaths have been reported that could have been avoided by a simple consideration of the risks, that I feel compelled to return to the subject.
Just the phrase “risk assessment” is enough to cause most mariners’ eyes to glaze over. “More paperwork and bureaucracy” I hear you cry. But what I am after is the thought process, not the paperwork. Let me give you a couple of examples.