Three cheers for the ship manager’s organisation InterManager, which has made the better collection of accident data one of its main missions. Shining a light on the inadequacy of information available on the sheer number of enclosed space tragedies and the miserable irony of so many deaths and injuries in drills involving rescue and survival craft has been a real wake-up call to the industry.
The organisation has also been collecting data about falls, which are responsible for so many deaths and injuries aboard ship and has now submitted their information on the three categories to IMO. You would like to think that the members of the inter-governmental organisation might recognise the need for action.
InterManager itself recognises that the data it has managed to collect and collate are far from complete and that so many accidents go unreported, or are tucked away in files that never see the light of day. This lack of transparency, coupled with a marked hesitation in sharing casualty information, is one of the important messages that the organisation feels it needs to stress.
And how can lessons ever be properly learned and repetition prevented, if shipping companies or flag states fail to make use of the means of promulgating the information they hold? It took years of grim opacity before the Global Integrated Shipping Information System (GISIS) came into being and it needs to be properly and speedily used.
There is little to be cheerful about in InterManager’s latest data. There has been no improvement in the number of deaths and injuries attribute to falls, while the most recent information about enclosed space casualties has shown a steep increase, despite all the publicity.
There has been no marked improvement in the number of accidents involving boats and drills. All in all, the data is depressing, which ought to provoke questions about why any movement for the better remains so stubborn.
We all know that ships are, and have always been, dangerous places for their human custodians. We are also aware, from comprehensive data collected by the P&I clubs that “slips, trips and falls” are a major source of claims over the years.
It has also been suggested that although human carelessness can play a major part, poor or thoughtless design plays an important role in the accumulation of shipboard accidents. The stupidly positioned ringbolt, just where somebody will naturally walk; the overhead pipe requiring somebody to duck if a head injury is to be avoided; poor lighting; ladders that are designed as an invitation for somebody to fall down them; and overall design that means that spares, food, or other necessities have to be shifted between decks up and down ladders are just some of the myriad of snares to be encountered.
There is a culture to be overcome that remains almost a throwback to an earlier, crueler age, when seafarers were routinely expected to do dangerous things aloft, or over the side, or involving weights, all in a violently moving ship, in fearsome weather. Well, the weather has not changed and the sea is as unforgiving as ever and although shipowners plaster the bridge front bulkhead with “safety first” messages, some attitudes have barely altered.
There still remains what one might call the “hurry-hurry!” culture, with a paucity of people and the schedule of the ship, demanding haste in just about every job. We might go through the motions of the “toolbox talk,” but do the hearers understand what they are being told to do? Or do they just nod politely and depart, with speaker and listeners (who might have limited language skills) each hoping for the best?
But one of InterManager’s main messages has been the failure to both collect and share accident data in a timely manner, and the reasons for this are several. There is degree of hesitancy and embarrassment in admitting that an accident has happened on your company ship, thinking that this reflects badly on your oversight of shipboard safety. And at flag state level, where the information should be properly investigated and speedily despatched to the GISIS organisation, it depends a great deal on the administrative capabilities of the flag itself.
Some quite sizeable flags of convenience, which have arisen almost from nothing in the short term, are mostly financial structures and have limited capability to supervise or implement international regulations or obligations. Some are just hopeless.
The consequences of this lack of curiosity about accidents aboard ship are plain to see and we should be hugely obliged to InterManager for pointing this out. Better, fuller, faster reporting of casualties are the route to their ultimate reduction.
