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MARINE SAFETY FORUM SAFETY FLASHES

The UK Marine Safety Forum provides a welcome service of publishing the results of investigations into accidents of one sort or another, but of course they are non-attributable thereby avoiding the publication of the names of the owners, or the ship. A recent incident involved an unnamed ship running aground in the entrance to an unnamed port, possibly due to the lack of familiarity with the area on the part of the officer of the watch, and the failure to put in place a proper passage plan. This is useful information but it would have been easier to visualise the problem if at least the name of the port had been included. It sounded like Den Helder which is quite difficult to approach or leave - going North I think, but much easier going South. 

On the other hand there is a remote possibility that it might have been Lerwick, and that the ship might have been the Bibby Topas. I mention this because even if it wasn't, a report on the event should be appearing soon in the Marine Safety Forum's email system, and we will immediately be able to link the unnamed ship in the unnamed port with the TV and newspaper pictures of the Bibby vessel leaning over while aground - when it was attempting to go out of the North entrance to Lerwick harbour. Again, not the easiest passage in the world.

TAX RELIEF FOR SEAFARERS

This month I have made a major effort to find something just a bit cheerful at a time when there seems to be only bad news for all seafarers, or bad news about seafarers. There is just a scintilla of good news for British seafarers who, if they work out of the country for more than six months of the year may continue to receive the maximum tax relief on their earnings. This is not certain, since in the end it is going to be up to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, but the group who have been investigating the more than 1000 tax concessions that are available have made the recommendation. People who follow this sort of thing may recollect that there has been an ongoing court case between the Inland Revenue and the seafarers unions about the definition of a ship. And this has ended up with the ridiculous situation that some ships aren't ships, a situation caused by the fact that some offshore workers have tried to jump onto this particular band wagon. Well. we'll keep our fingers crossed and hope that it all works out. 

And unfortunately that's the end of the good news.

THE IMO MESSAGE

The marine journals of the world are currently carrying a letter from Efthimios Mitropoulos the Secretary-General of the IMO saying that he hopes that the "Year of the Seaferer" did something to highlight the plight of many seafarers. He said "I am well aware that the hardships you face today cannot be solved by a publicity campaign alone and that we still need to do more to inform the general public. But I am hopeful that those who create or perpetuate the poor conditions under which some of you are forced to live and work will find it increasingly difficult to escape the glare of the spotlight that, prompted by the Year of the Seafarer is now being shone upon them."

Well!!  Here is a suggestion for the IMO. Try following your own principles and only allow states who wish to set up a registry to do so if they have the resources to support it. Since the loss of the Demas Victory almost two years ago, out there in the Arabian Gulf I have attempted to find out whether any sort of investigation has been carried out. And bear in mind that the IMO requires an investigation to be carried out into any marine accident if the findings will contribute to the safety of seafarers in the future. I think that if a ship sinks in moderate weather, within a few miles of a port with the loss of 30 lives, an investigation should take place. This ship was registered with the flag of St Vincent and the Grenadines. In my efforts to finds out more I have emailed the owners, called the St Vincent and the Grenadines government, attempted to contact them through the internet (although they do not seem to have a marine department), and written to the registry, which is in Europe, twice. I have not received any response at all. Surely this is a dereliction of duty on the part of the IMO. And lets have a look at some of the other flag states - Mongolia, Tanzinia, Bolivia - to name only a few. 

My suggestion to the  IMO is that they take a levy from the registries and use the money to finance investigations into the losses of ships and lives, in the hope that in at least one area the lot of the seafarer will be improved. I could go on, but basically my suggestion is that we should have less talk and more action.

THE GLOBAL CALL TO COMBAT PIRATE RISKS

The Secretary-General of the IMO has also told us that 2011 is going to be the year when the marine industry combats the pirate threat. And as some are ready to tell us, this threat exists not only in the Indian Ocean, but also in other areas of the world. Apparently things are pretty bad in the seas around West Africa, and to the North of Indonesia pirates keep hijacking tugs for one reason or another. Seafarers are being killed in some areas and at this moment in Somalia 800 seafarers are being held. 

No-one seems to know how to deal with this problem since we live in a civilised world - or one which is more or less civilised. The navies of many nations are still only capable of covering a small area of the Indian Ocean, and even with some success there are plenty of pirates left, and there radius of operations seems to be constantly extending. The Romans dealt with the same problem in the Mediterranean by hitting the Barbary coast and destroying their bases, but I suppose that can't be done now.

But actually there are an increasing number of ways in which ships can be defended from pirates, even excluding the process to be employed by Hereema and Vroon who have decided to use the Dutch military where necessary when their vessels are passing through high risk areas. I particularly liked the wire devices that can be trailed over the side so that when the pirates try to come alongside the propellers of their small craft get tangled up in the wires. But there is more. In addition you can write to you MP - senator - or other representative. For guidance in this area go to  www.SaveOurSeafarers.com .

AND GOOD NEWS FOR A VERY FEW

Those of us who continue to follow the investigation into the loss of the Deepwater Horizon, the first anniversary of which is coming up in a few days, will have been interested in the attitude taken by Transocean of the affair, which the other day became one of those running news items across the bottom of the major news programmes around the world. TRANSOCEAN PAYS BONUSES TO ITS DIRECTORS FOR ACHIEVING THEIR SAFEST YEAR EVER! it said. Actually I added the exclamation mark myself. 

The bonuses were paid - they said - because the company had achieved their lowest level of recordable incidents in 2010. For some reason, which no-one seems to have understood, the loss of nine of its employees in the Macondo disaster was not a " recordable incident". And only yesterday the BP annual general meeting took place where lots of people were protesting about stuff, loss of jobs and loss of income particularly - but no-one was protesting about the loss of life of the unfortunate drill crew.

THE BOURBON LIBERTY CLASS

The video of the SBS Typhoon was sent to me by a a number of correspondents, some living as far away as Australia. There is no escaping the pitiless spotlight of publicity these days. And I have also received correspondence from South America about the much publicised Bourbon Liberty Class. These ships, both the anchor-handlers and the platform ships are apparently diesel electric and and have three propellers. The engines can therefore be placed a main deck level giving more room underdeck for tankage of one sort or another.

The downside of this arrangement is that everybody up to the second mate are housed in four berth cabins - and these ships are still rolling off the stocks, they are so new. So here's the question, would we rather be housed in better accommodation but without portholes - as per the Seacor ships in Brazil, or have a porthole and be bunking with another three guys. What are these people thinking? If you have a choice between sailing on a ship where you have a cabin to yourself at least most of the time, or  a cabin shared with a number of others which are you going to choose? Surely the ships are big enough now for everyone of a ten man crew to have a cabin of their own, even the Liberty 101s, and surely any humanitarian organisation with an interest in the welfare of their employees would be doing better. So we can conclude from Bourbon's approach that actually they don't care, what-ever their publicity material may say.

VIDEOS

No doubt everybody who may be reading this is familiar with Youtube, and the increasing number of marine events and activities which are portrayed there. The latest and for some most distressing is the video of the SBS Typhoon event. Some-one must have been taking a photograph from the office building at then end of the upper dock when the SBS Typhoon, which had been lying quietly there at Regent Quay, suddenly dashed forward breaking its moorings, and then running into the standby vessel VOS Scout. It made me realise how big offshore vessels have become. Apparently the SBS ship was engaged in testing its DP system when it took over. Well, these things happen. Here is the link to the film.:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZprXq_osq0

I have also uploaded a couple of videos of my own. One of them shows three PSVs at work at a semi-submersible, the Northern Gambler, the Maersk Feeder and the Skandi Waveney. I cobbled this short film together to provide something for those attending a risk assessment course to watch, and to take a view on. In addition to this I have in the past converted an eight millimetre film of some ships and tugs working in the Baltic ice into a video, and then into a dvd. Ships on the film include the Baltic Trader, the Baltic Jet, the tug Jaarkotka and the Finnish icebreaker Voima, which was apparently the first one to be fitted with propellers at the bow.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nzU9J-dtHMM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ML496sq8UE

NUCLEAR MATTERS

This very day things don't look too good in Japan where technicians continue to battle with fires and radiation leaks at the Fukushima Dalichi power plant, in the aftermath of the earthquake and the Tsunami. Even at our great distance from the disaster it is distressing, so it must be pretty awful out there. 

On the radio in Uk over the last couple of days, people have been arguing about whether it was a good idea to build nuclear power stations, or whether we should be using less electricity altogether, or relying on windmills, or on solar cells in the Sahara desert. The European governments are deciding to make sure their power stations are all safe, and actually the experts are saying that despite the problems the Japanese stations have done what they were supposed to do. What about terrorists some-one asked. Bring them on replied the experts. Some-one fired a missile at a French nuclear power station and it just bounced off. Well we hope its all going to work out.

Meanwhile I was remembering that some time ago one of the environmental groups managed to bring into the public gaze the fact that the Russians have yet to successfully dismantle any of the nuclear submarines taken out of service. Of the 88, yes 88,nuclear submarines taken out of service, the locations of 70 of them are known. In addition to the submarines there are an unknown number of merchant vessel lying in Northern Russian ports with their holds full of nuclear waste and their hatches welded down. And no possibility now of taking them anywhere and doing anything with them. There have also been eleven serious accidents to nuclear submarines. So that's something else to worry about then.

MORE BAD NEWS

I sometimes wish I could write some good news in this column, but there is seldom the opportunity. I seem to spend my time whingeing or muttering about something - so here's another whinge.

In the weekly Towline Newsletter to which one or two of our photographers contribute, there is lots of tug news of various sorts. They get news releases from supply boat owners announcing charters which raise the tone a bit, as well as the reports on tug accidents particularly in American waters where tugs pushing lines of barges, unsurprisingly, have a job to see where they are going.

However, my attention was particularly caught by an item on the detention  of  a tug, the Comarco Osprey, on the Tyne recently. This was as a result of a flag state inspection which found the following defects:

No rescue boat, the engine room deckhead and bulkhead rusted through in several places, an open cable penetration in the engine room. No fire extinguishing system in the engine room, three lifejackets missing, four immersion suits missing, three fire hoses missing, no medical equipment, and seven crew members without medical certificates.

This tug, which was built in 1981 and was registered in...would anyone like to guess which country this vessel was registered in? TANZANIA!! I was reading the other day that flag states should have the resources to administer their marine organisations. One wonders whether this country in Africa which probably has a job to look after its population, is capable of looking after a marine register. 

FAKE EEBD (EMERGENCY ESCAPE BREATHING DEVICES)

The UK Marine Safety Forum, which is a loose association of organisations involved in the operation of offshore vessels issued a safety flash the other day, which I judge as being worth passing on.

Alarmingly, some-one has been producing fake emergency breathing sets, which can't actually be used. The original sets, used of course to assist people to escape from smoke filled environments, were manufactured by Unitor and are stamped UNITOR UNISCAPE 15H. The fakes are similarly stamped, and cannot actually be passed over a normal sized head, because the neck seal is not sufficiently flexible. 

Up to now all sets have had a tag attached addressed as follows: UNIscan Marine Products & Services, Dubai.

It makes one wonder what else is out there.

THE CARNIVAL SPLENDOR FIRE

People who follow reports on marine disasters may remember that the Carnival Splendor suffered from a fire back in November 2010 with 4500 passengers and crew on board. It completely disabled the ship, leaving those on board with limited facilities of all sorts, including the toilets.

Now the investigations are taking place led by the Panamanian flag with whom the ship was registered. Up to now it has been identified that the fire started in the No 5 engine and that it was fought by ship's personnel with portable fire-fighting equipment. Thereafter the captain decided to inject CO2 into the space, but this was totally unsuccessful due to the fact that they system was inoperable for a whole variety of reasons, despite the fact that the ship was less than two years old.

As yet the more fundamental problem as to why a fire in a single compartment could have completely disabled the vessel has not been identified, or if it has it has not been made public. This must be a problem for the whole cruise industry which seems to be embracing the concept of extremely large vessels some of them carrying more than 5000 passengers. If the Carnival Splendor had suffered the fire and complete loss of propulsion in adverse weather in the middle of the Atlantic the outcome could have been completely different.

As it is the replacement of the No 5 engine poses problems which will be difficult to overcome due the limited facilities on the US west coast for such repairs. In any case some commentators have suggested that this, compounded by the damage caused by water and smoke may result in the ship having to be scrapped. 

COUGAR FLIGHT 91

Back in 2009 a Canadian helicopter transporting offshore workers to the Hibernia Field suffered loss of oil pressure in its gearbox and turned back towards the shore, indicating that it might have to land in a car park more or less at the first point where it was due to cross the coast. However only a few minutes later, still 35 miles from land, it crashed into the sea at more than 60 knots and broke up. Only one person survived, to be rescued from the sea after an hour and twenty minutes, in water temperatures of between 0 and 1 degree C. Another body was recovered from the sea surface, and everyone else was found in their seats in the body of the helicopter, the post mortem determining that they had died from drowning, essentially caused by cold shock.

The Canadian Transportation Safety Board have just reported on the accident and have made a number of recommendations which are probably of interest to anyone involved in offshore safety. The enquiry determined that the studs holding the main gearbox filter bowl together had failed, resulting in a complete loss of oil. The risk assessment process carried out in relation to the helicopter type, the Sikorsky S-92A, determined that the possibility that the gearbox would fail within 30 minutes with only limited lubrication is "extremely remote". The report recommends that this be changed, and that helicopters should be provided with gearboxes capable of prolonged operation even with no lubrication.

They also recommend that Transport Canada prohibit the operation of helicopters over water if  the sea state will prevent safe ditching and evacuation. A news item on this topic suggests that the sea state which would prevent safe ditching is six metres, but this seems a bit excessive. In a way the UK legislation already has a similar requirement in place, in that it is considered that for a helicopter to fly, the standby vessel must be capable of recovering survivors from the sea in the event of a crash. The Canadian report also recommended that personnel travelling offshore be provided with an emergency breathing system.

I no longer travel offshore by helicopter but by the time I stopped doing it I was wearing three layers of clothing under an insulated survival suit, which was designed in a way that prevented water ingress from neck and wrist seals. I was also wearing an inflatable lifejacket, an emergency breathing device and a locating beacon which would automatically activate on immersion in water. My thought was always "If I need all this stuff I shouldn't be going". 

THE MEL OLIVER COLLISION

While I am working away at my computer I make notes if something comes to my attention which I think might be worth expressing an opinion about, or which I think might be of interest to my readers in any case. And here I am taking a guess that at least some of the 500 odd people a day who visit the site, read some of the words, rather than just looking at the pictures. So when I opened the notebook today at the top were the words "Mel Oliver Collision".

I had no recollection at all about what these words meant, but only a little investigation determined that the Mel Oliver was a Mississippi tug which was pushing a barge full of hydrocarbons of some sort on 23rd July 2008. It had become just a bit famous due to the fact that the barge was in collision with a tanker the Tintomara, and the whole event, including the VHF conversations is to be found on Youtube.

It appears that in the early hours of the morning the Tintomara was on its way down river on the starboard side of the channel, and the Mel Oliver was on its way up, when the latter veered across the channel into the path of the tanker, and despite the warnings on the VHF the Tintomara collided with the barge, and as a result there was a oil spill of some size. Points in the investigation which created interest were the fact that the tug was essentially under the command of an "apprentice steersman", who claimed to have been trying to fix the radar at the time of the collision. And this was because the Captain had left the tug three days previously, because he suspected that his girl friend was seeing some-one else and wanted to investigate. Comments on the websites featuring the incident were mainly interested in whether in fact he was correct in his suspicions.

I still can't remember why this popped up again in 2011.

THE DEEPWATER HORIZON AND HUMAN FACTORS

Over the last nine months I have written about 20,000 words about the Deepwater Horizon accident mostly in order to explain to readers who may not have a direct involvement in the rig business what various reports actually meant, and sometimes to comment or provide information, since I have read most of the witness testimony from the Coast Guard/BOEMRE investigation, the BP report and the President's Commission report. 

The commission reported on 11th January, and it itself used much of the testimony from the Coast Guard Investigation which is due to report some time in March. There is now pressure amongst the legislators in America to demand that all the craft and rigs involved in offshore exploration in the US Gulf be built in the US and that they be US flagged. While this is an interesting ambition, would it make any difference to offshore safety? The industry itself is protesting to the point of apoplexy, saying not unreasonably that this would cause the business to close down, so if they are right things would become safer.

But I digress. In my final report on the accident I have made some comments, which I now realise are mainly concerned with human factors, and I only realised this because the UK HSE have recently issued some guidance about how to deal with human factors as a means of improving safety. Of course nearly all accidents are basically due to human error at some point, although risk assessments generally make the assumption that personnel are trained and competent to carry out what-ever task they are involved in. Interestingly the Canadian investigation into Cougar Flight 91 determined that training in helicopter evacuation degraded after six months, and should take place in conditions which are as realistic as possible. They point out that Canadian legislation requires retraining after three years, and Uk legislation after four, and in the case of the UK we are able to say that all attempts at realism have been discarded because of the potential distress to the trainees this would cause.

A FURTHER PIRACY UPDATE 

Since the Korean commando attack last month during which eight pirates were killed, there have been further attacks and in one on the German ship Beluga Nomination the crew took refuge in their citadel, but after 48 hours the pirates broke in and killed two crewmembers, a Russian and a Filipino.

Only a few days ago a Greek tanker, the Mount Irene, was hijacked close to the coast of Oman with 25 crew on board and a crude oil cargo worth $200 million. Greek ship-owners are up in arms. Meanwhile the Dutch government is considering a recommendation that ships flagged with them be able to carry armed guards. This is illegal at present. 

It seems that the pirates are now using captured merchant ships in order to extent the range of their activities and in addition to initiate attacks on their prey. This sounds like war, and can only be of even greater concern to all seafarers and their friends and relatives.