Safety Corner – January/February 2022

Happy new year! Whilst I stand by what I wrote last time about there being no “new normal”, I do hope that some things will settle into some form of stability in the coming year. We look forward always in hope.   

A broad range of topics is on the agenda already. We’ll look briefly at last year’s Safety Flashes. We’ll remind you that it’s time for contractor members’ safety statistics submissions. Finally we’ll take a look at some of the issues faced by the Security committee – the sub-committee of HSSE involved in maritime security.

One interesting lesson that seems to be emerging from the last two years, is that at some point we have to get back to meeting people face-to-face. Not just our work colleagues – our customers, our clients and our competitors. What that might look like in this year, we don’t yet know. We do know that the sharing of ideas in and of itself, has intrinsic value. There doesn’t always have to be actions. Members of the HSSE Core Committee propose a short (one hour) IMCA contractors safety forum, wherein ideas can be shared in an engaging atmosphere, under the Chatham House Rule. We’re going to try this out in February: if it works, we’ll hope to able to offer this to the wider membership as a real or actual meeting, maybe even in this year.

Last year IMCA published 35 Safety Flashes, comprising 163 actual incidents or events. Of those, 105 came from IMCA members – the rest, from different trade bodies and regulators, or from  information already in the public domain. It is no surprise to learn that the IOGP Life-saving Rule that came up most often in 2021 was “Getting in the Line of Fire”. The Rule that came up a second most often, was “Bypassing Safety Controls”.

Words and ideas that come booming out at me, when members share incidents, include complacency, or the idea that a task was “seen as routine”. Also, hand and finger injuries, electric shocks, and fires. There were 14 dropped objects in IMCA Safety Flashes last year. 21 incidents where failure of equipment – whether through corrosion, lack of maintenance or wear and tear – was a causal factor. One interesting trend is the failure of equipment in difficult to maintain places – way up high or in hard to reach corners. The human element remains an important factor: equipment may fail because it was not designed for safe and easy maintenance. Things may go wrong because a crew member doesn’t dare stop the job. Our people are still harming themselves because they see hazardous activities as “just routine”, and skimp on the precautions. Stay safe!! 

IMCA has been producing an annual report of contractor members’ safety statistics (covering injuries, fatalities, and reporting activity) for over 25 years. Over the years technology and practice have changed how we do this – from someone sending a fax with information, to the modern web-based submission portal. Reporting is now open: all right-thinking and responsible contractors take safety very seriously, and we look forward to receiving safety data from all our contractor members. The report, which will be available on the web around the end of Q1, will provide an insight to the safety performance of IMCA contractor members, enabling them to benchmark their performance against similar sized companies.

IMCA’s Security Committee, reporting to the HSSE committee, helps members address concerns relating to security (including cybersecurity), piracy and terrorism. Some of the areas of concern across the world in the last year have been the northern province of Mozambique, the Gulf of Guinea, the Straits of Bab al Mandeb at the southern end of the Red Sea, and the Malacca Strait. Many of our members have assets or vessels in these areas, or perhaps transiting through them.

But there is one particular matter that has become of particular concern in recent times, and that is, dealing with large numbers of refugees in small boats. This is happening more and more in a number of places including the Mediterranean and the English Channel.  At least one IMCA member, whilst travelling through the English Channel, has stopped to rescue persons in distress in a small boat.  Of course, the first and primary duty of all seafarers is to rescue anyone in distress. This may leave members’ crews in a position where there could be more rescued persons on board the vessel than there are crew. As well as a humanitarian duty to rescue people at sea, our members also have a legal duty to ensure the security and safety of their own people and assets. We’ll be looking at raising awareness of the implications for our members of the growing tide of migration in small boats, in order to provide appropriate guidance for members.

Until next time, I bid you good day.

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