Near miss: Floor Plate fell from Main Mast during storm

What happened

A floor plate fell from the main mast to the deck during a storm. At the time there were violent storm force winds of 55 to 60 knots with an 11m swell. A crew member suddenly heard an object falling from above.  It landed near the upper deck port forward crane. It was a piece of 50 x 80 cm aluminium plate with 4 holes for securing, weighing about 2Kg. There were no injuries nor property damage.

What went wrong

The four screws securing the floor plate had sheared. The plate was from the mid platform of the mast at the base the Inmarsat dome mast.

The screws had been replaced by a sub-contractor during fabric repairs, just over one year previously, and were found to be too short, and of too poor a quality, to ensure the plate remained secured adequately.

Actions

• Re-secured the plate with proper fixings;
• Held a thorough check of all similar plates on deck, especially in areas where this particular sub-contractor had been working, so as to avoid similar potential problem;
• Fed back to the sub-contractor about this near miss, requiring higher attention to quality performance in future work.

Members may wish to refer to:

• Serious incidents involving the weather
• High potential dropped object – satellite dome fell from mast
• Galvanic corrosion causes dropped object – satellite dome fell from mast
• Dropped object: crane floodlight
• Lost time injury (LTI): loose grating fell from crane, a man fell through and was injured