IMCA publishes DP station keeping incidents

Published on 30 November 2012

Fifty six accounts of incidents that took place in 2010 on 41 vessels were submitted for the annual Dynamic Positioning (DP) Station Keeping Incidents report produced by the International Marine Contractors Association (IMCA). These incident accounts have been analysed and included in the newly published report IMCA M 218.

The largest percentage (37%) of incidents had ‘reference’ as their main cause, with many support submitters commenting that references had been a cause for concern. Electrical (21%), computer (11%) and power (9%) were the next highest scorers. Finally human error (5%), environment (7%), propulsion (4%) and procedure (4%) were the least of the main causes. Although human error does not figure highly, this may be due to the analysis as it can be argued that causes such as ‘procedure’ could also be categorised as human error, with procedures being unavailable, overlooked or ignored.

February is the month which saw the greatest number of reported incidents and January the least.

“In previous years the number of incident reports received had been increasing,” explains IMCA’s Technical Director, Jane Bugler.”However, there is a drop in the number of reports from 77 in 2009 to 56 in 2010. Determining the reason for this reduction is difficult. Many vessel owners and operators may be operating incident free. However, reports of incidents which have occurred but not been submitted is known to be a contributory factor to the reduction.

“As in previous years, the average at 1.37 reports per vessel remains between one and two, with eight vessels reporting two or more incidents and 33 reporting only one incident. If this incident rate were to be repeated throughout the DP fleet there should be a much higher number of reported incidents.

“Preparation of the report for 2011 is already underway. We would urge members and non-members alike to fill in one of our DP station keeping incident reporting forms, or use any other method to let us know of incidents, because it is imperative that DP vessel owners and operators learn from each other’s experience. All reports are dealt with in confidence, anonymised and sent for approval to the contributing company before review by the Marine Division Management Committee.”

The report is available to download free of charge to IMCA members on the IMCA website at legacy.imca-int.com. Printed copies are available at £10.00 for member companies, and £20 for non-members and can be ordered via the website, from publications@legacy.imca-int.com or from the association at IMCA, 52 Grosvenor Gardens, London SW1W 0AU, UK. Tel; +44 (0)20 7824 5520; Fax: +44 (0)20 7824 5521.