Report text: Seismic Survey vessel “A” was conducting a marine seismic survey on a North Sea field. Vessel was towing ten seismic streamers at a speed of 4.5kts, each 6000m in length, separated by 100m, at a depth of 8 metres. Each streamer had tail buoy attached (bright yellow in colour and marked with yellow […]
Letter Text: Your editorial to issue No. 25 on the topic of “Fatigue” was interesting. Not in only its content but more importantly in what it did not include. I refer to the minimum manning certificate issued by flag state. This needs urgent attention. As an example, a particular coastal vessel has a minimum manning […]
Report Text: I am writing in response to the report in Maritime Feedback Issue No 19, entitled ‘Medical Indisposition’. I have been a Chief Engineer at sea for many years. In all these years I have sailed under many superintendents of different nationalities. In my experience most of the superintendents remember the ISM Code only […]
Report Text: The Captain of a ship reports that, whilst serving, he was suffering from an injury and reported to the port doctor. He was declared medically unfit and advised to sign off. However an immediate relief was not forthcoming. The ship was engaged in busy operations and short passages in bad weather. The Captain […]
CHIRP Comment: The following report was sent with a number of working rosters attached and concerns the fatigue implications of particular work patterns. Report Text: Marine pilots work a 24 hour ‘on call’ shift system. This involves a number of pilots on a rolling roster for a 24 hour period which involves covering work from […]
Report Text: Since introduction of H.O.W. regs in harbour towage sector; company refuse to post schedule of duties as required under Reg 7. Instead insisting on a “work until tired” regime and then attempt a relief using compulsory overtime (in fact increasing crews H.O.W!). The use of three man crews is commonplace, so although tugs […]
Report Text: Whilst anchoring vessel; unable to proceed due to thick fog, on running into the anchorage an echo was seen on the 3M range on the radar. The echo was seen to be tracking clear of the vessel, but would pass close. We had a patrol boat ahead of us and this was dispatched […]
Report Text: I’ve completed a single-handed trans-Atlantic circuit on my yacht & would like to raise a general point about use of radar. Accepting that there are issues around single-handed and watchkeeping, I found that I could sleep for 40 mins and then pop up to check for shipping; this was OK in mid-Atlantic & obviously […]
Report Text: I, and I am sure many other masters, now have to use a large proportion of time previously allocated to such important training to undertake security drills required by the ISPS Code and anti-pollution training required, in particular by the United States. The old “board of trade sports day” once given for LSA/FFA […]
Report Text: During one long stand-by (about 10 hours), the duty engineer was so tired he mistakenly made an operational error of shutting down the second cooler (which was already open) in the central cooling system thinking that he was opening the cooler to the system, creating a bit of a panic when the main […]