Outline: CHIRP was invited to comment upon ill-fitting PPE for female seafarers and initiated a survey to determine the extent of the issue. What the reporter told us: In an effort to encourage females to take up a career in the maritime sector, certain administrations have prepared a number of articles giving practical guidance. One […]
Outline: CHIRP was amongst a list of organisations to receive a completed accident investigation report from a port authority with the sole purpose of promulgating the findings to a wider audience so more people can learn from the issues highlighted. What the report told us: The vessel involved was a small Lift On / Lift […]
Pilots corner: This inaugural article in our new section has been written by a senior pilot For pilots one of the hot problem topics is pilot ladders and access. How do we tackle this? Locally my own port authority has a robust system for reporting and investigating non-compliant arrangements and are very supportive of pilots […]
Outline: This is not what you want to find after climbing the pilot ladder. What the reporter told us: I boarded the vessel and noticed that the ladder had been put under a steel platform. I asked the crew to lift the platform because I wanted to know how this ladder was secured to the […]
Outline: A report from a large container ship highlighting difficulties securing tugs in a specific port. What the Reporter told us: My container vessel regularly calls at a container terminal in a specific port where, during mooring operations, we often experience problems taking the tug’s line. The problem is that the line presented by […]
Outline: A sailing yacht suffered a winch failure whilst hoisting the mainsail when departing harbour. What the Reporter told us: After leaving harbour the mainsail was being hoisted under normal load when the mast halyard winch sheared off its mounting. Closer examination of the winch identified that the centre stem casting had failed. The […]
This report involves two sister ships operated by a major shipping company with the same pilot ladder rigging issue. On this occasion, the DPA readily engaged with CHIRP, acknowledged the issue raised and thanked CHIRP for bringing it to their attention. What the reporter told us (1): The weight of the pilot ladder […]
CHIRP continues to receive reports primarily from the yachting sector concerning unsafe working at height. These highlight practices where the potential for serious personal injury or even death are present. What the Reporter told us: Recently I witnessed several deck personnel on the yacht on our port side working at height without any safety […]
Two reports highlighting issues with smoke emissions. What the Reporter told us (1): Our vessel, a tanker, was discharging her cargo with all systems working normally. At 08:15 the auxiliary boiler “Flame Failure” alarm activated, and the boiler shut down. The engineers responded and attempted to restart the boiler on several occasions, without […]
As a follow up to the article published in MFB54 entitled ‘AIS and ECDIS offsets’, CHIRP is concerned about the effect of randomly altering the smoothing curve settings of a GPS since there may well be unexpected consequences . We are currently engaging with GPS manufacturers in order to obtain some clarity as […]