Marine Technical Paper Review by Oladokun Sulaiman - Oladok12@yahoo.com

AMSA marine notice _The marine notice on operations and maintenance procedure with great degree of seriousness presented recent accident and their causes. The papers reiterated on the relationship between personal and use of equipment, ship owners and procurement and providing and guide for equipment, operators and assessment or recommendations on limit definitions,, manufacturers and standards and familiarization training on the use of the equipments
Thus in the report Mr. Chive did not specifically specify the role of parties concerned in this report, but his collusive recommendation emphasized on to all concerned the following in the name of safety and associated consequences:

q For operator’s owners to pay serious attention to safe working load and stresses of requirement taking various conditions of operations into consideration in order to define necessary limit.
q For owners make necessary measure of standards and to the manufactures test certification

q For owners and operators to make provision for familiarization program, references and all time avail is guide for use of equipment for personnel.

The notice is quite informative and the sad stories of the incident are well presented, however we think that variation is limited to effect of overload and overstress accidental and their causal – but of this is a focus based notice, we assume it to be perfect.


TSB safety studies – the issu of safety, their cause and recommendation from the above pares allow logic to link to safety studies done by the transportation board of Canada.

The fact that various studies made in the past about accident and their cause proved that human factor contribute the largest share is approve that human remain the best recourses in any aspect of human endeavor. From statistical to building computer models, various analysis has been made in the fast, but he truth about this exercise made by TSB is that behavioral human reliability test can only be undertaking through completion of matrix questionnaire that can reach and sample large demographic and vast number of profession concerned in the studies areas- in this case safe navigation ship associated cooperation, their cooperation and information sharing.

According to the 20 questions given to number of pilots, masters and officer of watch, and the statistics generated from the responses, During the process of the statistical survey, issue relating to cooperation and, planning, briefing, definition of responsibilities, attitude,, arrogant , negligence ., overconfidence , diversity of perception and hostile atmosphere assumption , grudges about legislation ,pointing fingers all of which are vices to lost of conscience to maintain the spirit of teamwork , control , friendly environment were deducted from comments and numerical data’s.

TSB then made the following recommendations by summing the above described problems under the following general areas o that have been bringing friction to safe navigation and that has lead to unnecessary lost of life and damages:

Hand over briefing- under these problem areas TSB emphasized that maintaining interpersonal relationships remain humanistic part of our life anywhere in order to maintain peace and stability – we are just human and we must interact and share information the we can know and make our environment a better place to perform our functions. TSB commend that standardizing handover briefing will result into a natural norms and this help eliminate dangerous vices of assumption, wrong perception and of course naturally bring naturally bring communication and information sharing into the scene –sometime it is true that people of different background find it hard to break the ice, yet we can’t afford to assume in a safety demanding nature of bringing ships into a port-
Language- this has been a long-standing issue, since it is clear to all that shipping and its nature and associated work is too international in nature and the only way to facilitate this is defining a language of operations. The report did not say much about this since IMO has already solved through STCW 95, and IMO way s of doing business is clear, rub peoples mind together on issue the moment, pass agreed regulation and mandate local maritime administration to enforce it, if they don’t then port state control should and it hey don’t then concerned ship risk blacklisting – who don’t want good name. - This hence bring a resolution point to matter relating to communication and language.

Teamwork-cumulative of issue relating to grudges over legistalation, on who takes responsibilities if there is failure, arrogant of who is in charge and realizing who we really are, getting lost in technical aspect of our life has lead many to forget our humanistic part of we to respect one another and provide environmental friendly condition that will naturally bring team work in doing business together- tow head are definitely better than one. TSB conclusion boiling down everything to humanity knowledge and need for trainee is too true and it is a perfect ideas, recommendation to parties coordinating all parties to establish bridge resources management and incorporation same training in licensee scheme for bridge and pilot licensee scheme will definitely compromise many elements that has been affecting cooperation on board.

Again the survey is great, we believe that IMO has a HRA guideline under cirular1073- MEPC 392.doc FSA. Incorporating this studies into other studies made through other methods will definitely be a good complete to that procedure it will give a better result that will give open door to further recommendation and completely validate this report. More so, presenting the above in IMO MSC conference for resolution and approval and passing it to other as formal circular will help a great deal to resolved issue emanated form this exercise.


Canadian coast guard recommendation – discussion on this paper apparently link to the resolved from result of previous studies and make the recommendation made an implementation point through enforcement nature of the coast guard activities. Thus, recommendation has touched more areas of specialization in the manning of ship relating to deck and radio officer, nothing was mentioned regarding engine watch except reference to the reference guidebook.

Recommendation defined clearly responsibilities of watch keepers, masters, their associated equipment, their associated rules, regulations and procedures, various environment and conditions and link between them and the equipment and other external people that directly or indirectly involve in ship and shore activities to fulfill ships mission and sustain safety and teamwork, and of course information exchange to keep all connected.


The defined task ands of person working on board are summarized as follows:

q Basic principles to be observed in keeping navigation watch- regulations under this heading emphasized on responsibilities relating to watch arrangement, fitness for duty, navigation, navigation al equipment Navigational duties and responsibilities, look out, navigation with pilot embarked protection of marine environment.
q Recommendation on operations guidance for officers in charge of a navigation watch – here responsibilities of officers of watch were clarified under issues of taking over the navigational watch, periodic checks of navigational equipment., automatic pilot, electronics navigational aids, radars, navigation in coastal waters, clear water, restricted visibility , calling the masters, navigation with pilot embarked watch keeping personnel, ships at anchor.
q Basic principle requirements for watch in port on ships carrying hazardous cargo-this part detailed watch relating to ship in moored and anchors position, mandatory minimum requirements for watch imports on ships carrying hazardous cargo, and making reference to “recommendation on principle and operations guidance for deck officers in charge of a watch in port” and the “standard for engineering watch keeping on ships “TP4071 AND 7017 as adopted in STCW 78.
q Recommendation on principle s and operational guidance for deck officers in charge of a watch port- this part break down responsibilities in the area of watch arrangement, taking over the watch, and keeping the watch.
q Recommendation on basic guidelines and operational guidance relating to safety radio watch keeping for radiotelephone operators-responsibilities are clearly described under watch keeping duties, action to be taken in cases of distress, urgency and safety , log keeping , maintenance .

International activities report: this report show the how IMO has been using the doctrine of consensus from different proposal government, non-government and interest group and watchdogs to validate his work and regulations through creation of various committee and working to work on specific issue under coordination of MSC, and implementing them through FSI good to and all regulations throughout the years.

In this IMO convention the focus group examined are:

q Maritime safety committee (MSC)-here issue relating to SOLAS adoption amendments, and reorganization, STCW white list, report of subcommittee on bulk liquid and gases ,report of subcommittee on safety of navigation ,, subcommittee on stability , load line and fishing vessel safety are discussed, mandatory application of IMDG code, crime of piracy and armed rubbery at sea, flag state self assessment , NAV 46 ,no anchorage areas amendment proposal , DE 46 life saving appliances , report and WIG, flag state implementation (FSI), technical assistance subcomeetee on maritime safety ,report of subcomeetee on ship design and equipmenet DE43,consider CSD7 relating to UN commission on sustainable development,large passenger ship safety , bulk carrier safety,
q Sub committee on fire protection (FP)-matters discussed here are regulations relation to design of high speed craft ,guidance on simplified means to calculate fire load , guidance on use and installation of carbon dioxide ,UN concern about aerosol fire extinguisher,
q Subcommittee on standards of training and watch keeping (STW)-issues discussed here are validation of model training, training certificate of marine pilots and revision resolution, , follow up action to the 1995 conference to amend 1978 STCW, lawful practice of certificate of competency, casualty analysis, development of guidance on training use of ECDIS,SMPC, development for training in ballast management , development of guidance for ship operating in ice covered waters.
q Subcommittee on bulk liquid and gases (BLG) I items disused under this committee are methodology for oil outflow analysis, MARPOL 73/78 annex and 1 and 2, hazardous material, electrical installation on bulk carrier chemical and gas carrier, MARPOL and floating storage units, IMO green house gas emission.
q Subcommittee on flag state implementation (FSI) measure flag state compliance, self assessment of flag state performance, implication of vessel loosing right o fly a flag, regional operations on port state control, reporting procedure for detention, mandatory report on pollution ,use of Spanish language in certification and SOLAS , illegal fishing