Risk of collision with offshore installations from attendant vessels

A recent increase in incidents involving attendant ships colliding with offshore oil and gas, and renewable energy structures has led the UK’s Health and Safety Executive (HSE) to issue a safety notice focusing on the causes of such incidents.

Background

Collisions happen because personnel responsible for watchkeeping and the safe navigation of vessels are distracted by non-navigational tasks, meaning situational awareness is not properly maintained, combined with insufficient communication among the bridge team. These factors have led to an increase in collisions or near-misses, highlighting the need for improved navigational watch processes and systems.

Any incidents involving human failure, should not blame the individual, but rather, the failure should be addressed in the risk management systems implemented onboard. Measures should be taken to address the technical systems, operating procedures, and organisational factors that increase the likelihood of human failures (performance influencing factors) and, to detect and correct these before any adverse consequences occur.

This is consistent with the requirements set out in international maritime conventions – notably SOLAS (Safety of Life at Sea) Convention Chapter V, Regulation 15.

Many investigations into navigation incidents list “human error” as the root cause of the incident. An investigator rarely tries to reconstruct the incident to fully understand the circumstances that lead to the incident. This way, investigations can miss entirely the underlying and dynamic problems of navigating a vessel in a particular environment.....

For more, click https://lnkd.in/esnSNM4s