It is common sense that if you try and do too many things at once, or anything too fast, you make mistakes and probably don’t do anything properly.
It is a fundamental fact of life, ashore and afloat, but if you translate it into a maritime context, it can swiftly become a harbinger of destruction and death. It accounts for those accidents attributed to distraction, when some harassed person was trying to control a ship, communicate, and cancel half a dozen alarms all going off at once.
It is frequently a contributor to accidents in which somebody is rushing to fulfil some urgent demand, whether it is to, “make sure you are alongside and ready to handle cargo as per the agreed schedule,” or “it is vital that the ship leaves the berth on completion.”
Nothing new in this; Captain Smith could have paused Titanic’s high-speed passage to New York, at least until first light. But he was operating in the tradition of all those other masters, whose priority was to get the tea and wool home before anyone else, and vanished under a huge press of canvas in the Southern Ocean, or sailed into the eye of the storm.
But that was before the days of health and safety, and the reams of regulations that have been devised, the cynical might suggest, to absolve those pressing the prudent to “get a move on.” And we still have accidents, lots of them, and so many are the result of taking a short cut, an unthinking haste, or simple pressure to get the job done.
The current issue of the Nautical Institute’s Seaways magazine has a stark reminder of the sheer number of enclosed space incidents that continue to disfigure the industry and remain stubbornly common. Written by Captain Garry Hallett, it summarises the work being done by the trade organisation InterManager to collect comprehensive data on these eminently preventable accidents and publish its findings, with a view to mitigating this blight.
It is hugely important work, involving a great deal of co-operation with other bodies, international in scope and providing the impetus for better guidance.
But just registering the sheer number of these accidents brings one up with a start, because in the past, there was no real effort to aggregate them. Because they tended to involve “just” a few victims, spread across the whole galaxy of ship types, flags and nationalities, the impact was dampened.
I always recall a horrible brace of accidents involving two ships, which had separately left the same port a few weeks apart, with the same cargo, each of which saw four crewmembers die in their oxygen-depleted holds.
Who knew, and why was there no communication? But that was then, and one would think that now, we are all better informed.
It is positive that design aspects are being examined with a view to changes that might mean that it is not necessary for human beings to get into enclosed places aboard ship routinely and so often. The use of drones, crawlers, or remote monitoring equipment could be useful alternatives.
InterManager know from its data that the majority of these accidents occur with the ship in port, and the frenetic pace of simultaneous operations has been identified as a major contributor.
It is not remotely difficult to understand this, with proper supervision suffering because of the sheer number of demands upon a very limited number of people, whether the crew or those charged with stevedoring or cargo matters, which bring us back to our initial consideration that too much rushing around and pressure brings its own inherent risks.
Whether it is the ship’s crew being urged to get the lashing off the containers before the ship gets to the pilot, the demands of last-minute “essential” paperwork competing with proper supervision of the ship in confined waters, and the rush to fulfil the demands of those clattering up the gangway wanting instant attention, the solution is blindingly obvious.
For goodness' sake, slow down a little; enough for proper safety procedures to be carried out and sufficient time for consideration of risks. There is not a war on – it is not a matter of life and death that the ship sails on schedule, which jolly well ought to be adjusted for the removal of danger and stress.
As it is plainly obvious, it is haste, in a myriad of different ways, that leads to disaster, and we ought to behave accordingly.
