Мореплавание – рискованная деятельность, поэтому невозможно говорить о полном исключении риска в этом деле, но только об управлении рисками, то есть об оптимизации в сфере мореплавания. Каков разумный уровень риска? Как его определить? Эти и другие вопросы, связанные с управлением рисками, рассматриваются автором в настоящей статье, а именно:
– как редуцировать риски до разумного уровня, на котором не будет системных сбоев;
– как оценить уровень рисков, в том числе, имеющих место во внешней среде, в частности, погодных рисков;
– как запланировать переход судна;
– как проводить расследование чрезвычайных морских происшествий таким образом, чтобы мореплаватели могли извлечь полезные уроки;
– как сотрудничать капитану судна с лоцманом для редуцирования и минимизации рисков в сфере безопасности мореплавания.
How do we decide what level of risk is reasonable? Proper port information, properly transmitted, will go a long way to helping make that decision.
There is no navigation without risk. Risk can be managed but not totally eliminated.
People who have the conduct of the navigation may be well trained, experienced and competent but all are human and we all are fallible. Masters, mates and pilots have to make judgements of risk continuous]) and these judgements arc inevitably based on incomplete information. If every manoeuvre or transit involves risk, then each risk has to be evaluated against a standard.
The question is: What is a reasonable risk?
Take a vessel arriving at the pilot boarding station at 0601) hours in dense fog. During the Master/Pilot exchange, the Master states: ‘Mr Pilot, we have labour ordered for 0800 hours and we must depart by 1700 hours to take our slot in the next port.’ On departure at 1645. the Master advises the pilot that he lias not ordered a tug. The pilot, having already assessed the wind on the offshore bow and distance to the ship ahead, concurs w ith the Master’s decision. In any event a tug w ill not be available for more than an hour. This is a common situation, but there is a risk of a possible thruster failure at the same time as a sudden gusi of w ind. Is that a reasonable risk?
System failures
It is possible to reduce risk, but not to remove it altogether. A charterer of mid-size crude oil tankers (40.000 to 210.000 tons dwt) brought together a group representing all port interests, governmental and commercial, in a meeting to draft a standard passage plan. The charterer also requested that the pilot complete a pre-transit check list that included 1 5 items. Pilots are not usually experienced marine surveyors, so the list included only crucial and obvious items: compasses, engine restart astern under headway, passage plan charted (the plan was forwarded before arrival), etc. Most vessels passed these simple tests, but a few did not and were left at the outer anchorage to rectify deficiencies.
Despite these precautions, there were system failures en route, including blackouts. A typical blackout takes place when a new load is placed on the electrical system, thrusters being the main but not the only culprit. If the elcctrical system failure occurs while the rudder is not amidships or amidships but a turn has already been initiated, then the vessel w ill be out of control.
One such blackout required a powerful tether tug to be deployed at maximum power in the full offset mode, it was a very near run thing. System failures on non-tanker traffic were more frequent and there were groundings as a result.
More recently, low sulphur fuel has been recorded as the cause of a disturbing number of main engine stoppages.
Environmental conditions
A vessel strikes a bridge pier causing pollution, possibly because the pilot was unable to read the set of the current accurately in darkness and/or dense fog; a tug Master misjudges the effect of a freshening wind on a high air draught tow, colliding with an anchored tanker causing pollution; the thruster on a container ship operating without a tug fails and the vessel strikes a crane causing a fatality. Were those reasonable risks?
We may ask why these vessels were operating in such environmental conditions. The answer is that it w as expected. If there are no published limits, it is left to the judgement of the Master and the pilot who, as previously mentioned, have to balance time and efficiency against the possibility ol loss of control.
The passage plan problem
Every vessel is required to have a berth to berth passage plan. However, maintaining up-to-date charts and publications is already very time consuming without having to grind through port operation regulations and local notices to shipping in order to produce a reliable plan.
The workload of the ship’s officers approaching a port is already considerable. It is obvious that the vessel’s plan is unlikely to be completelv without error or exactly match that of the pilot – and the pilot station is not the place to reconcile the differences. Usually they are not reconciled, so both Master and pilot can be misled into assuming they have a common understanding when they do not.
Rather than mitigating risk, ihe berth to berth passage plan may in fact add to it.
A solution may be for the entity that regulates the waterway to forward a clear statement of its navigation limitations to the approaching vessel. Statements of these operating limitations are often scattered in more than one publication and often embedded in dense official prose. The second mate lias more than enough to do and may miss or misinterpret vital information when preparing the passage plan.
The purpose is to set the standards of navigation within a district including: meteorological limits, channel limitations, speeds, tug requirements and ship performance requirements. If the proposed statement of limitations is to be a success it needs to include the input of the waterway administrator in consultation with active pilots of the waterway, government agencies dealing with navigation safety and shipping company operations managers.
VDRs and the blame game
Voyage data recorders (VDRs) replaced previous engine movement recorders and ink on paper course recorders some time ago. Quite often these recorders did not work for one reason or another: sometimes it was because ink or paper were not being replenished, sometimes a lack of care and interest. Even now the problem persists with VDRs. in that the SAVE button must be pressed soon after an incident in order to preserve a record of the most recent part of a voyage. Investigators are finding that this is sometimes not being done, so reliable information about a casualty is lost.
Who can blame the navigators of vessels involved in incidents who do not ensure that the VDR recording is preserved? Misjudgements and circumstances that have resulted in incidents have led to certificate suspensions and even jail time for Masters, a chief officer and pilots.
In certain cases the fact that they were aboard was evidence enough to prove fault.
Even if the accident is likely due to system failure, it is possible that this failure may have been a result of a suspected but undeclared defect. II this is true, then there could be a problem in recovering costs from the underwriters. As to human failure, many seafarers fear an out- of-proportion reaction from government or management or both.
It has been my observation that professional accident investigators try to focus entirely on cause not culprit. Unfortunately, if the outcome of an accident is severe, the public will want a culprit. The network news helicopter will be on station within the hour. It can then become a criminal matter – never mind that the cause was an honest misjudgement or unpredictable circumstance.
The way forward
A professional must be at least competent, on occasion may display excellence but continuous perfection is beyond us all. As Churchill said: “The maxim ‘Nothing but perfection’ may also be spelt ‘paralysis’.” Masters have to contend with less than ideal circumstances, incomplete information as well as cost and time constraints and a pilot has concerns about the reputation of the port for safety and efficiency.
Let us give Masters, mates and pilots readily available specific waterway guidance as to when and under what specific conditions navigation in restricted waters can be undertaken. The agreed and published limits should be the measuring stick – not after the fact expert opinion. That, and a more adult approach toward inevitable errors of judgement, may encourage the crew to remember to press the Save button on the VDR.
Автор:
Alan Stockdale, MNI
Источник:
Seaways. – 2015. – November. – P. 15 – 16.