Marine Safety in Victoria Report 2007-2008 (PDF, 1.3 MB, 72 pp.)

Figure 5 Distribution of recreational vessel incidents by month of incident,
Marine Incident Reporting system 2007/8 (n=1,091)
Jun
May
2
7
28
44
Serious incident (n=165)
Response only (n=926)
Apr
12
50
Mar
28
104
Feb
16
58
Month
Jan
Dec
24
28
131
178
Nov
13
154
Oct
12
79
Sep
12
48
Aug
2
33
Jul
9
19
0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160 180 200
Frequency
Source: Marine Incident Reporting system 2007/8
5.2.5 Contributory factors
Data on the factors that contributed to the ‘response only’ incident were recorded for 89% of cases
(n=821). Up to 6 contributory factors were recorded per incident and a total of 1,170 separate factors
were identified. Table 5 summarises the contribution made by material, human and environmental
factors to ‘response only’ incidents that occurred in 2007/8. As for commercial ‘response only’ incidents,
material factors made the greatest contribution (61% of factors), followed by human factors (35%) then
environmental factors (4%).
A total of 714 separate material factors were reported across 672 incidents, the most common of which
were machinery failures (62% of material factors, 38% of all factors) and electrical equipment failures (29%
and 18%). Four hundred and thirteen separate human factors were implicated across 345 incidents with
lack of maintenance accounting for nearly half of the human factors (48% of human factors and 17% of all
factors), followed by lack of fuel (21% and 7%), inexperience (12% and 4%) and errors in judgement (9%
and 3%). Environmental factors were least involved. There were 43 separate contributory environmental
factors reported across 40 incidents, almost two-thirds of which were unfavourable sea or wind conditions
(63% of environmental factors, 2% of all factors) and 14% were tidal conditions (0.5% of all factors).
Marine Safety in Victoria: July 2007 to June 2008 31