SECTION 4 - Marine Accident Investigation Branch

1.20 ACCESS TO TENDERS ON BOARD Saga ruby
Access to the bowsing tackle arrangements fitted to the tenders/lifeboats on board
Saga Ruby required the lifeboat preparation/ lifeboat crews to climb onto the coach
roof. There were no readily accessible strong points on the lifeboats/tenders to
which to attach a safety harness tether. To overcome this, webbing jacklines,
running fore to aft, were fitted to the glass reinforced plastic (GRP) coach roof to
which a safety tether was attached (Figure 21). The jacklines were secured to
shackles fitted to eyebolts which passed through the roof. The shackles were fitted
to the eyebolts with, what appeared to be, a standard nut and bolt arrangement
which had been prevented from slackening by a split pin (Figure 22). The issues
relating to this arrangement are discussed at Section 2.10.
1.21 SIMILAR ACCIDENTS
1.21.1 MAIB’s Safety Study 1/2001 – Review of Lifeboat and Launching Systems’
Accidents
The MAIB published its Safety Study 1/2001 6 following a review of its accident
database. The subsequent analysis showed that, over the preceding 10-year period,
12 professional seafarers lost their lives in accidents involving lifeboats and their
launching systems. This represented 16% of the total lives lost on merchant ships
during the period. These accidents all happened during training exercises or testing,
with experienced and qualified seafarers either performing or supervising the
operations.
The executive summary identified that the root cause of many of the accidents was:
and
“…the over-complicated design of the lifeboat launch system and its component
parts, which in turn required extensive training to operate…”
“…training, repair and maintenance procedures fell short of what was necessary,
….”
The study identified that during the review period there were 10 incidents, resulting
in five injuries and the loss of two lives that were directly related to tricing and
bowsing arrangements.
Section 2.2 – Bowsing and Tricing - of the study covers the operational and design
aspects related to bowsing and tricing arrangements. A copy of the section is at
Annex k. In particular, it identified the dangers associated with not using bowsing
tackles and those related to taking the full passenger loading jointly on the tricing
pennants and the davit falls.
6 The publication is available on the MAIB’s website at www.maib.gov.uk
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