CHIRP annual digest 2016 6th

Annual Digest 2016
Introduction
Welcome to the first annual review of CHIRP
Maritime reports, covering all the cases we
published during 2016. We hope it will be the
first of many.
There are a number of people to thank for the success of
CHIRP Maritime, led by the management team of John
Rose and Ian Shields, who are ably assisted by Stephanie
Colbourne. Remarkably, they are only employed on a parttime
basis and the amount of work they do is astonishing.
The core team also has the support of the CHIRP
Maritime Advisory Board (MAB), which is made up of wise
men and women with vast experience, who vet the cases
and offer their advice as necessary. Their efforts, however,
would count for nothing without the reports sent in
primarily by individuals and more recently by companies
from around the world, and it is to all our contributors that
this publication is dedicated.
Producing the various CHIRP newsletters, podcasts and
videos and maintaining an effective website with a
searchable database is not cheap, so we are also indebted
to the sponsors whose financial contributions permit us
to provide the service. Their faith in us, and the support
they provide, allows us not only to function but also to
reach more seafarers than ever before. And it is a generous
contribution from the Sir John Fisher Foundation that has
funded the production of this Annual Digest. We thank
them all.
When I first went to sea, crew numbers were much bigger
than they are today, and people tended to spend their
entire careers as mariners. As a result, I sailed with people
who were vastly experienced and I can recall a number of
occasions when I was saved from disaster by the more
experienced men around me. Nowadays, manning levels
have reduced to a point where constant supervision of
trainees is almost impossible, and crews tend to be less
experienced anyway, so the risks are greater.
In my opinion, this is where schemes like CHIRP and the
Nautical Institute’s MARS programme are most effective
– as a way for young people to learn from the mistakes of
others so they may avoid such mistakes themselves. We
hope this digest will contribute to that aim by presenting
the safety lessons learned by dozens of mariners in a single
volume for the information of all seafarers.
It is worth repeating that none of this would be possible
without the people who submit reports to CHIRP. It is
only through them that we are able to function, and we
urge all seafarers to participate. Your incident and nearmiss
reports may help prevent similar situations in the
future, so by telling us what happened you are directly
helping to save lives and improve safety.
Most of the reports we receive are from ocean-going
vessels, although readers will note we are seeing an
increasing level of contribution from the leisure and
yachting sectors, which is most welcome.
Sadly, we still do not hear enough from some important
sectors such as container shipping, bulk carriers, cruise
ships, towage, offshore, super yachts, port operations and
fishing. They are all high-risk pursuits, so we would urge
anyone working in those sectors to consider reporting
their accidents and near misses to CHIRP.
Reporting has never been easier or more convenient, and
this digest contains information on all the ways you can
contribute, so please bear it in mind.
We have chosen to divide the reports into themed sections,
so similar topics are grouped together. This will make it
easier for readers to identify topics that particularly interest
them, and it also indicates at a glance the most common
sources of incidents. Rather than having blank spaces, we
have also included some reports from 2015 where space
permits. Some reports could easily fit into two or more
sections, but we have tried to select the most appropriate
section for each report. For more detailed and focused
searches, we recommend the searchable database on our
website www.chirpmaritime.org.
Within most sections you will also find Advisory Board
Insight articles that illuminate topics covered in that
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