Membership In the - Council of American Master Mariners

In the
Council
Dear CAMM,
Financial burdens of the cost of piracy and regulatory
burdens
I have two issues:
1) I have regarding Piracy are the
crews and ships still in captivity. The flag
states that represented these ships have
not stepped up to the plate to resolve
the issue. I think the registry flag states
should be held politically and financially
responsible for the crews and ships. That
is I think the flag states should be stripped
of all legal rights to host ship registries
and they should be responsible to financially
compensate the crews and families
for lost wages and hardship. I also think
the registry flag states should pay for all
costs incurred to patrol the pirate zone
Large Passenger Ship Evacuations
I would like to thank you for the regular
receipt of Sidelights, it gives us in Canada
a good look at what is going on in the
marine field in USA.
In recent months our Vancouver Island
Division have been concentrating on the
evacuation and mustering of cruise ship
passengers, IMO apparently has a ruling
that a ship evacuation should be achieved in
two hours. Given that the two largest cruise
ships at present, Oasis of the Seas and its sister
vessel, Allure of the Seas can carry 6,000
passengers and around just over 1,000 crew.
Due to an article in Seaways I came
across an experiment seemingly carried out
by my Alumni-University of Greenwich,
London where a vessel, with volunteer
passengers carried out, at sea, a mustering
from anywhere in the ship to their stations.
With further contacts I determined
that the experiment and further attempts
were under the direction of a Professor E.
Galea, who headed a computer modeling
class at the University. It turned out that
he had also a company, named Fire Safety
Engineering Group (FSEG) and had run
an experiment on a regular ferry between
Norway and Denmark.
At my request he has made me privy
and liberate the crews and ships.
2) I think the IMO needs to look at
the burden of regulatory monitoring the
master is responsible for and look at
means of mitigating it. Right now with the
imposition of STCW and low sulfur fuel
requirement and whale strike mitigation
the Master has been saturated with regulations
beyond his means to manage it all.
Best Regards,
Captain Kevin Coulombe #3221-R
Editor’s Note: The Views and Positions
team is taking action!
to that experiment and I enclose a synopsis
I made of his 10 pages outlining his
experiment and conclusions. Boiled down
it showed that, on the first day 902 passengers
participated and they made the
journey to the muster station in 12 minutes,
on the second day 867 passengers
participated and made the assembly station
in 10 minutes. It must be noted that-a
good proportion of them were already, by
chance, seated close to the muster station
when the alarm was sounded.
I presented this synopsis at our recent
AGM in Port Saint John, New Brunswick
recently and it was politely received. I
do think, that given the huge number of
cruise passengers on cruise ships it would
be impossible to evacuate numbers such
as close to 6,000 in two hours.
Even given good weather and daylight,
our membership in Vancouver Island
agree and a particular book written by
a master of many cruise ships stated
that the Saga vessels he had commanded
would be lucky to achieve an evacuation
in 3 hours.
Captain Geoff Vale, CMMC
The synopsis can be found on page 31.
NOTICE The articles in this magazine are entirely those of the writer, and do not necessarily
reflect the views of CAMM nor its Board of Governors. CAMM is an independent professional
organization, and is not affiliated with nor endorses any union or political party.
CAMM in Action
Proposed views for AGM
VIEW: Flag State
Responsibilities in
Incidents of Piracy
CAMM recommends that
the International Maritime
Organization create a regulation
holding the flag state of any merchant
vessel held captive by pirates
politically and financially responsible
for patrolling the pirate zone,
freeing the crew, releasing the vessel
from the control of the pirates
and compensating the crew and
their families for lost wages and
hardship. CAMM recommends
that the penalty for failure to take
this action result in loss of registry.
Discussion: Flags of registry are
not currently taking responsibility
for the protection of their merchant
vessels and crews from piracy,
nor for freeing the vessel or its
crew from captivity. The flag state
must be held accountable, and
it should be stripped of all legal
rights to host a ship registry until
the crew of any vessel registered
to the state is freed and its crew
compensated for lost wages and
hardship.
View: Regulatory
Burdens
CAMM supports appealing
to the International Maritime
Organization to review and reduce
the regulatory burden imposed on
vessel masters.
Discussion: Extensive regulatory
requirements such as those driven
by STCW, Low Sulfur Fuel, Whale
Strike Mitigation and numerous
other regulations place a major
burden on the ship’s master and
detract from his ability to assure
that the vessel is operated in a safe
and efficient manner.
10 Sidelights December 2012 The Council of American Master Mariners, Inc.