Best Practices, IMO, management

The Effective Crew Project : Solent University

Project objectives

  • Examine the impact on safety and efficiency of implementing stable or fluid crewing strategies within the Merchant Navy.
  • Provide new data in an area where the current information is primarily anecdotal.
  • Share best practice from other industries which apply stable and fluid teams.
  • Develop a best practice guide on crewing assignment for the shipping industry.
  • Develop recommendations for those in the shipping industry instrumental to crew assignment.
  • Produce high impact dissemination of the research findings.

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Weekly Round-up

Week of September 17, 2018 in Maritime Safety, Security and Leadership…


Quicker and easier than falling asleep…

Harry Potter asks his godfather’s spirit, “Does it hurt?” after he’d passed away.  The answer Sirius Black gave was, “Dying?  Not at all. Quicker and easier than falling asleep.”

That answer may be familiar to enclosed space victims. 

What are we reading and researching this week?

MASS – Maritime Autonomous Surface Ships

Autonomous vehicles, whether road, air or water are hot ticket and topic items.  The concept of the “hype cycle” recently crossed our desks with regard to autonomous cars/trucks.  It appears they have entered the Trough of Disillusionment.  With MASS on the rise towards the Peak of Inflated Expectations, are the proponents of them ready for the voyage through the trough?

Some additional reading on the topic :

DNV – Autonomous and Remotely Operated Ships – Class Guideline – September 2018
IMAREST – Autonomous Report – Putting the Human Back in the Headlines – 2018

Books on the night stand :

Golden Stripes : Leadership on the High Seas by VS Parani
Artificial Unintelligence: How Computers Misunderstand the World by Meredith Broussard

Files added to Madden Maritime this past week :

Transport Malta – Kea Trader Grounding – July 2017
Isle of Man – Sally Ann C Enclosed Space Injuries – March 2015
CHIRP – Maritime Feedback – Issue 52 – 09/2018
CHIRP – Insight Article – Rigging of Combination Ladders
CHIRP – Maritime Feedback – Issue 51 – 06/2018
Marshall Islands : Maritime Safety Advisory 23-18 : Confined Space Incidents
Gard P&I : Confined Space Poster
Gard P&I : Dangerous Gases Poster
Gard P&I : Case Study : Entry Into Enclosed Space

Best Practices, education, Incidents, MITAGS - PMI, Safety

Quicker and easier than falling asleep…

Harry Potter asks his godfather’s spirit, “Does it hurt?” after he’d passed away.  The answer Sirius Black gave was, “Dying?  Not at all. Quicker and easier than falling asleep.”

That answer may be familiar to enclosed space victims. 

The air we breathe consists of several major components.  Oxygen, critical for human life makes up about 20.9% of that air.  That majority of air is made up of nitrogen – close to 78%! The remaining 1% largely consists of argon (~0.93%) and carbon dioxide (~0.04%).  It doesn’t seem that much could go wrong with this atmosphere, but taking away critical components or adding toxic substances can kill us in an instant.

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