Arrest that Man!

[Ivan Cloherty]

Who wants to go to sea?
There have been many cases of late where-in Masters and Chief engineers have been arrested for criminal damage, either because their ship broke in half in a storm, or was in a collision with another vessel, even a Pilot suffering the same fate in the River Humber. It is now filtering down through the ranks, where-in the Chief officer of the 'Mount Hope' (Panama) is under criminal investigation in Brake, Germany, for letting his vessel collide with the quay and a riverboat moored alongside causing damage to both. No injuries or pollution were recorded in the incident. No further details available at this time, but one wonders why the Chief Officer, and not the Master or Pilot, as one must assume that there was a pilot on board as vessel has a L.O.A. of 171 metres

[Captain Kong]

In the early 50s I heard that the Pilot in the Maracaibo Lake took a wrong turning down a wrong channel between all the rigs and the power cables overhead were brought down by the masts and all power to the all the rigs were closed down, the Boat with the Militia on board came along side, up on the bridge and shot the Pilot dead. Hewas replaced and the body taken away on the boat. That was on a Shell tanker.

My brother was on the WANSTEAD in Indonesia around 1961ish when the Pilot shot the British Captain Dead. not sure what happened next, Brother is away so cannot contact him.

[robpage]

This is happening more and more ashore as any accident resulting in an injury that has investigated by the Health and Safety Executive they always seem to be looking for someone to hang the blame on .. I have faced two of their enquiries as a witness and they are extremely aggressive and I definitely hunting for a name the Pin down the responsibility too . This makes everybody defensive and you spend more time working out and not to get yourself involved then you doing standing up and telling the truth

[vic mcclymont]

Most of the H&S people that I have come across have never done a days work in their lives. They are theoretical University trained.
No hands on experience.
Vic

[John Pruden]

vic I erecteted and dismantled tower cranes never seen a h. and s person until the tower was up or down not a job for the faint hearted? jp

[robpage]

Most of the H&S people that I have come across have never done a days work in their lives. They are theoretical University trained.
No hands on experience.
Vic

I have met about four or five inspectors over the years there all PhD

[happy daze john in oz]

I have met about four or five inspectors over the years there all PhD

Rob, here in Oz all universities are on federal land. As a result state laws do not apply to them.
In 14 years at uni I never once saw a local health or H&S state person on site.
We had a H&S committee of which I was a member but it was all kept in house.

[robpage]

I was the engineering manager of a large factory and the HSE would do periodic visits but they always seem to coincide with a little bit of on the settlement amongst the unionized face of the workforce which made you think has somebody made a phone call . We will never called to task over anything but had a very complex and thorough system . Every task could been analysed is regarded to lifting and repetitive strain . We had a couple of Accidents one where a mans leg was embedded on a sharp forklift Tine because he had parked in the wrong place the other side of a curtain door and his mate drove into him and we lost the complete trailer of a lorry and shoved 32 tons of milk through a neighbour's brick wall . When they interview you if it is the health and safety executive you do not have the right to remain silent I believe they call it a section 2 interview and you do not have any defence of keeping quiet two prevent incriminating yourself

[j.sabourn]

Rob my experience of HSE has been at various fleeting moments on various oil exploration rigs where I have been a temporary part of their complement. I. Have therefore attended their periodical and compulsory Safety Meetings done during a persons off duties period. They (consisted mainly of lectures on graphs drawn up mainly by the Safety Officer shown accidents on the structure for the week, and trying to distinguish them as either time lost accidents or otherwise. The emphasis was always on the trying to define accidents as non time lost accidents, if one of the cooks cut his finger with a carving knife, this would more than likely go down as a non time lost accident so as to appear on paper as not important and so not spoil the record of the rig for its points on the score card and its chances of winning a prize for an accident free month. An accident is an accident as far as I am concerned any time lost or not is immaterial . It was made in to a political cleaned up record book for statistics for people to brag about. Propaganda like most things in the industrial world. Cheers JWS