For Tanker Men

[John Arton]

cert list.pdf
I may have uploaded this before but the latest from OCIMF made me think again about how controlled modern day seafarers are.
OCIMF is a body that grew out of the tanker disasters in the 70's such as the Torrey Canyon and its members are those involved in the transportation by sea of oil and its products. If you are a tanker owner then you will need to undergo Vetting Inspections of your vessels by accredited vessel inspectors. These Inspections (Called SIRE Inspections) will take place twice a year and will cost you $2000+ in addition to the inspectors fees and expenses, typically around £500 p.d. from the moment he leaves his home to getting back. Inspections can take a minimum of one working day and often more. At the end of the inspection the inspector gives a summation of his findings to the Master and it is up to the Master to challenge any of the inspectors findings he feel do not accurately reflect his vessels condition. Although the Inspector works to a standard set of questions a lot can depend on the inspectors own interpretation and if the Master fails to challenge the inspector then his report is uploaded to the OCIMF database where it can be viewed by any oil major thinking of placing his cargo on the vessel, so a poor inspection can lead to a serious economic situation where the owner cannot get charters for his vessel.
Although OCIMF have an advisory place at the I.M.O. they have no statutory authority so if an inspector finds a vessel a rust bucket with a poorly trained crew etc. he can only make a report, not prevent the unsafe ship from sailing.
Now OCIMF are going even further and publishing guidelines on Safety Critical equipment and spares to be carried.
My point is, from my experience of 20 years as master having to undergo these Inspections (along with C.D.I., Port and Flag State surveys etc.), if the oil majors had not given up direct control of their own fleets as regards manning, management etc. then the need for the likes of OCIMF would never have happened.
https://www.ocimf.org/media/79633/Sa...s-Guidance.pdf
rgds
J.A.

[robpage]

I can only speak from a shoreside perspective John , but all to often safety auditors / inspectors , had taken an early career diversion and learned all about Safety in a classroom , with little actual practical experience having obtained a NEBOSH certificate

[John Arton]

Rob
The OCIMF and CDI inspectors are usually ex Masters, Chief Mates and Chief Engineers. Unless you can get sponsored it is quite expensive process before you achieve accreditation and all are self employed. As I said, despite having to follow a fairly strict set of instructions that appear on there computer based questionnaire, there is still enough leeway to put their own interpretation on answers given.
Some of the getting inspectors I came across, you would not wish to sail with as they were so much up there own ass as to be unbelievable. Others had so little actuall sea time that the old adage of " I've wrung more sea water out of my socks than you've sailed on"
Certainly was true. I shudder to think what the next generation of vetting inspectors will be like as they will most likely come from the push button operator's that today's seafarer's seem to be.
Rgds
J.A.

[robpage]

Again only speaking from shoreside experience this is very typical of the health and safety brigade they have the qualifications to get to the top of their profession but with no experience and then they branch off unfortunately the way the law is in regards to health and safety , again speaking from a land based system, there is a little leeway only in the interpretation and unfortunately without the experience you get a diktat from what I would regard as a safe base point of view without any regard for the actual conditions . This system was made worse with the introduction of corporate manslaughter because all of a sudden the board of directors became vulnerable and all the systems in place would designed to protect them from prosecution rather than the Men from injury

[happy daze john in oz]

OHS, taught at university and at the end of the course you receive a piece of paper saying you are a qualified OHS person.

The off you go to find a job, no experience what so ever.

We had one turn up at the local Community Health Center, nice young lady who did not know her elbow from her a*** it turned out.
Knew all the paper work but not a clue about how things worked.

Thankfully she went off on maternity leave as she was slightly pregnant then, replaced by a guy with 30 years experience.
She returned to another position, he is now in charge.
the difference is like chalk and cheese.

[robpage]

Slightly off subject but when it comes to health and safety a colleague of mine who was the chief engineer of a plant on Tyneside had a failure with a machine and he had one of his engineers underneath it a plant operator overridden the start switch and arm came round and it cut half way through the engineers upper arm . The usual police fire ambulance were called as was my colleague and he got under there covered in the blood of his guy and was bitterly trying to dismantle the Machine as a surgeon with telling him he had a limited amount of time to cut the arm off as it happens he managed to save the guys arm stepped out from under the Machine man gone to hospital to face the company health and safety officer who had been trained in health and safety buy a high street chain company . Did the safety officer offer him any advice no not at all told him to go and fill a report it and get it on his desk as soon as possible because the health and safety mum was there to protect the management not the guy who had been there saving his friends arm . We met at the conference 3 days later at a Diversey lever factory that produced caustic soda and was extremely safety conscious it gave me a lesson in life but he was in charge of safety is not in charge of helping you but he's in charge of protecting those above

[Tony Taylor]

Sounds like you are as cynical as me when it comes to reasons behind all this H&S B/S.
Since coming ashore I have worked almost exclusively in jobs connected with oil& gas, petrochems etc. and in general most of the rules are for everyones' benefit but made worse by the H&S zealots who dont really have clue about the practicality of the job.

[robpage]

I believe in health and safety , but with common sense , and a large proportion of advisors are book taught with limited experience ,

[John Arton]

Rob
There is a clear distinction between Health and Safety and an OCIMF or a CDI vetting inspection. Health and Safety is written into a vessels Safety Management System and any H&S appointed person can stop any procedure that they consider to be unsafe or could lead to an unsafe condition. Getting inspectors work to a pre set list of questions and on first boarding they will initially check all ship's certificates are in date with the Master, they look at the Officer's matrix which gives every officers certificate of competency along with the endorsements required along with actual sea time on board in rank, hours of work/rest are checked along with all log books, cargo and engine room oil record books etc, etc. He will then interview the Officers, get the C/O to show his cargo record book, drager tubes for the cargo on board, oxygen analysires , his instructions log. Then the 2nd mate will be asked to show the passage plan and chart correction log along with the required publications and the information books they consider required to be carried.
They will have a general look around the ship noting cleanliness, state of samples locker etc.
There report is viewed by oil major's considering placing their cargo on board that ship BUT the report has very little on the actual physical state of the vessel and it's crew beyond a general comment on its cosmetic appearance and they have no power to stop any unsafe practice they may observe or any physical state of the vessel that they consider could lead to the vessel suffering a major incident,I had one inspector tell me he had carried out an inspection on a vessel loading fuel oil and seen that it's hull was in a rotten state but all he could do was give it a bad report. That vessel went onto split in half and cause huge pollution. I said if you could see its hull was so bad why did you not get the Port State involved as they could have stopped the vessel sailing. Not my problem was his response, he was only there to get the ship.
Rgds
J.A.

[robpage]

The shoreside systems that tell you that your internal systems are working our international standards ISO 9000 ISO 14000 and ISO 15000 when you get the auditor they can have absolutely zero knowledge of your process your systems and how you practice your work what they do know is the paperwork side of it and it's A system that where I was working ashore was monitored by Lloyds register auditors who have a large commercial audit department in one of these sessions we were talking about the quality of the outgoing product and your product had to be consistent with your specification so I remark if we wanted to push out poisonous rubbish every day as long as we said that we were allowed to do it we would pass the quality audit and the answer the question is yes you set your own standards and you set yourself the Audit that we checked your standards to so when you look at quality systems in land based factories they're not that clever the health and safety is slightly different that was always done by somebody with a qualification that meant they had spent a 2 week or 3 month course to become a member are the occupational health group they didn't necessarily know your job or how you can safely react two it . What are the big things that they were looking for you would ask and they would tell you they are looking for people who get fragile backs through bending and lifting too often so they would count the number of times that your operators bent how far they went and how much they lifted in weight that was one of their big bugbears unfortunately everything has been worked out on paper