Shipboard Safety Training Manual

The Shipboard Safety Training Manual aims to provide all employees with policies and information concerning safety and health. This manual is establishing a permanent reference system by which employees are assisted and guided in dealing with safety prevention and awareness issues.

The shipping company's primary objective is to ensure that each vessel is operated as safely and efficiently as possible. Success in meeting this objective depends on the quality of the crew’s training and experience. All supervisors must recognise the need for constant attention to safety. 

Safety is an integral part of all activities. The most effective way to establish and maintain a safety program is to train and encourage everyone to accept personal responsibility for the prevention of injuries on the job. In that way, the employees will form positive safety attitudes that are useful on or off the job. Together with sound practices, those attitudes must become as much a part of the job performance as other basic skill requirements.

The Shipping Company continues to provide effective, efficient, and economical services for its customers with safe working conditions for its employees by sustaining a constant company-wide safety program to eliminate accidents.      

Through the Shipboard Safety Training Manual and other manuals provided onboard, the SMS program tries to cover all aspects of safety procedures, including instructions and training on safety, inspections, drills, accident reporting, safety meetings, and safety controls. Each Master, department head, and crew member onboard the ship has a personal responsibility for safety, not only for the ship or themselves but also for their shipmates. A crew member's greatest effort and objective should be the prevention of personal injuries.

Shipboard Safety Program

Each Shipping Company has implemented the Safety Management System (SMS) to enhance safe operation and pollution prevention aboard its vessels. The shipboard safety program relies on four main points for the enhancement of shipboard safety. These points include:

Accidents and Incidents

The immediate causes of accidents are frequently substandard acts (behaviours that could permit an accident) and substandard conditions (circumstances that could permit an accident). Using the above information, health hazards aboard ships can be described as substandard acts or substandard conditions. If the conditions are part of the everyday working environment (for example chemicals that are carcinogenic or burn), then this is a recognised hazard that must be neutralised or dealt with to prevent injury or illness. To prevent a loss from a health hazard, we must identify personal factors and job factors. The following are basic causes of loss due to personal factors:

Inadequate leadership, maintenance, and work standards are key causes of work-related loss. Once the immediate and basic causes have been identified, management actions seek to prioritise the causes and then to:

Events (incidents) investigated always have multiple causes that are substandard acts or conditions. Shipboard Safety and Loss Control is a Line Management function. This means that company policy is defined and understood and then executed by the Senior Officers aboard the ship. The examples set by Senior Officers affect how the crew will approach and handle any job. If the officers are aware that they must set an example in making safety the priority in any situation, then the crew will respond accordingly.

Training and Drills 

The Master is responsible for ensuring that all vessel crew members are trained and drilled in their emergency response duties. The crew recreation room, crew mess room, officer recreation room, and officer mess room are fitted with the approved SOLAS Training Manuals to familiarise the crew with the specific equipment fitted to, and procedures applicable to, the specific vessel on which they serve. When there is a turnover of 25% of the crew, an all-hands fire and boat drill meeting must be carried out.

The Master, Chief Engineer, Chief Mate, and First Assistant Engineer are responsible for planning and executing training sessions and drills with demonstrations, as appropriate, in which the crew perform their duties simulating various scenarios “Emergency Response Training Simulations.” In planning the training scenarios, certain drills are required by regulations and must be complied with within the time frame requirements. Each vessel retains a library of the below-listed scenarios tailored for their specific vessel. The following training scenarios, drills, and simulations are the minimum conducted by each vessel:

The protocol for such drills is developed by the vessel’s Senior Officers and maintained in an emergency drill file catalogue. All listed training scenarios are conducted within a 6-month cycle unless otherwise specified by SOLAS. An entry is made in the Deck Log that no exceptions have been noted, or, if exceptions have been noted, a copy of the report with the exceptions noted is attached to the Deck Log. The safe execution of all drills on board the ship is paramount. Drills should not only test equipment, but also instruct, train, and test the crew in their knowledge and use of all safety and SOPEP equipment.

Drills should not be restricted to the official weekly event. Every officer when possible should conduct discussions of emergency procedures. He should ask his watch members to describe how they would respond to situations such as a man overboard or Abandon Ship, an Oil Spill, Fires in various locations, or Vessel security scenarios.