While there have been significant achievements in the reduction of injuries and incidents in the offshore and maritime environment over the last two or three decades, incidents are still occurring and our resolve towards “IFO” achievement is continually challenged.

10 years ago I was one of those individuals who thought “our company is just too big; there are too many variables…too many opportunities for someone to get hurt”. In fact, I would argue that my “safety paradigm” was shared by the majority of my coworkers at that time.

As my career in the maritime industry progressed, things began to change and I began to see glimpses that incident free operations were achievable. Part of this “paradigm shift” had to do with my involvement in incident investigations.

To this day, after reviewing the root causes of hundred of incidents, both industry wide and within the companies I have worked with, I have never recognized the root cause of an incident to be “bad stuff happens sometimes”.

In fact, I believe there are only three ways that incidents can happen during maritime operations (or any industry for that matter): The job was not properly planned, the scope of the job changed, or the plan for the job was not followed.

Getting back to the “company is just too big argument”, let’s consider the following scenario: What if we took these same “IFO non-believers” and assigned them to do a complicated task they may be asked to do as part of their normal responsibilities.

Now, what if we broke this complicated task down into individual steps and agreed that we would not perform the task until the entire group was confident the chances of an incident happening (during each individual step) was ZERO.

I believe a consensus would eventually be reached in every case. Sometimes additional expertise, equipment, or time may be needed, but a consensus will eventually be reached that the job is either 100% safe or is simply not worth doing at all.

The point is, if we can confidently agree that accomplishing one task, one step at a time incident free is achievable, we must also agree that incident free operations is achievable. It doesn’t matter how big or complex a company or industry might be: A ZERO likelihood of an incident occurring per step multiplied by a billion steps is still ZERO!

Sinking Ship

The newly revived Maritime Accident Casebook is seeking your comments on the creation of a new association for the study of maritime causalities.

Maritime Accident Casebook is acting secretariat for the proposed Maritime Casualty Investigation Association to feel out individuals and various industry sectors about the desirability of such a body. The purpose of this post is to gain feedback on the proposal. Comment can be posted below or in confidence to mcia@maritimeaccident.org

It is intended that the association actively promote maritime/offshore casualty investigation as a profession, act as a ‘watering-hole’ for the public and private sectors, promote the concept of casualty investigation as an element in safety enhancement and risk reduction rather than liability-focussed, develop a unified set of competencies for maritime/offshore casualty investigation and encourage compliance with relevant IMO codes and obligations.

It is also intended that the association will bridge the gap between, and collaborate with, public sector-orientated organizations specifically related to casualty investigation, such as MAIFF, and private sector initiatives such as Step Change In Safety, Marine Safety Forum, IMCA and the International Chamber of Shipping, and others for whom casualty investigation is a partial element in their activities.

Bob Couttie

Please take a look at the proposed Maritime Casualty Investigation Association here.

Maritime Industry Custom Search Engine

Our first stop in researching any maritime related topic is our own Maritime Industry CSE. It’s a powerful resource since it provides search results with the aid of google’s powerful search database and algarithims. Actually the only difference between it and google.com is the fact that our tool narrows the results down and only displays sites that pertain to large ships.

*Tip: Try the “incidents” refinement to narrow down the results even further.

The Maritime Incident Casebook

If you are looking for trusted information on incidents as they happen then MAC should be your first stop. Be sure to visit their podcast section as well as their links page which contains a list of the best maritime resources for incident prevention.

Searates.com Container Shipping References

For those looking for data that specifically pertains to Container Ships, head over to Searates’ Container Ship Reference Book. Not only is it full of Web 2.0 eye candy, it also has some great hard data.

*Tip: Its shipping lines section has links to both Cosco and Hanjin. By visiting Cosco’s site you will quickly learn they have removed their official “Cosco Busan” statement from Nov 11th.

gCaptain’s Maritime News Mash-up

For breaking news your first stop should be our Maritime News Discoverer but a close second is our Maritime News Mash-up which is automatically updated with the industry’s most trusted news sources.

*Tip – Also take a look at our gCaptain News and Maritime Blog Mash-ups

The Council of American Master Mariners

For those looking for expert opinion from Ship Captain’s we hope you contact us… but your next stop should be CAMM. Contact them directly for contacts from the Maritime Expert Database.

Maritime Executive Magazine

Traditional media is know for making small errors when reporting maritime incidents. To obviate this problem subscribe to MAREX’s FREE weekly newsletter. It is published every Thursday and is written by professional journalists with maritime backgrounds. For past articles click HERE.

*Tip: If you are more interested in weekly blog postings check out Fred Fry’s Maritime Monday

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If you have a reference site of interest please submit it to our Maritime News Discoverer under the category “Links“