There's many a slip between safety and ship

THE American Club, one of the 13 big mutual protection and indemnity (P&I) insurers of the shipping industry, has taken a close look at why its pays out something like US$40 million a year in injury claims.

An industry-wide project analysed more than 12,000 injury records with a financial cost of US$246 million over a six-year period and a further 100,000 near-miss reports from the ABS and Lamar Mariner Safety Research Initiative (MSRI) and nearly a decade of data from the American Club.

The insurer says the research offers unprecedented insight into the nature of accidents at sea. There was a problem, though. As often happens when you try to look at shipping industry data, the project data was inconsistent and information from different sources was not directly comparable.

For example, of the records that could be classified in the American Club data set, 28 per cent of the injury incidents were lifting related, but the figure for the ABS/Lamar data set was 13 per cent.

That has led the three organisations to urge the industry to advance the cause of safety at sea with more comprehensive reporting requirements for injury and near misses.

Nevertheless the research does show that injuries sustained while lifting or in slips, trips/falls are the most frequent incidents at sea, with more than 1,300 incidents in this study's dataset. According to the American Club data, these incidents cost in excess of US$85 million for the six-year period studied. The average cost per incident exceeds US$65,000: lifting incidents averaged US$48,000; falls and trips averaged US$88,000; slips averaged US$56,000.

Looking at costs and anatomical locations, the two most costly body locations were the head and neck, averaging just over US$100,000 per incident, followed by the back and torso at US$66,000.

Deeper insight

Of course it is right to look at the costs but it is important to remember that people are more important than dollars. ABS chairman, president and CEO Christopher Wiernicki said: "This project offers a deeper insight into how and where seafarers are being injured and also highlights what industry can do to take our understanding of safety to the next level,"

Joseph Hughes, chairman and CEO of P&I club manager Shipowners Claims Bureau, said "Shipping is currently navigating through a digital era in which asset owners are increasingly able to use the power of operational data to predict potential failures. As those capabilities grow, the industry would be well counselled to also get 'smarter' about how it compiles and uses its safety data."

Brian Craig, Lamar's co-director of the Mariner Safety Research Initiative, said: "This industry, academic, and class partnership provided valuable insight into the financial impact of injuries across the maritime industry. This is another tool to help provide better solutions to help prevent the occurrence and re-occurrence of maritime injuries."

So, where do we go from here. The three organisations behind the research have been highlighting existing guidance and pushing out new advice on slips, trips and falls.

They are encouraging near-miss reporting which was identified as crucial to learning lessons. And, of course, they want standardised industry injury and near-miss reporting and recording.

These initiatives are all laudable but they need to be incorporated into a ship's safety management system (SMS) and inculcated into the onboard safety culture.

The report notes that contributing factors for injury records included situational awareness, spills, poor housekeeping and inappropriate lighting.

Key contributing factors related to reported near-misses included situational awareness, housekeeping, asset design, seafarer fatigue, lack of adherence to procedures and lack of anti-skid material on decks.

All of these factors point to SMS failures and an insufficiently strong safety culture. Yes, it is a good idea to issue warnings about slips, trips and falls, but they should be seen as an indication of an overall safety problem.