xplorYi-1
Sign inSign up

AUS-M3000-Y-L3.3

Casualty, incident and reporting obligations

The order is fixed, and it is not negotiable. **People. Vessel. Environment. Evidence. Reports.** Nothing on the reporting list outranks a person in the water.

Entry & progression

Something has gone wrong. Before you write anything, understand this: the next four hours will produce the evidence that a tribunal reads in three years. Do the job in the right order and you will be fine. Do it in the wrong order and a survivable incident becomes a career-ending one.

The first hour

  1. Save life. Everything else waits.
  2. Stabilise the vessel. Stop the flooding, stop the fire, stop the drift. Lesson 5.2 is the drill.
  3. Stop the pollution, or contain it. This will be the first thing the coastal state asks about after the people.
  4. Preserve the evidence. Isolate and secure the VDR if fitted. Save the ECDIS route and track. Print the alarm logs. Do not overwrite anything. Note the times as you go — memory reconstructs, and reconstruction reads as invention.
  5. Then report.

The reporting chain — who needs to know

  • The company / the DPA. First, and immediately. That is what the DPA exists for.
  • The flag administration. The vessel's flag has a marine incident reporting regime, and it is mandatory.
  • The coastal state, where the incident is in or affects its waters.
  • The insurer and the P&I club. Late notification can prejudice cover. Read your policy before you need to.
  • Class, where structure, machinery or equipment is involved.
  • The charterer / owner, through the company — not around it.

CAUTION — The Australian reporting specifics are NOT in this course's verified source base MO74 is a certification instrument. It says nothing about incident reporting. The reportable incident categories, the AMSA form, and the deadline for a regulated Australian vessel were not confirmed against a primary source for this course, and we will not invent them.

Get them from AMSA, from your flag administration, and from your SMS — and get them before you need them. Print the reporting matrix and put it in the wheelhouse. The moment you need it is not the moment to go looking for it.

Writing it down

  • Contemporaneous, factual, timed. What you saw, what you did, when. Not what you think happened.
  • Do not speculate in writing. 'Probable cause' is the investigator's job, and every guess you write becomes an admission you have to defend.
  • Do not alter or 'tidy' a log. Ever. A struck-through, initialled correction is a professional act. A rewritten page is a criminal one.
  • The deck log is the master's evidence. It is the only contemporaneous record you control. Treat it accordingly.

Interviews, statements and the investigation

You will be asked for a statement — by the company, the insurer, the flag, possibly the coastal state, possibly an independent safety investigator. These have different purposes and different consequences. A safety investigation exists to find out what happened. A regulatory or criminal investigation exists to find out who is responsible. They may run at the same time, from the same facts, and they are not the same conversation.

WARNING — Get advice before you sign Notify the P&I club early and ask for representation before giving a formal statement. Read every word before you sign it. Never sign a statement written by somebody else in language you would not have used. And never let sympathy for a crew member — or pressure from an owner — persuade you to shade a fact. The facts are the only thing that will protect any of you.

Practice questions

5 questions
recallcore

recall · core

The correct order of priorities in a casualty is: (a) Evidence, reports, people, vessel (b) People, vessel, environment, evidence, reports (c) Reports, people, environment, vessel (d) Vessel, people, reports, evidence

recallcore

recall · core

Regarding the reportable incident categories, forms and deadlines that apply to a regulated Australian vessel, this course: (a) States them, from MO74 (b) States them, from MO70 (c) Does not state them - they were not confirmed against a primary source, and must be obtained from AMSA, the flag and the SMS (d) States that no such obligations exist for yachts

recallcore

recall · core

In the hours after an incident, the deck log should record: (a) The master's assessment of the probable cause (b) Contemporaneous, factual, timed observations and actions (c) A summary written once the situation has calmed and the facts are clear (d) Only those matters the company has approved for recording

recallcore

recall · core

A safety investigation and a regulatory investigation: (a) Are the same process under different names (b) Have different purposes - one seeks what happened, the other seeks who is responsible - and may run concurrently on the same facts (c) Cannot run at the same time (d) Both require the master to give evidence without representation

recallcore

recall · core

An error is discovered in the deck log two days after an incident. The master should: (a) Rewrite the page correctly and destroy the original (b) Leave it, and correct the record in the report instead (c) Strike through, insert the correction, initial and date it (d) Ask the company how the entry should read

AI-drafted catalogue content pending SME review. Sea service and course requirements change; verify with AMSA before relying on this for a career decision.

School