Owning safety
- Establish safe systems of work: risk assessment, permits to work, isolation and lock-off.
- Maintain the firefighting, detection and escape arrangements and drill the team on them.
- Manage the high-risk tasks — hot work, enclosed-space entry, high-current electrical work.
- Investigate incidents and near-misses and act on the lessons to improve the system.
Engine-room safety leadership means building and enforcing the safe-working framework: every hazardous job risk-assessed, permits to work for the high-risk tasks, isolation and lock-off before work, and a team drilled in firefighting and escape. The two tasks that most often kill — enclosed-space entry and lifting or working under load — get the strictest control. When something does go wrong or nearly wrong, the Chief investigates honestly and acts on the lesson, because a near-miss learned from is the accident prevented.
WARNING — Enclosed spaces kill Enclosed-space entry — into tanks, cofferdams and voids — is a leading cause of maritime fatalities, often of would-be rescuers. Never enter without testing the atmosphere, a permit to work and a standby person, and drill the rescue.
TIP — A near-miss learned from is an accident prevented When something nearly goes wrong, investigate it honestly and change the system so it cannot happen. The Chief who treats near-misses as free lessons builds a genuinely safer department.