Twenty minutes after the guests board, a fire alarm sounds. Six people who have never been on a boat before are standing in a corridor in swimwear, looking at you. Whether the next ninety seconds go well was decided during a two-minute cabin briefing you gave when they arrived — and that briefing is an ISM requirement, not a courtesy.
What the ISM Code is
The International Safety Management (ISM) Code requires the yacht to operate under a documented Safety Management System (SMS): written procedures, defined responsibilities, drills, reporting, and continuous improvement. The interior is not a bystander in the SMS. It owns specific procedures, and it is inspected on them.
The three big interior touchpoints
1. Guest safety briefings and cabin safety information
- Delivered on embarkation, before or shortly after sailing, in a way guests actually absorb.
- Cover: the general alarm signal, muster station and route, lifejacket location and donning, smoking policy, and who to call.
- Cabin card or folder reinforces it — but the card is a backup, not the briefing.
- Record that it was given. A tick and an initial on the guest arrival checklist is the evidence.
2. Muster duties and the muster list
- Every crew member, interior included, has a named role on the muster list — often guest marshalling, headcount, or lifejacket distribution.
- Interior crew are usually the only people who know which cabin holds which guest, including children, elderly guests and anyone with mobility issues. That knowledge is a safety asset; keep the cabin allocation accurate and available.
- Drills are mandatory, are recorded, and interior crew attend them. A drill you skipped is a drill you cannot perform.
3. The COSHH file and cleaning chemicals
COSHH (Control of Substances Hazardous to Health) is the framework for managing hazardous substances — and the interior is the department with the most of them.
| Requirement | What it means onboard |
|---|---|
| Safety Data Sheet (SDS) for every chemical | Held in the interior COSHH file, current, accessible |
| Risk assessment | For each hazardous task — decanting, mixing, confined-space cleaning |
| Correct PPE | Gloves, eye protection, ventilation, specified per product |
| Correct storage | Ventilated, segregated, secured for sea, away from food |
| Correct labelling | Never decant into an unlabelled bottle |
Reporting
The SMS requires near misses, accidents and non-conformities to be reported. An interior stew who slips on a wet sole and does not report it has removed the boat opportunity to fix the sole. Report it. The system exists to be fed.
Onboard Notes
- Never mix cleaning chemicals. Bleach plus an acid or ammonia product produces toxic gas, and yacht spaces are small and poorly ventilated.
- Decanting into a water bottle is how crew get poisoned. If a product is not in its labelled container, it does not exist.
- If you buy a new product ashore, you must obtain its safety data sheet and add it to the COSHH file before it is used onboard.
- Know your muster station and your muster duty without looking. Guests will look at you first because you are the crew member they know.
- The DPA (Designated Person Ashore) exists so any crew member can raise a safety concern outside the chain of command. Know who yours is.