GREY MATTER Q
Bad design costs lives Michael Grey MBE
W
hoever designed this ship / engine / equipment / layout (tick whichever item is appropriate) believes seafarers are four feet high
and have three hands...! Such remarks about the hard-working souls responsible for ship design will be familiar to anyone who has sailed for more than a couple of dog-watches. The placement of machinery, so that maintenance requires extraordinary contortions, or the inevitability of ‘corrosion traps’ will surely feature in the litany of complaints aboard so many ships. The ringbolt that is situated just where it will trip up somebody going from A to B, or the low beam that will brain the person unprepared to duck, are regular and painful reminders of an apparent lack of attention in the design process. There will be other, more dangerous,
features about particular ships, which anyone who has read the excellent Confidential Incident Reporting Programme newsletters will have seen. Similarly, the Alert! programme,
which focused on the human element, emphasized the importance of designing the ‘detail’ of ships for the people who will use them, rather than for the convenience of shipbuilders. Many years ago, in the UK, where
there was still a sizeable shipbuilding industry, shipbuilders and ship operators got together to try to make their products more ‘user-friendly’, although the term was not widely used in those days. They had the bright idea of bringing working ships’ engineers into the design process of machinery spaces, real seafarers into the process of laying out the mooring arrange- ments, and navigators into bridge design. They even seconded a few cooks to help with the design of galleys. It was called the Sealife Programme and it all made a lot of sense – but all these useful lessons disappeared with the demise of the British shipbuilding sector.
Why do we get bad design being constantly
repeated over the years? Even with series-built ships, there is no adequate feedback from users that can be employed to change the design of ships in the light of in-service experience. In an ideal world, experienced ‘users’ would be able to participate in the fit-out and their experience inform those in the design offices. Sadly, in shipyards, where the price and the delivery
speed and ease of production. It would be helped by designers knowing more about the reality of ship operation, rather than repeating or extrapolating what has been done before – even when the results cause users to curse. It is often little matters that emerge in the
Better feedback from users results in better ships –
without causing additional costs to the shipbuilder
fitting-out process which, with a moment’s thought, could be altered to produce a much more user-friendly ship. The simple positioning of a deck light, so that there isn’t a shadow just in front of the ladder down to the next deck. The fastening of a booby-hatch so that it doesn’t squash the fingers of the unwary crew member. That rogue ring-bolt that will bruise so many toes during the life of a long-living ship. Other easy changes might also be life-savers, such as the positioning of mooring leads so that they do not fray ropes under strain. There was a case just recently of a pilot access door positioned so that the ladder was hanging in air, rather than on the ship’s side – which pilots boarding this new ship for the first time described as potentially lethal. But why did nobody think of this
before, because the cost of making the arrangements safe enough to use, with the ship in service, would be considerable. Bad design costs lives, reputations,
even liberty, as it was discovered when a pilot and shipmaster of a dramatically designed ship featured in a recent court case. Standing in the darkened wheel- house of the car carrier City of Rotterdam, in a semi-spherical bridge designed to minimise wind-resistance, the pilot believed, with no visual references, that
schedule depends upon absolutely nothing interfering with the production process, the owner’s team will be kept at arm’s length and those who will sail on the ship will have no opportunity to make any changes. The design process will be heavily aligned
to that of production and we are probably never going to change that. But there is a case for better feedback from users that could result in better ships, without necessarily causing inconvenience or additional costs to the shipbuilder, whose profits will depend on
he was looking directly ahead, rather than the reality of four points on the starboard bow. The collision, on a gusty night in the River Humber, contributed to by this illusion caused by design, would see both the pilot and shipmaster given a criminal record and a suspended gaol sentence. The really sad thing about this case was that
when the ship and her sister were introduced with their fuel-saving, reduced-resistance design, the owners and designers were so proud of their contribution to the saving of the planet. But what they missed, alas, was ‘usability’.
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