or indeed any other reason for them to be on board a vessel, whether it is a requirement of their attendance instructions or not.
It
is a wakeup call to all surveyors to remember that they have a duty of care and include some statement along the lines of “Although not part of this particular level of survey or our instructions we must bring to your attention that” and include any advice that the surveyor can offer to improve the safety of the vessel.
In some of
the accident reports “although no blame is apportioned” it was obvious that at least one of the vessels had been quite recently surveyed. The loss of life in the most recent cases had been the result of in one instance a diesel heater, another a butane-fuelled gas cooker, two instances with petrol inboard engines, and one a petrol generator, diesel inboard engines are also a source of Carbon Monoxide as are solid fuel heaters. My conclusion is that unless a vessel is an open sailing or rowing dinghy there will most probably be a requirement to assess whether CO detectors should be installed and if they are installed do they work, when I spoke to Fraser Noble regarding this subject he recounted an example where several detectors were fitted, but none worked; and I found a vessel recently which had two CO detectors one in each cabin area and one of which had the wires cut presumably to silence the alarm, (when was the last time you checked the batteries in your home smoke alarm)?
Over half of these incidents involved Inland Waterways Craft. In 2014 the MCA and the Association of Inland Navigation Authorities produced the Inland Waters Small Passenger Boat Code which is a code of practice for small commercial vessels operating in category A, B, C and D waters, and other inland waters, which specified Hydrocarbon detectors on vessels with gas consuming devices, unfortunately not all gas detectors detect Carbon Monoxide, since then, as recently as 1st April
2019 there has become a BSS requirement for CO detectors on inland waterways craft, but at the time of writing no such mandatory requirements exist for other vessels.
To link this to the Large Commercial Vessel world it also never ceases to amaze me having had a recent conversation with Mike Schwarz that there are still deaths being recorded on ships from the entry of persons into confined spaces. I recall my time as a young ships engineer having to be able to recite the requirements for entry into confined spaces and carrying out these requirements for routine tank and void space inspections, when Davis Safety Lamps were the norm and a supply of Sperm Oil (always a source of amusement) was required and you relied on your ‘Oppo’ to keep the end of the hose connected to your face mask clear of noxious smelling influences. These days things are more swept up and battery powered atmosphere detectors should be part of every surveyor’s kit, should he be required to enter a confined space. I recall the training video’s where a succession of people entered a confined space to try and find out what had happened to the previous member of the team, each one died and the bodies piled up at the bottom of the ladder before someone outside realised what was happening, even in one of the Carbon Monoxide cases mentioned earlier a trained fire fighter and a member of the public both suffered from Carbon
6 | The Report • December 2020 • Issue 94
Monoxide Poisoning whilst trying to resuscitate the original casualty, fortunately this was realised in time and they were taken out of the vessel and suffered no long lasting effects.
Any space which has remained closed and unventilated for an appreciable length of time constitutes a confined space even the inside of a small boat. It does not take much, Oxygen is used in the process of corrosion and within a tank or void space the usual Oxygen level in the atmosphere of approximately 21% only has to drop to 19.5% to be considered an Oxygen depleted atmosphere. But it’s not just depleted atmosphere you may be confronted with it could be fungal spores, methane, or just good old fashioned foul air. I would hope that all professional marine surveyors produce risk assessments to cover the various tasks which they undertake, if nothing else producing risk assessments focus the mind and make you think about the risks and hazards. I would also hope that all surveyors are aware of the obvious ones, safe use of ladders and working at height, wearing of life jackets etc and I am sure some of you have found recently that Covid 19 has caused additional risk assessments, which we may not have previously thought about. I would certainly advise keeping copies of these and your public liability insurance with you at all times to ensure free access to yards and vessels for survey.
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