PAYING ATTENTION
At the beginning of every trip IMO regulations mandate a passenger safety drill and instruction. As with pre-flight safety briefings aboard airplanes, most passengers consider these proceedings an annoyance and imposition. But since they can’t avoid them, they do their best to studiously ignore them. When was the last time you saw the person in the seat next to you “pause the use of electronic devices” to read the flight safety information card and pay attention to the potentially life-saving procedures being demonstrated?
Muster drills are no different. Because cruises are all about having a good time, few things sound less like fun than crowding cheek- to-jowl with 150 of your fellow pleasure-seekers at the designated muster station and being told how to climb into a lifeboat that feels full after the first 50 people are in it. And that’s before anyone starts to scream, pass out or throw up.
Given that perspective, it’s easy to bury your head in the sand and just reassure yourself that nothing bad is going to happen, and if it does the crew will take care of it or the Coast Guard will come to the rescue. And that’s usually true. In fact, almost all cruises end without incident. Except when they don’t.
And while the probability of a passenger ship casualty is exceptionally low, the potential consequences can be very high. In addition to death and serious injury, vessel operators know that the loss of a vessel – not to mention the attendant environmental pollution, fines, legal penalties and damage to the brand’s reputation – can sink a company and lead to possible jail time.
As a result, modern ships are built to SOLAS standards with multiple redundancies to improve safety and reduce the chances of passengers ever having to abandon the vessel after a casualty. The IMO’s Safe Return to Port requirement, applicable to ships whose keels were laid after June of 2010, effectively turns passenger ships into their own lifeboats.
THE HUMAN SIDE
But is it realistic to leave people out of the equation and simply let the ship take care of itself? Probably not. So what about the human side of the equation?
Emergencies have a lot to do with perception. One person’s emergency is another person’s Monday morning. Most passengers are not mariners. Much of what they see is new to them, and they look to the crew to help them make sense of things.
For example, twenty-foot seas and forty-knot winds may be a mild inconvenience to seasoned mariners but the “Storm of the Century” to people who have never before seen salt water. They may ask their room steward, “Are we going to be OK?,” and the steward’s reassurance carries great weight and allows the guests to relax and enjoy the experience.
Likewise, if the ship is on fire or listing after a collision or grounding, it can be expected that passengers will ask the nearest crewmember, regardless of rank, department or level of training, if the Captain’s instructions are reasonable. Even after repeated announcements they may plaintively ask:
“Do we really have to go to our muster stations?”
The IMO’s Safe Return to Port requirement,
applicable to ships whose keels were laid after June of 2010, effectively turns passenger ships into their own lifeboats.
“Do we really have to stand outside in the cold?”
“Is the ship going to sink?”
“Is someone look- ing for my wife?”
The Report • June 2019 • Issue 88 | 65
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