As far as what I’d do, rather than use the COI directly I’d break the requirements into smaller, more specific parts. For example written instructions on what a round entailed, a posted watch list, written crew members duties signed by each crew member etc.
A minimal version of a SMS. Things that could be used in an audit.
But that should really be done at the company level.
But as Klaveness pointed out - one’s background and training matters. Things are a lot more formal on larger ships than what 100 ton mariners deal with.
Your professional background is showing. The Conception event may change the way the dive boats industry operates but other than added scrutiny on the part the CG, I doubt it. Let’s do the math.
This is what I experienced in my limited time in this industry: a small vessel with 20 recreational divers and a crew of 6. Many passengers take time out of their 2-week annual vacation to go spend a week diving. It’s barely enough to maintain competency and many are out of shape so they need a lot of support. 4 crewmembers have assigned duties, the captain, the cook, the divemaster and his assistant who is also the engineer, referred to as the “mechanic” who keeps the machinery running. The dive master is usually the most qualified to act as mate. The captain and divemaster are a bit older but the crew consists of “kids” and none have any other maritime experience.
This is the crew you have to organize and supervise 4 dives in a 12-hour period in between meals and moves to different locations for each dive.
After a couple of cocktails at the open bar, the divers hit the rack around eleven or so. Unless you’re spending the night on the hook, the captain and 1 or 2 crew move the boat to the next site for the next morning dive.
At the end of the week, there’s 1 day to get the divers and their gear off the boat, deep clean, reprovision, welcome the new divers and do it all over again. No days off.
My take away is that it’s far removed from any other maritime experience I’ve encountered. The lines between assigned duties are blurry. It’s a team effort with everyone chipping in to keep the balls in the air. In this case the balls are air tanks that weigh 35 pounds. I don’t know about the “kids” but I would sleep for 18 hours when I got home after 4 or 5 of these back-to-back trips.
On paper this operation would look like a floating sweatshop that would give OSHA nightmares.
I totally agree with this. Just look at other types of jobs or areas of life. If you work at a company and are training to drive their trucks, and no one at your company wears their seatbelt, and you ask your trainer about it, and they say “oh hey yeah no one bothers with that. It’s all good.” For some wearing a seatbelt in a car or work vehicle is a second nature habit, unfortunately for others not wearing it is the habit.
Install smoke detectors in all accommodation spaces and ensure they are interconnected
Ensure that the primary and secondary emergency escape paths do not lead to the same space
Vessel owners and operators should review the requirements of the Certificate of Inspection (COI) and ensure they adhere to the conditions of operation
Keep escape routes unobstructed at all times
Implement a safety management system. Had an SMS been implemented, Truth Aquatics could have identified unsafe practices and fire risks on the Conception and taken corrective action before the tragedy occurred.
If implemented - big if - I think a full SMS will necessitate more manpower and a significantly different way of structuring the daily schedule. If they can pull it off, in addition to the additional safety factor for all, it will narrow the owners’ profit margin. They can afford it but they would probably just raise prices.
At one point I was approached by one of the passengers who offered to finance a dive boat in a joint venture if I was willing to operate it. I didn’t accept the offer because I wasn’t interested in going into that business permanently but after some quick calculations, I found out that the fleet of 3 boats was owned by a group of investors. With up to half of the crews’ take-home pay taken care of by substantial passengers’ tips, It was a gold mine.
The SMS on small under-crewed vessels just results in more feckless pencil whipped paperwork. It makes very little if any contribution to safety.
The big problems were: design and construction defects (lack of independent means of egress) that USCG overlooked, lack of fire retardant resin, lack of fire stop bulkheads); a COI that did not require enough crew or effective firefighting equipment or a good alarm system. And an owner that under-crewed the vessel, and did not provide enough crew to have a night watch.
New passenger vessels over 65 feet should probably be constructed of steel and or aluminum.
The owner has apparently escaped prosecution. That bothers me. In my opinion he is more culpable of negligence than the Captain.
The OCMI should have been spanked for not requiring enough crew on the COI. The inspectors are not blameless either.
It’s really unfair to make the Captain the sole scapegoat.
Like i’ve said in previous threads about this, the mate or as they are called in the industry (the second ticket) is usually the night watch guy. Some boats on multiple day trips will split up the anchor watch amongst all the crew.
All evidence shows that is wasn’t uncommon for everyone to go to bed on this boat and i suspect having two anchors out was a big part of this complacency.
So as far as the owner/company are concerned, the boat wasn’t under crewed…but if they would actually acknowledge the fact that the crew from the capt down to the cook were usually working anywhere from 15-20 hrs a day making it all happen, their lack of proper rest shows they were under crewed!
In my experience deep-sea the early version of SMS made things worse. But the concept was valid and things did get better. Less is more.
As far as the company facing far less legal risk than the captain, with a SMS, ensuring regulatory compliance and identifying and mitigation of low-probability / high consequence events is the company’s responsibility.
I think having even a poorly designed SMS in place could have put the owners much more at risk legally.
From what I understand it was the practice on all three of the company’s boats.
If the crew is working 15-20 hours a day, the boat is badly under-crewed.
The COI is defective for not requiring enough crew to provide a well rested crew able to do the specified night watch without further violating rest hour requirements.
Many owners do not wanted to provide anything that the COI and regulations do not specifically require. How many times have we heard them say, “but it’s not required.” The USCG and owners are to blame for the COI sanctioned undermanning that we see all the time.
Typical 15-30 hours a day! No wonder they were all getting some sleep when they could.
Dive boats are not the only place things like this happens. What you can end up with is a bunch of companies that use the Pirate Code method of rule following, i.e they are more like guidelines than actual rules, and thus any new entrant to the field will not be able to compete unless they do it too.
Until and unless some government inspector MAKES them follow the rules, they won’t because it is economic suicide. These places tend to be where the new guys get into the industry, it is made pretty clear to them that they can go along with it or find somewhere else to work. They have not ever seen it done any other way, so it doesn’t look all that abnormal to them.
I stand corrected. Further proof that fatigue leads to dumb mistakes and explains why I had to come back and edit my post several of times. Thanks for pointing it out. I fixed it.
Ever weight a CO2 fire extinguisher? Same idea, they get heavier when full but not THAT much. The overall concept is right though, it is a lot of hard work and not conducive to staying up all night on top of all that.
There is a substantial difference in weight between full and empty. The exact empty weight is stamped on the bottle. The larger the bottle, the greater is the percentage of CO2 weight. If math is a problem, read the label, a 5 pound extinguisher weighs 5 pounds more when full. A 15 pound aluminum extinguisher more than doubles in weight between full and empty.
If he had had SMS and had been doing SMS paperwork, he would have either been documenting:
that he wasn’t following the SMS, the crew wasn’t getting proper rest, and they had to sleep instead of doing night watch; or
He would have been pencil whipping falsehoods that the SMS was being followed and that the crew was well rested and night watch was being done - when none of that was true.
Both of those scenarios would have increased his criminal culpability, not decreased it.
Maybe certain trades, like union deep sea, oil rigs, ATBs pushing oil, can reduce operational tempo to adhere to the SMS while under crewed, but on most small vessels, we just have to get the job done with what we’ve got, and hope for the best.
I see SMS as little more than an attempt by the company to shift more of the liability onto the master. SMS is not about safety, it’s about money and avoiding liability.