Lifting gear fatalities need response

“A crane failure resulted in three fatalities – just weeks after a ship survey,” says Richard Brough of ICHCA adding that a ‘significant’ number of lifting appliances on workboats or provisions barges have failed with serious consequences for those underneath. Peregrine Storrs-Fox of TT Club adds: “There is a misconception that Classification Societies ‘regulate’ inspections of ships’ lifting appliances,” adding that “unclear records” likewise adds to the problem.

It is a difficult issue, admits Mr Brough: “Everyone is so aware of the burden of legislation, but I know of at ten fatalities over the last three years; yes, there will be costs but the fact is people are dying.”

He clarifies: “Ship lifting appliances covers cranes, store and engine room hoists, cargo and ship provision cranes.” However it’s not the big cranes that are really the problem here: it is the smaller lifting appliances like stores cranes that are most implicated as they tend to be only used infrequently, slipping under the eye of the maintenance teams. But although he is clear that in many cases the shipboard regime is adequate, a list of incidents highlight issues including parting of the lifting wires, hoist brake or hydraulic ram failures and boom or other structural defects including corrosion of the slewing rings or bolts holding the pedestal to the deck.

So, he believes much is down to failure of maintenance regimes. It isn’t always the workboat hoists either: one recent tragedy resulted from failure of a ship’s hoist while the provision barge was alongside – sadly the load fell, killing the barge captain.

Mr Brough’s point is that it needs industry-wide legislation, and while there is, understandably, a lot of opposition, he believes it should be brought in under the classification survey, required by the International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS). “Some people believe that there should be other ways to accomplish this, for example improving auditing and attention to manufacturers guidance. The arguments are that going as far as making it mandatory under SOLAS is an extreme reaction, and that other mechanisms, like the International Labour Organization (ILO) code should be tightened to cover it.”

However, what you are left with still has a number of worrisome gaps. Lloyd’s Register and MacGregor issued a guide on the subject “and this points clearly to a level of concern” says Mr Brough. Further, while there are local regulations, the only international regulation is ILO Convention 152 which unfortunately hasn’t been ratified by a meaningful amount of maritime nations.

So, Mr Brough says that in order to establish these inspections on a solid base “they need to be brought back under class rules, part of the all-embracing SOLAS regulation”. Mr Storrs-Fox agrees: however he adds that part of the issue with taking this forward is there appears to be “some disagreement at IMO as to the extent of the problem”.

Some of this disparity is now being addressed by the IMO intersessional correspondence group lead by New Zealand: this has been tasked with analysing incident information and it is likely that a recommended course of action will be brought back to the March round of IMO meetings. What will happen next is a matter of speculation, but it is clear something needs to be done.

By Stevie Knight