Incidents have caused \u201cbroken ankles, hips, backs, head injuries, near drownings – and fatalities,\u201d added Don Cockrill, former UK Maritime Pilots Association lead. However, since underreporting is common in various regions, he added: \u201cWe still don\u2019t know the true scale of the global problem.\u201d<\/p>\n
What is clear, however, is that \u201cinadequate rigging is the main cause\u201d, he said: \u201cSecuring arrangements have become extremely variable.\u201d There are multiple reasons for this state of affairs: Cockrill cites \u201csome ambiguity\u201d between SOLAS and ISO rules, plus \u201ca reduction of crew supervision that allows bad practices to become the norm\u201d.<\/p>\n
Unfortunately, there are numerous ways to get pilot ladder rigging wrong; the most common involve putting the load on the (far weaker) steps instead of the side-ropes, relying on deck tongues and shackle fastening the rope: this allows the ladder to slip just a little, transferring shock loads to weak points and possibly breaking the pilot\u2019s grip.<\/p>\n
While the industry is pulling together to get the safety message out, Helm Innovation has focused on finding a technical solution: \u201cThere\u2019s been no significant innovation in pilot ladders beyond a few tweaks,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n
Therefore, the company\u2019s embarkation system aims to standardise deployment, \u201censuring it\u2019s properly secured, and avoiding inappropriate stresses\u201d, she explained: \u201cWe\u2019ve engineered it so the mechanism can only work in one way.\u201d<\/p>\n
Further, it allows for another layer of security. \u201cThe pilots looking up at the ship often can\u2019t see the top. Our system visually communicates that it\u2019s been rigged correctly.\u201d<\/p>\n
Interestingly, the idea is the result of a competition: the Embark solution has gained recognition from InnovateUK, winning Madelaine the Young Innovators Award – despite her drive, Dowd is still under 30. While the organisers hadn\u2019t envisaged such concrete results, she applied skillsets honed on designing for disaster resilience to come up with \u201csomething that would make a difference\u201d.<\/p>\n
The product is currently undergoing Lloyd\u2019s Register certification testing: Cockrill (one of the project\u2019s advisors) added: \u201cIt\u2019s a big challenge, but this is a viable attempt to offer a quick, safe and effective way to ensure regulatory compliance.\u201d<\/p>\n
By Stevie Knight<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Pilot ladders are such a risk \u201cthat one pilot referred to climbing them as a \u2018leap of faith\u2019,\u201d Madelaine Dowd of Helm Innovation told MJ.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":615,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"sponsor":[],"class_list":["post-614","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-accessories-equipment"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maritimejournal.com\/get-set-for-workboat-2050\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/614","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maritimejournal.com\/get-set-for-workboat-2050\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maritimejournal.com\/get-set-for-workboat-2050\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maritimejournal.com\/get-set-for-workboat-2050\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maritimejournal.com\/get-set-for-workboat-2050\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=614"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.maritimejournal.com\/get-set-for-workboat-2050\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/614\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maritimejournal.com\/get-set-for-workboat-2050\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/615"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maritimejournal.com\/get-set-for-workboat-2050\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=614"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maritimejournal.com\/get-set-for-workboat-2050\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=614"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maritimejournal.com\/get-set-for-workboat-2050\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=614"},{"taxonomy":"sponsor","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maritimejournal.com\/get-set-for-workboat-2050\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sponsor?post=614"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}