No Willfulness When It Comes to Collision

Reporter Liu Xiao

It is widely known that confrontation will occur whenever people meet on a narrow path, but why the “wide space” has also become the place where collisions frequently happen in the new year? According to experts, for sea-going ships, they are mostly steered by the captain himself in narrow waters, who navigate ships very carefully at a safe speed, and thus the safety risks are under a better control. Whereas in open and wide waters, ships are mostly steered by the officer alone, who often are not focused and do not watch carefully enough,and it is easier for him to be negligent and less alert.

The collision accidents caused by human factors account for about 80% of such accidents. According to a safety supervisor of a shipping company, the training time on shore for crew is after all very limited, most of the new crew still have to get familiar with work by learning from experienced crew on board the ship. During the process, some bad ways of doing the work have also been passed on. “Then how to eradicate?” This safety supervisor said that “firstly, we should require the captain to establish good habits. Besides, the captain should be good at observing, detect the bad habits and help to rectify.

In addition, a captain should be familiar with the following three kinds of collision situations and ways to deal with. The first is that the top of the damaged tank is below the hull waterline, but the top is not damaged.This mostly occurs in a damaged double bottom tank and the flooding of a deep tank under the waterline.Such circumstance can be controlled as long as it can be ensured that the ship’s drainage capability is bigger than flooding. The second is that the water in the damaged tank is separated from the water outside of the ship,the tank is not fully flooded and there is free surface.The last is that the top of the damaged tank is above the waterline, and there is no separation between the water in the tank and that outside of the ship. Under such circumstance, the surface in the tank usually changes with the change of the waterline following flooding. This is a common and typical situation of damaged flooding.Under this circumstance, the effect on the hull is the greatest since the volume of flooding changes with the position of the waterline, and therefore is one deserving the most attention of those dealing with emergencies at the scene of accident.