200260 Lifeboat Wrecked

Lifeboat Wrecked
Report No. 200260

On a Sunday morning with good weather conditions and the ship steaming at 14 knots in ballast, the crew prepared to conduct a lifeboat drill. At 10:30 the alarm was sounded and the ship's personnel were summoned to their respective stations. It was decided that the starboard lifeboat would be lowered first thus the crew assigned to the port lifeboat were gathered at the starboard side boat deck as observers. The safety officer went through the lifeboat drill checklist items and then commenced lowering unmanned lifeboat.

At about 2 meters above the embarkation level, the lifeboat's forward hook accidentally opened and the lifeboat dropped. With its full weight now hanging from the aft fall, the aft davit arm was severely bent. Finally, the aft keel shoe, no longer able to withstand the entire lifeboat weight, was torn apart. A large portion of the lifeboat's stern broke away at the same time. The lifeboat went into the sea following the motion of a free-fall type. After the accidental release, the ship manoeuvred and managed to pick up the damaged lifeboat which was then stowed on the deck.

Going through the company records of reported abnormalities on lifeboats, which shore workshop personnel had been invited to look at in the past, it was noticed that four such cases were found in a fleet comprising 23 tankers, coincidentally all on the same type of lifeboat, involving the same release mechanism of the same manufacturer (Shigi). It was early in the previous year that a number of lifeboat accident reports, mainly published on the web, were scrutinised and the company lifeboat drill checklist was thoroughly amended. In accordance with the revised procedures, twin-fall lifeboats are test-lowered unmanned to one meter above water level before being returned to the embarkation deck for the lifeboat crew to board for the drill.
The manufacturer was invited to carry out an investigation by examining the damaged lifeboat at the ship's next port of call. To his credit, the technical manager responded very promptly, accepting the invitation himself. At the same time he advised that, following a similar accident in 1997, the factory had issued a circular containing amended maintenance and testing instructions for the release gear together with a new set of warnings and procedures on posters. The circular had been distributed to those owners listed as currently equipped with this lifeboat model. However, this had not necessarily reached those ships that had been previously sold to new owners. That is in our case, four ships out of four! Being unaware of such critical information proved to be the equivalent definition for an accident waiting to happen.

The circular contained two interrelated directives: 'proper maintenance' and 'correct re-setting' of the release gear:

• If proper maintenance and inspection are not carried out, the moving parts of the release cables might stick;
• The release gear may not be re-set correctly and completely even if the release handle has been returned to the re-set position during a routine drill.

One of the items requiring particular attention from the crew is the cam, which moves the latch to release the hook. The cam plates, fore and aft, must always be at the horizontal position and verified there before launching and after re-setting.

The maker's inferred cause of the accident stated that: "Judging from the condition in which the starboard lifeboat and the release mechanism of the port lifeboat were found, it is probable that the cam plate of the forward hook was not returned fully to its original position. As a result, the movement and/or impact of swinging out the lifeboat caused the barely engaged hook heel and no. 2 hook bearer to disengage.

Lifeboat accident investigations have often revealed that lifeboat maintenance does not always receive the attention it deserves. This accidental release is no exception. Notwithstanding the maintenance issues, indicative to a great degree of one's perception of safety, we should equally focus on the design of a release gear and the quality of training that the seafarers receive. It is most unlikely that any of these three can be successfully addressed if viewed isolated from the others. Issues concerning the design are, unfortunately only made known after an accident has occurred. Training centres will most certainly touch on maintenance issues but it is virtually impossible to cover every possible fault and design issue.