200936 Lifeboat lowered unintentionally

Lifeboat lowered unintentionally
MARS Report 200936

On one of our vessels, a dangerous occurrence (near miss incident) happened during the annual servicing and inspection of the lifeboat and its launching gear in port.

The class surveyor and the authorised representative of the launching equipment manufacturer were in attendance during the survey, with the technical superintendent. After the survey was completed, the manufacturer's representative informally asked the fourth engineer to open up the port side unit brake assembly the next day so that he could take pictures for his records.

Early the next morning, the fourth engineer, along with the bosun, wrongly assumed that the job was officially assigned to them and proceeded to open up the brake unit on the port lifeboat davit. On opening the cover bolts, the boat went down rapidly under gravity until it got stuck between the gangway and the jetty. Fortunately, there was no one inside the boat or on the gangway in way of the davits. The superintendent, who was on the jetty inspecting the ship side at that time, had a narrow escape.

Root cause/contributory factors
Breach of safe working practices: a critical task was undertaken without the knowledge or approval of responsible senior ship's officer / head of department;
The harbour pins were not in place;
The two crew members involved were not sufficiently experienced in the task.
Corrective/preventive actions

Incident report circulated throughout the company and fleet.
Company procedures amended to require that all critical tasks be planned and supervised by senior officers. No one should enter the life boats or carry out any maintenance work on lifeboats and associated launching appliances without clear instructions and the presence of a senior officer. Senior officers assigning jobs must take full responsibility for all jobs that are being carried out by their subordinates.