Delegates at November’s Tanker Shipping & Trade Conference heard that the human element remains the primary cause of incidents and accidents during STS operations
The risk profile of the ship-to-ship transfer sector comprises four individual elements, Dynamarine’s Alexandros Glykas told delegates at November’s Tanker Shipping & Trade Conference. “And by far the most important element,” he said, “is the human element. The commercial, statutory port state control and inspection elements follow.”
Alongside targeted training and direct assessment between the organisation and the vessel, there needs to be a repository of experience that can be drawn on and can inform current and future operations, Mr Glykas said. “While OCIMF guidelines were revised in 2013 and again this year, we believe that more than 10 per cent of tankers are sailing with an STS plan based on outdated guidelines. Another issue is that STS records must be retained for three years and should be readily available for inspection. Probably 95 per cent of crews, in our experience, do not know which records should be kept, how to keep the records and how to retrieve the records,” he explained.
The conference heard lack of onboard competence was increasingly manifesting itself. One complaint was the lost time arising from deck crew, especially, but not only, offshore West Africa, being unable to connect hoses.
Union Maritime senior nautical assessor Alasdair Adamson was quick to point out that Marpol regulations place a particular responsibility on a vessel master to undertake drills and exercises with the crew before they arrive at the STS location. “Common sense would suggest this takes place anyway but globally we find common sense and competence are not freely available,” he said. “With OCIMF and our competitors we have developed 3D animations around connecting hoses for the crew to watch and a supporting briefing for the POAC to deliver when the vessel is underway.”
Thomas Miller P&I (Europe) loss prevention advisor George Devereese made the point that if drills are part of a vessel’s PMS “then it is beholden on the managers of the vessels to ensure the drills are actually conducted and not talked through. We recognise that time constraints encourage talking rather than doing, but the time has to be found.”
Borealis Maritime head of operations and marine services Alan Dutton said industry had to move on to look at intangibles like behaviour, attitudes, leadership and accountability. The time had come for ‘human reliability assessments.’ Mr Glykas agreed, adding that he would like to see human reliability assessments that include assessors going on board.
Mr Devereese explained that the UK Club has a subsection of the loss prevention department called PEME that is being rebranded ‘crew health.’ Part of this department’s mission will be to look at these intangibles, sending out psychological assessments to the crew on a rating scale to see how they rate their chain of command. “It is something we are looking at in a very serious way and will incorporate when we make our risk assessments on board,” he said.
The other side of that coin, said Mr Adamson, is that we have a lot of issues with people becoming too complacent when they do STS operations regularly: “especially if they hold high rank and have many years in service.”
Issues around equipment were also discussed, including the high incidence of mooring rope breakage, including ropes that ostensibly were in good condition.
Acknowledging that rope breakage was the main source of failure recorded by Dynamarine, Mr Glykas said the main culprit was excessive vessel rolling during the STS operation. “There is a risk assessment that we provide and if the rolling becomes greater than the percentage, casting off should take place or, alternatively, provided the smaller receiving vessel has the provision to ballast, increase the vessel displacement, increase the draught and reduce the rolling period. This brings down the rolling acceleration and forces exerted on the mooring lines.”
Another option, he explained, is that if the STS operation is between a big and small vessel “you can adjust the brakes on the mooring winches on the big vessel to match the safe working load of the smaller vessel. You have to make a very good mooring pattern with proper lead distance between mooring lines choke-to-choke to avoid having forward and aft lines.”
But the human element was never far away. Mr Adamson made the point that poor mooring management and crew competence were also to blame. “Classic examples include using too many mooring lines, not greasing fairleads or putting old pieces of firehose round the chafe points. But if it is getting that bad, as Master, you have a chat with the mooring master and agree, you pick up your anchor and you find a course and heading with which you are comfortable.”
Rounding out the discussion was a look at problems linked with ullaging and reullaging. “In West Africa nobody trusts anybody, so it is very difficult on a moving ship to get an ullage and agree figures,” said one delegate. “By contrast, in Europe you will have one cargo surveyor representing everyone's interest. He goes to the tank farm and then the ship, and the difference is the difference.
In an STS, the only way around it is to agree on an average, suggested Mr Adamson, adding there is more pressure on the daughter vessel “because when she discharges into the tank farm, if there is a shortage then that is a shortfall on the bill of lading.”
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