Emergency Response and Safety Management
Emergency Response and Safety Management tests whether the ship's response is planned, drilled and recorded, and whether you can give a clear, correctly sequenced answer under pressure.
ISM emergency preparedness
The SMS must identify potential emergency situations, provide response procedures, and exercise them. Abandon ship and fire drills are held monthly; if more than 25 per cent of the crew is changed, drills are held within 24 hours of leaving port. The muster list assigns duties, and there must be a reliable means of summoning the whole crew.
Fire
Fire classes A to F, the fire triangle, boundary cooling, and fixed systems - CO2, foam, water mist, inert gas. Learn the CO2 release checklist: all persons accounted for, space sealed, ventilation shut down, and no re-entry until the master authorises it after atmosphere testing.
Life-saving and SAR
Weekly and monthly inspections; each lifeboat launched with its assigned crew at least once every three months; the rescue boat launched at least monthly; EPIRB tested and battery in date; SART, DSC and NAVTEX understood. GMDSS distinguishes distress, urgency and safety traffic. SAR coordination follows IAMSAR: on-scene coordinator, search patterns, helicopter winching and medevac procedures.
Worked example
Person overboard at night from the port side at 18 knots. Immediate actions: helm hard to port to swing the stern away from the casualty, release the lifebuoy with light and smoke, sound three long blasts, press the MOB button and note time and position, inform the master and engine room, muster the crew and post look-outs. Use a Williamson turn when the position is known but the person was lost from sight at once; use an Anderson turn when the casualty is still in sight and the ship is manoeuvrable. Then run a search pattern and transmit an urgency or distress alert as the situation demands.
Traps
Entering a space after CO2 release; releasing CO2 without accounting for every person; failing to record drills; transmitting Mayday for a non-distress; and recovering a casualty without treating for hypothermia and secondary drowning.