Accident Reporting
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- Category: Sea Staff
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Even though our vessels conform to high safety standards and Sail Training vessel sea staff are encouraged towards good seamanship, accidents do happen. They may involve other vessels or things out of our control. ASTO encourages member vessels and staff to share any incidents so that others can learn from them. Reading past accident reports may stop you getting into a similar situation.
To this end we have published links to the Confidential Hazardous Incident Reporting Programme (CHIRP), the Nautical Institute's MARS (Mariners' Alerting and Reporting Scheme) and the MAIB.
Please note that certain incidents must be reported to the MAIB.
MAIB - Marine Accident Investigation Branch
Detailed guidance is available on what types of incidents need to be reported to the MAIB. Below is an extract from the MAIB website:
'To fulfil its primary role of improving safety of life at sea, it is essential that the MAIB investigates accidents immediately, before vital evidence decays, is removed or lost. To enable this the law requires that accidents, including serious injuries, be reported by the quickest means possible. The MAIB has a dedicated reporting line for this purpose: 023 8023 2527 from within the UK, or +44 23 8023 2527 if you are outside the UK. This line is manned 24 hours a day.'
MCA Guidance on what needs to be reported to MAIB
Latest MAIB Safety Digest - makes interesting reading and may prevent future accidents.
Reporting to CHIRP
This can be confidential and does not need to involve the vessel management if you prefer anonymity. Any published report will 'disidentify' the vessels and persons involved. CHIRP may follow up with other parties to try to make them aware of the situation. Good for sharing things others could learn from.
Reporting to MARS
The Mariners' Alerting and Reporting Scheme is primarily a confidential reporting system run by The Nautical Institute to allow full reporting of accidents (and near misses) without fear of identification or litigation. As a free service to the industry, MARS reports also regularly comprise alerts condensed from official industry sources, so that issues resulting from recent incidents can be efficiently relayed to the mariner on board.
MARS has a Sail Training section that currently only includes reports from square rigged vessels.