London P&I Club advises T&P notices in latest StopLoss Bulletin
In the latest issue of StopLoss Bulletin , theLondon P&I Club draws the attention to T&P Notices and Navigational/ Safety warnings.
Club’s Ship Inspection Programme considers many aspects of an entered ship’s operation,including that of Section #2 Safety of Navigation. In the last year, the department has noted a rise in thenumber of deficiencies related to Temporary and Preliminary Notices, and at the same time, the increasingfrequency of negative findings related to the management of Radio Navigation and Meteorological Warningsvia Navtex, and Sat – C SafetyNET.
The most commonly recorded finding relating to T&P Notices is that T&PNotices are not managed or applied to the chart folio. An assessment of the latest voyage charts could confirm to asurveyor whether or not T&P Notices are being applied to thechart folio; and if not consistently applied, this can deprive theship’s Navigating Officer and Officers of the Watch of valuablepassage planning information. It should be noted that T&Pnotices can vary greatly in content, but may include informationabout the location and duration of subsurface operations suchas pipe/cable laying or offshore oil and gas exploration.
Otherinformation regarding temporary location of buoyage and/orberth closures are amongst the vast array of information typesavailable which may influence the planning or conduct of apassage. Efficient passage planning requires the assimilation ofgood quality information which ought to leave the marinerbetter equipped to decide how to conduct the passage his shi ship. A further finding, which can often accompany a finding inrelation to T&P Notices, relates to the management ofNavigation/Meteorological Warnings. Commonly, such findingsrefer to a lack of observation of these navigation warnings and/or a system by which that information is collected, applied anddisplayed for watch keeping officers to monitor.
Equipmentdeficiency is also a common cause for a negative finding. It wasa lack of observation of the meteorological information whichwas being provided by the Navtex system on the bridge of anentered ship which contributed greatly to a significant oil spillclaim recently. On the bridge of the anchored ship, the Navtexequipment was fully operational and properly set for the coastNavtex stations in the area. Unfortunately, there was noestablished system by which the information, navigational ormeteorological, was read, considered and applied on thebridge. Despite being the Northern-hemisphere summer, heavyweather was forecasted by various means including Navtex; butwas quite unexpected at that time of year. By the time the poorweather struck, it caught the bridge team by surprise in the earlyhours of the morning. In the time that it took to get the mainengine on-line, the ship had dragged her anchor approximatelyone nautical mile onto a rocky shoreline, puncturing her bunkertanks. The resultant spill clean-up and associated claims ran inexcess of US$44m.
The London P&I Club advises officers to be reminded of the full extent of the chart andpublication folio to which corrections apply; and be reminded ofthe risks of ignoring sources of Navigational and Meteorologicalinformation.
Also readStopLoss Loss Prevention Bulletin
