In its latest edition of Signls, North P&I Club focused on Drills, recommending several training exercises, this time providing tips to plan a drill.
Keeping in mind that drill performance onboard ships is the most vital element of a successful emergency response, the Club provides the tips below:
- Agree a time for the drill, preferably different to the last one and discuss the scenario.
- Prepare the areas where exercises will take place
- Placing signs denoting fire location
- Place signs denoting hot-spots
- If you have an artificial smoke generator on board, set it up
- If you don’t have a smoke generator – post signs describing smoke conditions (light, thick, colour etc)
- Decide on who will be a casualty. You may want to have more than one. Make sure they are instructed not to show up at muster. If you have a dummy to act as a casualty, place it in the laundry.
- Decide how the drill will be initiated and by who (manual call point activation or smoke detector)
- Don’t make access too easy – if the area is often obstructed, recreate those conditions
