Real Life Incident: Ship’s Bosun Dies While Using Basket For Painting Engine Room Vent

Crew were performing maintenance work at a protected anchorage. The bosun and the chief officer discussed painting a portion of the port engine room vent that had recently been repaired. In the early afternoon, the bosun took the initiative to begin this job alone. He entered the steel basket attached to the port provision crane, attached his safety belt to the crane’s hook, then used the remote control to operate the crane and manoeuvre the basket to the engine room vent.

After working for some time, the bosun again used the remote control to manoeuvre the basket down in order to take a break. A nearby officer heard the sound of liquid spilling; it was paint coming from the basket that the bosun was manoeuvring towards the deck. As the officer walked towards the spot where the paint had spilled a snap was heard.

Credits: nautinst.org
Credits: nautinst.org

He looked up and then stepped back at the same moment the basket containing the bosun came crashing down approximately five metres, landing directly in front of the officer. Immediately following the accident, the crew members removed the bosun from the basket and administered first aid but he was later declared deceased.

Credits: nautinst.org
Credits: nautinst.org

Some of the findings of the official report, as edited, were:

  • Although the crane was not suitable for lifting personnel, it was nonetheless being used to work aloft.
  • Although bench tests showed the limit switch to be operating normally, it did not cut power when the crane block exceeded the set limit. Most probably the lifting rod and wire were not properly rigged; the cable not fitted through the hole in the lifting rod’s end plate. In this situation, the unsecured lifting rod would have been pushed aside by the crane block, rather than up, and the limit switch would not have been activated.
  • The bosun’s view of the crane block was obstructed from the position inside the basket, limiting the bosun’s ability to identify that the block had exceeded its set limit.
  • The crane block made contact with the underside of the boom and the winch continued to pull, causing the hoisting cable to part and the basket to fall approximately five metres.

Lessons learned

It is very tempting to use a provision basket to transport crew to hard to reach maintenance areas. But, if the basket has not been certified for transport of personnel it should not be used.
Attention to detail is important – in this case a vital safety device (limit switch) was rendered useless by a faulty installation.

Reference: nautinst.org

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3 Comments

  1. sad to say that the Chief Officer/safety officer on board the ship seems his lack knowledge for safety in working in working aboard ship! why did he allow the Bosun, to work alone and operate the crane while working?? innocent for safety procedures like this one is not an excuse especially the lose of life ??? this should be tolerated by an International standard for safety s we had been long implemented the ISM code! any person responsible should be reprimanded if not given a license to exercise his duty as Safety officer!!!

  2. Man riding winches are additional devices fitted on the hose handling cranes of Tanker vessels.
    These are used to transport personnel in a certified and tested Basket which has a steel ring and ropes.
    One does not sit inside the basket, rather stands with a life vest on the outside periphery of the steel basket.
    The basket used during the accident is a very sad incident which could have been avoided.

  3. From the content, the bosun made two mistakes, never you work at an height above 1.7m without a standby man, secondly, when working at height, your safety harness has to be secured to a strong point, meaning apart from the crane, a line has to come all the way from funnel deck where your safety harness will be attached too.

    Mentainance on engine room vent has to be done by riging a stage while safety harness is put on with standby man, all these boils down to quality risk assesment.

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