Fishing Vessel Operations and Safety

1. PANEL SCOPE

To address fishing vessel safety from a broad perspective including: basic issues affecting fishing vessel safety, vessel design, vessel construction, vessel operation, vessel maintenance, survey, safety training and awareness, voyage planning, costing, marine weather prediction, fishing regulation, and risk analysis and assessment. Investigate and recommend ways to improve awareness on the part of commercial fishing vessel community to aid in getting that community embrace a safety culture.

2. BACKGROUND

There is common recognition that a major shift in culture in the commercial fishing community is necessary and that this will be accomplished by increased awareness of the risk, the problems faced, whether in design or operations. The key element for SNAME will be development and pursuit of awareness efforts, working with other like-minded organizations, to affect a major shift to a safety culture.

3. OBJECTIVES

The objectives of the Ad Hoc Panel on the "Fishing Vessel Operations and Safety," each supported by a Working Group, are to:

1. Investigate the feasibility of establishing risk-based fishing vessel stability criteria appropriate to the type of vessel and its operating area;
2. Evaluate the effectiveness of existing stability letters and develop better ways to communicate to the fishing community the importance of following reasonable stability and survivability guidelines;
3. Develop proposed design, production, operation and maintenance guidelines for various classes of fishing vessels that address basic safety, vessel design, vessel construction, vessel operation, vessel surveys and vessel maintenance;
4. Coordinate with SNAME Panel SC-3 in developing a long-range plan to deal with marine engineering and environmental issues of all types within the commercial fishing industry.

4. WORKING GROUPS

The intended scope of work is as follows:

Working Group A: Investigate the feasibility of establishing risk-based fishing vessel stability criteria appropriate to the type of vessel and its operating area.

1. Identify hazards associated with small vessel capsizes and sinkings and develop guidelines to reduce wave impact damage and personal injuries;
2. Work with NOAA and the international meteorological community to improve predictions of dangerous local wave conditions;
3. Suggest ways to improve survivability for smaller vessels and their crews when they encounter extreme waves;
4. Review the Torremolinos Protocol, which has been criticized by the international naval architecture community a) for lacking "rational criteria" and b) for promoting capsize resistance for the vessel at the expense of operational safety conditions on board. Satisfying the IMO Torremolinos criteria for fishing vessels does not insure surviving a direct hit by rogue waves, or by other extreme (breaking) wave conditions and does not adequately address or insure crew survivability, which frequently involves escaping from a vessel that is stable while inverted;
5. Formulate a proposed fishing vessel research program to develop a new set of scalable, non-dimensional parameters for designing and building safer vessels. It is expected that the effects of variations in length, beam, draft, freeboard, sheer line, bulwark and deckhouse arrangements and loading conditions can be correlated with a new set of design parameters for increasing small vessel safety and survivability in a variety of situations.

Working Group B: Evaluate the effectiveness of existing stability letters and develop better ways to communicate to the fishing community the importance of following reasonable stability and survivability guidelines.

1. To most fishing boat captains, the determination of a vessel’s stability letter is a lot of black magic by the naval architect/ surveyor and the format is not useful to most fishermen and owners;
2. Work with fishermen, owners, surveyors, marine insurers, fishing boat designers and builders to insure that all parties understand the purpose and implication of stability letters;
3. Involve fishermen, vessel owners, insurance representatives, fishing safety trainers, Coast Guard representatives and naval architects in developing understandable, but not oversimplified, fishing vessel safety materials and training devices.

Working Group C: Develop proposed design, production, operation and maintenance guidelines for various classes of fishing vessels that address basic safety, vessel design, vessel construction, vessel operation, vessel surveys and vessel maintenance.

1. The tragic, unacceptably high fatality rates in the commercial fishing industry have a considerable basis in the lack of standards (not to mention regulations) for the overwhelming proportion of the fleet, which is less than 79' in length. The group will determine what organizations exist that address fishing vessel safety and operations, determine what written guidance documents and publications exist and prepare a listing of such documents and publications for use in assessing existing publications and developing guideline updates;
2. Establish reasonable design and operational standards, which would face the rigors of the real world for some period of time before proposing actual regulations. These standards would be graduated (depending on size of vessel and distance offshore) guidelines (standards) for design, construction and maintenance for ALL FV operating beyond three nautical miles from the baseline.

Panel SC-3 Fishing Systems: Develop a long-range plan to deal with environmental issues of all types and marine engineering issues within the commercial fishing industry.

1. Reestablish the Fishing Systems Panel, SC-3, to take up of issues related to the environment including the use of onboard computers to assist the operator/captain to reduce NOx and fuel consumption. (The same computer could be used to advise the operator/captain on loading/stability issues.) The SC-3 Group will coordinate with the Ad Hoc Panel on common issues

It is expected that most of the work of the committee will involve web-based communications with possible regional subgroup meetings and a general meeting during the SNAME annual meeting.

5. AD HOC PANEL COMPOSITION

The Ad Hoc Panel will have expertise in all areas of fishing boat design and operation, vessel construction and costing, marine weather prediction, fishing regulation, and risk analysis. Initially, the panel will consist of five working groups with panel members eligible to participate in more than one working group. The possible membership of the ad hoc Fishing Safety Panel includes SNAME members and non-SNAME corresponding members. The proposed ad hoc Panel leadership is as follows:

Ad hoc Committee Chair: Bruce Johnson, USNA
Ad hoc Committee Vice-Chair: Norm Lemley, CML, UMSA

Working Group A on Stability Criteria:
Chair: Bruce Johnson, USNA
VChair: to be determined

Working Group B on Stability Letters, Stability Education and Training:
Chair: Lt Ben Nicholson, USCG
VChair: John Womack, Wallace Associates

Working Group C on Design, Production, Operation and Maintenance Guidelines:
Chair: Michael Dyer, Volpe Transportation
VChair: Richard Hiscock, ERE Associates

SNAME Panel SC-3:
Chair: Robert Latorre, UNO

6. DELIVERABLES

7. TENTATIVE SCHEDULE

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