IMCA published DP Station Keeping Incidents 2009 and requests input to 2010 report
The sharing of information on incidents is essential as an aid to improved safety, with each one improving the knowledge base of other organisations undertaking similar activities. This is why the International Marine Contractors Association (IMCA) publishes an annual report on dynamic positioning (DP) station keeping incidents. The report on incidents in 2009 has just been published (IMCA M 211) and IMCA is requesting that details on any incidents in 2010 not already reported should be submitted as soon as possible.
A IMCA states, all reports are anonymised and sent for approval to the contributing company before review by the IMCA Marine Division Management Committee and eventual publication. Reporting forms can be downloaded from IMCA Incident Reports Page.
For the 2009 issue, 75 reports submitted by 46 vessels were analysed, giving an average of 1.63 reports per vessel. As in previous years, the average remains between one and two, with 14 vessels reporting two or more incidents, and 32 reporting only one. Currently the number of members' DP vessels operating, according to data supplied by them, stands at 764, a significant increase from previous years. The largest percentage for the main cause of incidents in 2009 was reference systems (23%) with many of those submitting reports commenting that reference systems had been a cause for concern. Power (17%), propulsion (16%), human error (13%), electrical (13%) and computer (11%) were the other main causes, with environment (3%) and sensors (1%) at the bottom of the scale. There were some incidents in which it was not possible to determine the main cause, and these have been recorded as cause ‘not established’ (3%). All incidents analysed have been included as they provide useful feedback to the industry from which lessons may be learnt. As in the previous year’s report neither the range of vessel activity nor the DP class has been analysed as the vessel activity gave an unrepresentative view of the distribution of incidents amongst vessel types and the DP classes and could lead to incorrect assumptions being made based upon this data.
