LIFELINE April 2012 - English

LIFE LINE

April 2012

December 2010 The Newsletter of the International Maritime Rescue Federation (IMRF) December 2010 News… Experience… Ideas… Information… Development…

December 2010 In this issue:    

December A Night to Remember, and the IMRF’s forthcoming mass rescue operations conference 2010 Cold water survival - the first instalment of new guidance from the IMO News from London, Canada, Zimbabwe, Bangladesh, Bulgaria, and Sweden and more!

December 2010 December

“...Now the watch was almost over, and still there was nothing unusual. Just the night, the stars, the biting cold, the wind that whistled through the rigging as the Titanic raced across the calm, black sea at 22½ knots. It2010 was almost th 11.40 pm on Sunday, the 14 of April 1912.

December “Suddenly Fleet saw something directly ahead, even darker than the darkness. At first it was small ... but every second it grew larger and closer. Quickly Fleet banged the crow’s-nest bell three times, the warning of 2010danger ahead. At the same time he lifted the phone and rang the bridge. “’What did you see?’ asked a calm voice at the other end.

December “’Iceberg right ahead,’ replied Fleet.”

2010 (from A Night to Remember, Walter Lord, 1955)

December 2010 December 2010 December 2010 December 2010 LIFE LINE readers will hardly need reminding that April marks the centenary of the loss of the RMS Titanic: one of those incidents that shock the world and leads to profound change - in this case to the International Convention on December Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS) and, in time, the International Maritime Organization and all its works.

2010

The sinking of Titanic was a shocking and truly tragic event. But it was not the last of its kind, nor was its dreadful loss of life the greatest ever seen at sea. That terrible record seems to belong (for peacetime disasters) to the Doña December Paz: when the Filipino ferry collided with the tanker Vector on 20 December 1987 over 4300 people are thought to have lost their lives. The ‘man in the street’ knows about Titanic and, just now, he probably knows something 2010 too about the Costa Concordia. It is a great shame that he has probably never heard of the Doña Paz. One loss of life at sea is one too many - and the IMRF exists to help save lives on the world’s waters whether they December are counted in ones or thousands, and whether the people in danger are wealthy or poor, known or unknown. In June, however, we will again be focussing on large scale incidents - wherever they occur - when 2010 we hold our second mass rescue conference in Gothenburg, Sweden.

For there are lessons to be learned and re-learned, even 100 years on.

See page 3 and our website, www.international-maritime-rescue.org, for more information.

December 2010 December page 1 2010 December

LIFE LINE

April 2012

Editorial

Contents

Welcome to the April edition of your newsletter.

A Night to Remember ......................

1

Last night I went to the cinema, for a rare showing of A Night to Remember, the black-and-white film made in 1958, based on Walter Lord’s book published three years before. The night in question, of course, was the last night of the RMS Titanic.

Editorial

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Dates for the Diary

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This film - unlike aspects of another, rather more famous one, now showing in 3D to capitalise on the Titanic centenary - is noted for its historical accuracy. It must be admitted that James Cameron’s special effects are somewhat better than those available in ‘50s Britain; but the cinema audience seemed spellbound nevertheless, and were clearly thoughtful as they filed out at the end.

SAR Matters

As has been noted before in LIFE LINE, it is unsettling that some major maritime disasters capture the world’s attention while others do not - contrast the reaction to the Costa Concordia accident with those to the Rabaul Queen, the Spice Islander, or the Shariatpur-1, for example. However, the facts remain that, whatever the progress we have made in the last 100 years, the sea is a potentially dangerous place and, from time to time, large numbers of people continue to find themselves in grave and imminent danger.

Which is when the SAR comes in, of course. We want to improve our response to all accidents at sea, whether one person is at risk or a thousand or more. The IMRF’s job is to try to help people to make that improvement, whether they operate a small rescue boat off a single beach or a SAR service of national proportions. And, while any maritime SAR mission may be very challenging, SAR organisations large and small will certainly agree that the ‘mass rescue operation’, involving large numbers of people simultaneously at risk, is one of the most challenging of all.

Mass rescue conference

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Cold water survival (part 1)

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News from London

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News from Space

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Spot the difference

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News from Canada

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Petitioning the UN

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News from the IMO

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News from Zimbabwe ......................

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News from Bangladesh

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News from Bulgaria

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News from Sweden

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Rescue boat guidelines

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IMRF Regional Coordinators

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Send us your news & pictures .........

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Dates for the Diary Moroccan SAR services’ seminar & exercise 28-30 May 2012 Promoting the SAR mission in northeast Africa. To be held at Nador, Morocco. Contact drissi@mpm.gov.ma

IMRF Mass Rescue Conference 3-5 June 2012

This is why the IMRF has been running its mass rescue operations project: to address the challenge squarely, and see if, together, we can’t make it a little easier. For we all may have to deal with such an incident one day, and the more we can analyse the difficulties and discuss possible solutions, the more likely it is that we will be just that little bit better prepared.

The second in IMRF‟s conference series on mass rescue at sea will continue work begun in Gothenburg in June 2010 and progressed at the World Maritime Rescue Congress in Shanghai. Further details in this issue of LIFE LINE.

There is more information about the next stage of this project (our second conference on the subject) on page 3 of this edition and on our website; www.international-maritimerescue.org.

iSAR 2012

Please consider joining in!

Dave Jardine-Smith news@international-maritimerescue.org

3-5 July 2012

To be held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. For details, see: www.globalstar.com.my

RESCUE 2012 - Iceland

19-21 October 2012

Arranged by IMRF Members ICE-SAR, and to be held in Reykjavik, Iceland. For details, see: www.icesar.com/rescue

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LIFE LINE

April 2012

Gothenburg II - the second in the IMRF mass rescue conference series The second in the ‘Gothenburg’ series of conferences, organised by the IMRF in support of our mass rescue operations project, will be held at the headquarters of IMRF Members the Swedish Sea Rescue Society, from the afternoon of Sunday 3 to Tuesday 5 June 2012.

Bookings are now being taken - please visit www.international-maritime-rescue.org.

(for no sane person wants to have to deal with an MRO!), it does have a downside too. Any of us in the SAR response organisations, whoever we are and whatever our organisation’s size or scope, may become involved in an MRO. Because of the rarity of such incidents, however, most of us are unlikely to have previous experience to guide our response.

The IMRF held its first, very successful, Gothenburg mass rescue conference in June 2010.

You can read about it in the October 2010 edition of LIFE LINE, available on the IMRF website; and a full conference report may be found in the Members’ Library: please see www.international-maritimerescue.org.

The 2010 conference highlighted the many problems associated with mass rescue operations. The IMRF‘s project on mass rescue operations (MRO) has now moved on to trying to identify some solutions too. One of the work streams at the World Maritime Rescue Congress in Shanghai last August, for example, was devoted to the subject: please see the reports in our October 2011 newsletter and on the website.

In our last edition of LIFE LINE, in February, we noted that the MRO problem continues to be very much a live one. We mentioned the Costa Concordia, of course; and the capsizes of the ferry Spice Islander off Zanzibar on 10 September 2011 and of the drilling rig Kolskaya off Sakhalin on 18 December. We looked too at the sinking of another ferry, Rabaul Queen, in Papua New Guinean waters on 2 February this year. In some of these cases tens, and in others, hundreds of people lost their lives.

On 13 March came yet another disaster, when a collision in the Meghna River, near Dhaka in Bangladesh, led to the sinking of the double-decker ferry Shariatpur1. Well over a hundred people died; only about 35 survived.

It is not just ferries or cruise ships or offshore units that can give rise to mass rescue operations. A fleet of smaller craft in distress or an airliner ditching can have the same effect on the SAR services. So can natural disasters - floods, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions. So too can some man-made events: terrorism or, in another way, attempts at migration.

The causes of these emergencies are not the direct concern of the IMRF project. What we are looking at are some of the consequences. In each case, and for whatever reason, large numbers of people need rescuing by water or from the water.

Full IMRF Members are good at water rescue: it’s what they do. Which is not to say that they cannot get better at it: we can all always get better! That’s one of the reasons they are IMRF Members; to share experience and expertise; to learn from each other; and to help other Members - our Affiliates, new to the work.

But when it comes to mass rescue operations, very few people ever gain enough experience to really become experts in the subject.

While this is, in one way, a good thing

So preparation is even more vitally important for mass rescue operations than it is in ‘ordinary’ SAR. We do not get the chance to practice for real. We need to train: to focus on the problems and work out ways in which they may be mitigated. ‘Gothenburg II’ is designed to help with that process.

The conference will begin in the late afternoon of Sunday 3 June.

Delegates will be transported from the conference hotels to register at the conference venue, the Swedish Sea Rescue Society’s headquarters by the seashore at Långedrag. There they will be invited to join in some light but h o p e f u l l y t h o u g h t - p r o vo k i n g exercises, to highlight some of the problems of mass rescue.

The conference itself, on Monday th th 4 and Tuesday 5 June, will be based on ‘tabletop’ exercises designed to generate and enable discussion. The exercises will be interspersed with a number of keynote speeches and specific addresses from experts.

Bookings continue to be taken at www.international-maritimerescue.org. But conference places are limited, so do not delay!

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LIFE LINE

April 2012

SAR Matters

merchant seamen, fishermen, leisure sailors - or people fleeing repression or simply seeking (like the rest of us) a better way of life.

This is a discussion column intended to provide a forum for LIFE LINE readers worldwide to contribute to debate on any relevant SAR issue.

And yet it does matter. The evidence is strong that the ancient tradition - and, for most seafarers, the current international regulations - requiring them to save the lives of people in distress at sea if they can are sometimes being ignored.

Please see previous editions of LIFE LINE - available on the website, www. international-maritime-rescue.org for earlier discussions.

Comment and/or new items for discussion should be emailed to news@international-maritime-rescue.org.

This month, David Jardine-Smith reflects on the problem of rescuing economic migrants at sea. Please note that these are his personal views, not those of the IMRF.

The UK’s Guardian newspaper has recently been focussing on the very sad case of a boat full of migrants which, a year ago, left Libya north-bound but ran out of fuel and then drifted for 14 days. With very little food or water, only nine of the 72 people aboard survived.

This desperate story is only one in a long series. The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has called 2011 the “deadliest year” in the Mediterranean since they began collating statistics in 2006: over 1500 migrants died while attempting to flee Libya last year. With horrible irony, that’s the same number as died in the Titanic.

What drew the particular attention of friends of mine (people without a shipping or SAR background) to this issue was a report published by the Guardian which concluded that various authorities knew about the drifting craft and the plight of its passengers - yet did nothing to help them. 72 people had been “left to die” in the Mediterranean Sea. My young friends were irate. How could this be, they demanded - and they drew unpleasant parallels between the authorities’ urgent response to the Costa Concordia accident and the apparent inaction following the loss of so many migrants and refugees.

I will not comment here on this particular case. Nor will I distinguish between ‘refugees’ and ‘economic migrants’: that much-discussed distinction seems of little relevance in the context I would like to consider. What does it matter, to those of us devoted to SAR, why people are in distress at sea?

Except in terms of preventing people getting into trouble in the first place (through education programmes etc), it should not matter at all, of course. When responding to a call for help, it should not matter whether the lives we seek to save are those of cruise or ferry passengers,

Why? Well, for most, it’s simply the commercial imperative. If a ship stops to pick ‘ordinary’ people up, there will inevitably be some delay and inconvenience but usually not too much. However, if she picks up migrants or refugees, an additional problem arises. How quickly can she get rid of them again?

For the simple fact of the matter is that many States, responding to domestic pressures and concerns (some more justified than others), may be very slow to allow ships to land people rescued at sea - or may refuse to accept them altogether. The ship’s master who has done what his conscience and the regulations tell him he must, finds himself with the rescued still aboard; his schedule ruined; and expenses piling up for his owners.

This is not a new problem, nor is it confined to the Mediterranean. (I came across it myself, many years ago, at the time of the ‘Vietnamese Boat People’ when I rd was a young 3 Mate on a cargo ship bound up the Gulf of Thailand.) Nor is it a problem that is not being addressed: some years ago, after intensive and careful debate, the IMO amended the SOLAS and Maritime SAR Conventions to try to make it easier for ships’ masters not to look the other way.

Signatories to these Conventions are now required to “cooperate and coordinate to ensure that masters of ships providing assistance ... are released from their obligations with minimum further deviation from the ship’s intended voyage”. The State responsible for the relevant SAR Region should take the lead in coordinating efficient disembarkation, and all the relevant States (including the State at whose port the rescuing ship wishes to call) “shall arrange for such disembarkation to be effected as soon as reasonably practicable”.

But this leaves too many legal boltholes; it has not made much practical difference - and it addresses this grievous problem from the wrong end. Yes, this is a maritime SAR matter: but it cannot be solved at sea.

It can only really be solved by establishing a binding international agreement that landing rescued people in a particular State does not imply that that State has to accept full responsibility for them thenceforward. The problem of what to do with these desperate people should be addressed after they have been delivered to a place of safety ashore, not while they are still on a rescuing ship or, worse still, drifting helplessly at sea.

Accepting this principle internationally, as a matter of migration control as well as maritime SAR, would help those States now struggling with the consequences of fulfilling their humanitarian responsibilities. And it would also help the poor ship master, watching signals of distress from what is obviously a migrant boat.

It is an urgent SAR matter, even if all we SAR people can really do is press our governments to address it. page 4

LIFE LINE

‘Cold’ Water Survival This is the first in a series of three articles on this subject: please see our June and August 2012 editions for the other two. And - for our readers in warm latitudes perhaps we should point out that “cold water” can, the experts tell us, mean water as warm as 25°C (77°F).

Long periods of immersion in water as high as this temperature can still result in a fall in deep body temperature. It follows that most of the planet is covered in “cold” water. So: please read on!

As reported in full on page 6, IMO’s Radiocommunications and Search and Rescue (COMSAR) Sub-Committee had its annual meeting in London in March. Among the subjects discussed was revised guidance on cold water survival.

The IMO’s current guidance is published in two formats: as an MSC Circular, which is freely available (if a little hard to find!) on the IMO website, www.imo.org; and as a booklet, The Pocket Guide to Cold Water Survival, which is available for sale. These are now to be updated, based on the work of a group of medical, survival & SAR experts coordinated by the IMRF: IMO expect to publish the revised guidance late this year or early next.

The IMRF’s group has also reviewed the relevant guidance in the International Aeronautical and Maritime SAR (IAMSAR) Manual, which is jointly ‘owned’ by the IMO and the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO). We will report the results of this work in a future edition of LIFE LINE: at COMSAR’s request, the IMRF has re-formed our group of experts to provide some additional guidance on the subject in the meantime.

The revised survival guidance is intended primarily for seafarers. It provides information which will help anyone unlucky enough to fall into cold water, or who may have to enter it in an emergency or use survival craft in cold conditions. It also provides information which will help seafarers, trained as first-aid providers, to treat those rescued from the cold. It is therefore of obvious relevance to almost anyone involved in SAR. The guide considers the hazards of exposure to the cold that may endanger life, and provides advice based on the latest medical and scientific opinion on how to prevent or minimize those dangers. It is a sad fact that people continue to die at sea because they lack this knowledge.

Knowing what is likely to happen if you are exposed to cold water is a survival aid in itself.

The guidance includes an explanation of cold water hazards and their effects (summarised below) and on what to do prior to abandoning ship and during the survival phase, whether in survival craft or in the water.

We will look at these aspects in June. Finally, in August, we will report on the guidance given for the rescue phase and on treatment of people recovered, including the treatment of the apparently dead.

An understanding of how the body reacts to cold air or water, and knowing how to delay their damaging effects, will help you stay alive. You should, if possible, avoid going into cold water at all. Cold water represents a much greater risk than cold air, partly because water takes heat away from the body much faster than air. Human beings cool four to five times faster in water than in air at the

April 2012

same temperature - and the colder the water is the more likely it is that you will suffer physical reactions and medical problems. Therefore you should try to enter survival or rescue craft directly.

The major threats of cold water immersion are drowning, hypothermia, and collapse just before, during, or after rescue. (Death from hypothermia in cold water is actually relatively rare: without a properly fitted lifejacket you are more likely to drown as you lose the ability to keep your airway clear of the water.)

Initial responses to immersion in cold water may include inability to hold your breath, an involuntary gasp, followed by uncontrollable breathing, and increased stress placed on your heart.

These responses are caused by the sudden fall in skin temperature. It is important to remember that they will last only about three minutes and will then ease.

Remember too that the fitter you are, the smaller the initial responses to cold water immersion and the smaller the chance of you experiencing heart problems.

Wearing a lifejacket, properly fitted, will decrease the risk by helping to keep your airway clear of the water and reducing the need for you to exercise. Wearing appropriate protective clothing will also decrease the risk by slowing the rate of skin cooling and thus the size of the initial responses.

If you experience these initial responses you should stay still for the first few minutes of immersion, doing as little as possible until you have regained control of your breathing. The period of possible self-rescue is immediately after the initial responses (if experienced), but before hypothermia sets in.

Short term immersion effects follow the initial responses. During this phase cooling of the muscles and nerves close to the surface of the skin - particularly in the limbs - can lead to inability to perform physical tasks. Swimming ability will be significantly impaired.

(Swimming accelerates the rate of cooling anyway.)

Essential survival action that requires grip strength and/or manual dexterity - such as adjusting your lifejacket or locating a lifejacket whistle, for example should be taken as soon as possible after the initial responses to cold water immersion have passed. You should not attempt to swim unless it is to reach a fellow survivor or a nearby shore, craft, or other floating object onto which you can hold or climb. Stay calm. Evaluate your options. Can you reach a shore or floating object knowing that your swimming ability will be less than normal? If not, stay where you are, conserve body heat, and await rescue.

Long term immersion effects include a fall in deep body temperature (a cooling of your vital organs such as your heart, lungs and brain) to hypothermic levels. However, the rate at which your deep body temperature falls depends on many factors, including the clothing you are wearing, your physique, and whether or not you exercise in the water - by swimming, for example. Your temperature will fall more slowly if you wear several layers of clothing, including head covering - especially under a waterproof outer layer such as an immersion suit. And you should keep still - which is greatly facilitated by wearing a lifejacket.

To be continued: see LIFE LINE, June 2012 page 5

LIFE LINE

News from London

April 2012

on cold water survival, produced by the expert group - see page 5.

Principally through COMSAR, the IMO continues its review of the Global Maritime Distress and Safety System (GMDSS) - which is ageing, inflexible, and too much geared to ‘big ships’, without sufficient attention being given to the practical needs of the great majority of those most likely to get into distress at sea (developingworld fishermen, for example).

The IMO building, from Lambeth Bridge

As usual, the IMRF were represented at the meeting of the IMO’s Radiocommunications and Search and Rescue (COMSAR) Sub-Committee in London in March - and, as usual, a large agenda was tackled by the assembled delegates.

The IMRF holds consultative status at the IMO as the non-governmental organisation representing the world’s maritime SAR services, and as such we have an important part to play in this technical Sub-Committee in particular. On this occasion our report on the World Maritime Rescue Congress was welcomed, as was our work - with many others! - on amendments to the International Aeronautical & Maritime SAR (IAMSAR) Manual’s 2013 edition.

(The Manual is re-published every three years.)

The detailed work on the Manual - the IMO’s primary guidance on how to set up a SAR organisation; how to run it; and how ships & aircraft can help - is done by a Joint Working Group of the IMO and the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO). The IMRF was represented at the Joint Working Group’s last meeting, which agreed the IAMSAR amendments to be proposed to COMSAR for publication in the new edition. These amendments included work resulting from the IMRF’s first mass rescue operations conference, in 2010.

The amendments also included detailed updates to the search criteria set out in IAMSAR, following the recommendations of the expert group on survival which the IMRF has been coordinating - see reports on page 5 and in our October 2011 edition.

COMSAR also approved a draft Maritime Safety Committee Circular

There is now a draft Work Plan for this review. The IMRF will continue to ensure that the communications needs of the wider global maritime community are considered, and that any new requirements proposed do not impact adversely on SAR service providers.

The GMDSS review is being linked to the huge ‘e-navigation’ project; IMO’s drive to link all the latest electronic and internet-based developments in ship operation everything from navigation to automatic ship identification (AIS) systems and long-range tracking.

Again, the IMRF will monitor this work and report back to our Members.

The IMO will soon be changing from paper updates on global SAR services (based on data erratically provided by Member States) to an on-line record integrated into their Global Integrated Shipping Information System (GISIS), which is publicly available on the IMO website (www.imo.org). Member Governments will then be responsible for keeping their own SAR service information up to date.

Finally, the IMO’s technical cooperation project aimed at establishing two regional and five associated MRCCs in Central America is progressing well, with meetings held involving Belize, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and Panama, supported by SAR experts from Chile.

Please also see separate reports in this edition of LIFE LINE on an important improvement announced by Inmarsat (below), and on new, non-GMDSS equipment being used for ‘distress’ communications (page 7).

News from Space!

COMSAR continues to work on the difficult question of ‘non-responsive SPOCs’ too. (What is it about our business that turns it into such a morass of acronyms?!)

IMRF Associate Members Inmarsat Global Ltd are the major operator of maritime communications satellites, another key component in the Global Maritime Distress and Safety System (GMDSS).

‘SPOCs’ are ‘SAR Points of Contact’. When an emergency beacon is activated, and its signal is picked up by one of the satellites operated by COSPAS-SARSAT (a key component of the GMDSS), the satellite operators have to know who to alert within the SAR system: usually a rescue coordination centre with responsibility for the relevant geographical area.

At COMSAR in March, IMSO (the International Mobile Satellite Organization) announced that Inmarsat have now enabled twostage shore-to-ship voice distress priority calling, on a wide range of maritime user terminals, so that rescue coordination centres (RCCs) can more easily contact vessels during an emergency.

The big problem is that some nominated SPOCs do not respond.

They do not acknowledge the alert, or act upon it, so that the system fails and no help comes to whoever activated the distress beacon.

The IMO has been trying to address this problem, with COSPAS-SARSAT’s help. Failed tests of the system are notified to the relevant authorities, and other SPOCs can be contacted if the first link fails. Technical support is now to be offered to States with a poor response record.

Prior to this development RCCs trying to get through with vital messages might find that they were blocked by other communications traffic. The new service is free of all space-segment charges.

To make use of this facility RCCs must apply to Inmarsat Customer Services to be issued with a dedicated 7-digit PIN code and instructions on how to use the service.

page 6

LIFE LINE

SPOT the difference

April 2012

News from Canada gCaptain.com, the maritime and offshore industry news blog, reports an international rescue operation following a fatal fire on the tug Patrice McAllister, on Lake Ontario in March.

The 105-foot, US-flagged tug caught fire in the Lake’s Canadian waters: it is reported that she was pushing a barge at the time. Six crew were on board. The chief engineer was seriously injured in the accident, and was medevac’d to hospital by a Canadian helicopter crew but, very sadly, he died of his injuries.

The Global Maritime Distress and Safety System is the internationally-recognised communications system for use at sea in emergency and safety cases. It is a welltried system and, using its various components, thousands of lives have been saved because of it.

One problem with it, however - as noted in our report on the recent COMSAR meeting, on page 6 - is that it has not kept up with developments. Indeed, such is the rate of innovation that it is impossible for inflexible international agreements of this sort to keep pace.

Watchstanders at Coast Guard Sector Buffalo received an alert from an emergency position indicating radio beacon registered to the vessel, which provided them with an exact location about seven miles south of Prince Edward Point. A United States Coast Guard SAR crew responded aboard an MH-65 Dolphin rescue helicopter from Air Station Detroit, and Canadian rescue crews launched aboard a C-130 aircraft, a Griffin helicopter and the Canadian Coast Guard Ship Cape Hearne, a 47-foot Cape Class motor lifeboat from Kingston, Ontario.

The result is that new systems develop in parallel. A fine example is the SPOT system - see www.findmespot.com - which is undeniably useful; but which is not a part of the GMDSS. This is not SPOT’s fault. It cannot be included, granted the way the GMDSS is established.

But the need for the system to be revised is highlighted by the increasing number of devices such as SPOT (generically known, in this context, as ‘satellite-enabled emergency notification devices’, or SENDs) which are now on or being brought to the market.

The risk is that people will buy and use these devices which offer (or may appear to offer) an emergency location function - instead of systems integral to the GMDSS. And the risk in that is that alerts may not be delivered to the right place, or may not be delivered at all - with the result that no SAR response is initiated.

Examples of this sort of thing include the increasing use of AIS devices as personal beacons - by divers, for example. The diver may wish to use the beacon either to avoid being run down or when in distress - but this is not clear to those receiving the signal. AIS was designed as a position-tracking system for ships. It could be used for emergency alerting & location - but unless this use is formally agreed confusion reigns. A ship sees an AIS signal from a diver: does she give him a wide berth or go to his aid...?

Social networking sites are also increasingly being used to raise alarms; and smartphone applications are on sale which promise to send email notifications of emergencies to SAR authorities. The problem is that these authorities may not be geared up to receive such messages as distress alerts: the GMDSS certainly does not require them to be.

It is very difficult for the IMO to keep up - which means that individual States take uncoordinated regulatory action, if they recognise the problem at all.

IMRF Members must keep abreast as best they can.

Patrice McAllister was taken in tow by a rescue tug, Bowditch, whose Master takes up the story: “Patrice was still smouldering, abandoned and adrift when we got there. It took two hours of cooling and re-flash suppression before we could safely connect the tow... It was bad, totally burned out, adrift and abandoned. The heat was intense, and made connecting up the tow tough. Her rudder was jammed about 10 degrees to port, so she didn’t tow very well...”

Petitioning the UN If you visit www.change.org/petitions/united-nationsadd-drowning-to-millennium-development-goal-4reduce-child-mortality you can sign a petition asking for ‘drowning’ to be added to the UN’s Millennium Development Goal no.4 - ‘Reduce Child Mortality’.

As we reported in our February edition, no-one really knows how many people drown at sea each year - but the World Health Organization reports that children under 5 years of age have the highest drowning mortality rates worldwide; and drowning is the leading cause of accidental death among children ages 1-4.

One child drowns every minute. Go on: sign the petition… page 7

LIFE LINE

April 2012

News from the IMO

On the anniversary of the loss of the Titanic, IMO Secretary-General Koji Sekimizu (pictured above) issued a statement remembering all those who lost their lives in the tragic accident, recalling the improvements to ship safety introduced as a result of it, and acknowledging the need for continual improvement and enhancement of safety at sea.

“The Titanic disaster prompted the major shipping nations ... to take decisive action to address maritime safety. It led to the adoption of the first international convention on safety of life at sea in 1914 [and], in its aftermath, the requirement for an international standard-setting body to oversee maritime safety became apparent.

Safety at sea remains the core objective of the IMO. “Today, in 2012, although much updated and revised, SOLAS is still the most important international treaty instrument addressing maritime safety ... We have seen tremendous improvements in the safety record of shipping. But new generations of vessels bring fresh challenges and ... accidents still occur, reinforcing the need for continual improvement... th

“On the 100 anniversary of the Titanic disaster, let us remember those who lost their lives in the freezing waters of the North Atlantic on that fateful night of 14 April 1912 and reflect on the dangers and perils still associated with sea voyages today.

News from Zimbabwe

News from Bangladesh

"It was on Christmas Day and people were in a jovial mood. To some extent we blame ourselves because we did not realise that the boat was too small and we did not anticipate any disaster."

Lifeguard trainers from IMRF Members the Royal National Lifeboat Institution have recently returned to the UK from Cox’s Bazar - one of the most popular beach areas in Bangladesh - where they delivered lifesaving training to volunteers who will now use their newly-acquired skills to run a beach lifesaving club.

These words were spoken after the tragic loss of 11 children, who drowned after their boat capsized on Lake Chivero near Harare last Christmas Day. Six other people survived. The boat was designed to carry seven in all.

A horrible accident, on what was meant to be a holiday outing. But the words quoted above could be said so often: “We did not realise...” Open bodies of water may look benign, but they are always potentially dangerous, as everyone in maritime SAR knows.

The Herald newspaper’s editorial makes the necessary points: “Yet again, children drown because rules are broken, and what makes it even worse this time is that they are broken by parents as well as by a boat operator...

“Boating is not inherently safe.

But it can be made safer if all precautions are taken and all rules are followed.

Earlier, during the meeting of the COMSAR Sub-Committee in March, Mr Sekimizu had offered his condolences to the families of all those who died aboard the passenger ferry Shariatpur-1, which sank after being hit by a small cargo ship in the Meghna River, near the Bangladeshi capital, Dhaka.

“The first is that a boat should not be overloaded. Every boat is designed for a maximum number of people and every boat licensed for hire has that maximum legally enforced. Secondly, everybody on a boat is supposed to wear a lifejacket, a simple and cheap garment that is designed when worn correctly not just to keep a person floating if they fall out, but keep them floating with their head out of the water...

The Secretary-General reminded the SubCommittee of IMO’s on-going project on domestic ferry safety and related technical cooperation activities, mentioning specifically the regional forum on domestic ferry safety held in Bali, Indonesia, in December last year.

“Let us use these few months of increased awareness to make sure all going on the water know the safety rules and to work out ways, with the limited resources open to the authorities, to improve enforcement of the safety rules.”

“I urge IMO Member Governments, and shipping industry as a whole, to refresh determination to improve and enhance safety of passenger ships, today and in future.”

the our the the

Bangladesh has one of the highest drowning rates in the world, with drowning being the lead killer of children aged 117, claiming about 18,000 lives a year (more than infectious disease or malnutrition).

RNLI lifeguard trainers Darren Williams and Scott Davidson spent two weeks delivering a c o m p r e h e n s i ve training programme to 15 Bangladeshi volunteers, including the first female lifeguard in the country.

The course covered crucial first steps, including personal fitness; beach surveillance; risk assessments; recognising when a person is in distress; understanding rescue equipment; and reaching, retrieving, assessing and treating a casualty. The RNLI lifeguards also delivered a ‘train the trainer’ course, enabling the volunteers to teach the skills they learn to others.

The RNLI has been working on this project with the Centre for Injury Prevention and Research Bangladesh, which is striving to reduce the country’s terrible drowning rate.

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LIFE LINE

April 2012

News from Bulgaria

financial resources invested in SAR facilities in recent years.

News from Sweden

“Maritime rescue is a mission and a cause which is not offered on the market. It is not for sale or for purchase. It is coming from the human soul, from our hearts…”

The participants called for the creation of a ‘SAR Commission’, to be chaired by the senior naval commander in the coastal region and to include representatives of t h e g o ve r n m e n t a g e n c i e s concerned as well as nongovernmental organizations, in line with international experience and best practice; and for a restructuring of the country’s MRCC.

On March 20, the Swedish Sea Rescue Society, SSRS, conducted its latest live test within the FIRST project, successfully connecting and recovering a 39-person liferaft aboard the Stena Line ROPAX ferry Jutlandica.

So said Captain Nick Guerchev, of IMRF Members BULSAR, at the conclusion of a ve r y s u c c e s s f u l r o u n d - t a b l e discussion on ‘Best Practices in Maritime SAR’, organized

by BULSAR in Varna in March.

The Memorandum developed by the delegates noted that Bulgaria has been an active participant in the creation and development of international maritime law instruments, including the SAR Convention; and that it was the pioneer in Europe and the second country in the world to provide its Maritime Rescue Coordination Centre (MRCC) with a satellite communications terminal.

Bulgaria was also an organizer of several international maritime rescue training events and exercises in 19771985, and actively participated in the test and evaluation of emergency position-indicating radio beacons (EPIRBs).

The round-table participants called for national maritime safety and SAR legislation to again be harmonized with the country’s international commitments, following a thorough and scientific system analysis.

They noted the importance of the “First Black Sea Volunteer SAR Conference”, held in July 2005. Many projects had been suggested at that time and some had been successfully completed, improving the effectiveness of maritime SAR in the region.

For example, the mobile telephone operator “Mobil-tel” had allocated the short number “161” for maritime emergency use - an example followed by the other operators. This had resulted in a significantly higher level of alerting and response efficiency along the Bulgarian coast. The delegates also noted the increase in

They also urged that a national maritime rescue service should be restored and that its functional obligations should include marine environment protection, and the safeguarding of critical infrastructure. This would lead to improved SAR effectiveness; the fulfillment of national obligations u n d e r t h e r e l e va n t I MO instruments; and a decrease in indirect budget, operational and other expenses.

The possibility of creating a voluntary SAR organization was discussed, thus harmonizing Bulgarian arrangements with best practice elsewhere. It was agreed that such a volunteer structure should be integrated with the national SAR system and that appropriate financial resources should be ensured for training and equipment.

As regards BULSAR itself, the delegates noted its significant contribution to the national SAR system, and the concern of its management that, without governmental financial support, it could not continue participating in SAR operations. At present nobody refunds BULSAR volunteers’ expenses incurred during SAR operations. The delegates agreed the necessity of BULSAR being included in the l i s t of non-governmental organizations to be financially supported by the state budget.

Finally, the delegates noted with great interest the experience of countries like Poland, Ukraine, and G e o r g i a , wh o , i n r a d i c a l l y restructuring their SAR systems, had a c h i e ve d greater e f f e c t i ve n e s s , i n c l u d i n g t h e possibility of using financial instruments from external sources operationally. This they considered a cornerstone in the improvement of national safety systems.

The test was unique in that the raft, supplied courtesy of Viking Life Saving Equipment, is the largest davit-launch raft on the market, and thus the largest suitable for lifting.

In this test the raft was empty, but the idea behind FIRST is that if passenger ships were to carry liftable rafts for evacuation, and ships in general were to carry cranes and rescue boats suitable for connecting and lifting rafts with people in them, ships of opportunity could be unrivalled resources in the mass rescue chain.

In the March test, conducted in moderate 1.5 metre waves and force 5-6 winds, it took seven minutes from the rescue boat launch order until the raft was landed on the deck of the Jutlandica. At that rate, with 39 people per raft, more than 300 people would be rescued per hour.

If the launch time for the rescue boat is cut out and a group of rafts were kept together, the FIRST team believes that a four minute cycle time would be realistic, resulting in a rescue rate of nearly 600 people per hour.

FIRST has shown in earlier tests that recovery is possible in more than 3 metre waves and winds in excess of gale force.

More information on the project, as well as photos and videos from the March test, can be found at www.first-rescue.org. page 9

LIFE LINE

April 2012

The IMRF Rescue Boat Guidelines As regular readers will know, one of the IMRF’s major projects at present is the development of guidelines for maritime SAR operations for vessels of less than 24 metres in length. Neil Chaplin of the RNLI has been coordinating a working group comprising volunteers from several IMRF Member organisations to take the work forward, and the Membership in general endorsed the group’s progress - and thanked it for its hard work - at the Quadrennial General Meeting in Shanghai last year.

IMRF Regional Coordinators

The work of people such as Neil - whether as individuals or with the support of their employers and/or host organisations - is absolutely essential to the IMRF’s progress. Ultimately, the IMRF itself exists to facilitate. It cannot run major projects alone, but seeks synergies, putting the parts together to find a better whole.

As Neil writes: “The project is a matter of using the wealth of knowledge and experience of the IMRF membership to aid the process of agreeing what is appropriate for the guidelines. To do this we have compiled a huge risk-based assessment of SAR operations, and have developed Equipment, Training and Procedural mitigations to combat the risks faced by the operator.

Now we want to tie the mitigations to examples from SAR organisations to support evidence-based decision making.”

Unfortunately, however, the day job sometimes intrudes. Neil has to focus on a major restructuring within the RNLI just now - which is why you have not read very much about the rescue boat guidelines project in recent editions of LIFE LINE.

While the IMRF represents its Members globally, we also recognise that each global region has its own specific maritime safety needs and challenges, set in differing socioeconomic, political and cultural contexts. For this reason, we have a network of Regional Development Groups, each associated with loosely defined geographical areas.

The main purpose of the Regional Groups is to provide member organisations with a channel through which their local issues and concerns can be better understood and addressed. The Groups also provide an effective mechanism by which international assistance can be brought to the region.

Each Group nominates a Coordinator, who acts as the direct point of contact and a facilitator of communications between the Group members and the IMRF organisation in general. Members can find their particular Coordinator’s contact details by logging in to the IMRF website and clicking on the ‘Regional Coordinators Directory’.

Bear with us, though! Progress on the project has slowed a little; but it has not stopped! To date, the project team are about two thirds of the way through the work - and still hope to complete it before the end of 2013.

The Regional Coordinator can help you - but you can also help him or her. Don’t forget to tell the Coordinator about any events you are planning which may be of wider interest: the Coordinator will help spread the word!

Any offers of help, of course, will always be gratefully received: email Neil at imrfcode@googlemail.com.

Oh: and don’t forget to tell LIFE LINE as well!

And finally...

We hope that you have found this issue of LIFE LINE informative and interesting. We know that there is much more going on among IMRF‟s membership that could be reported here, to the benefit of all - but we rely on you, the reader, to tell us about it! LIFE LINE and the IMRF website need you to provide their contents - your news, your projects, your events, your ideas, your lessons learned.

We also need your pictures, please: good quality pictures (more than 250 kB, if possible) of your SAR units - boats, ships, aircraft, RCCs etc. These will be used in LIFE LINE and on the website - but are also needed for presentations and to accompany press articles about the IMRF and its worldwide work.

Please send articles and pictures (or links to them, with formal permission for them to be used for IMRF purposes) to news@international-maritime-rescue.org.

Let’s spread the word, for the benefit of all at risk on the world’s waters.

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