Raising safety awareness on board

Convincingly establishing safety awareness on board can only work if all crew members are actively involved. Hazards can be found anywhere safety provisions are only followed half-heartedly. With their new Safety Bulletin, the Ship Safety Division of BG Verkehr gives practical advice for sound safety awareness on board.

The first topic in line of the new Safety Bulletin is Enclosed Spaces. In the beginning of the notice, an example from day-to-day work on board shows how and where hazards may occur. Because, especially when something is done on a daily basis, carelessness easily creeps in. Moreover, the examples show with real incidents where potential weak spots of the occupational health and safety measures of specific operational procedures lie.

The safety information is published as a bulletin, because a convincing and successful safety concept needs to be continuously further developed. The bulletin issues are supposed to instigate to always question and advance the existing occupational health and safety measures on board together. This means that crew and shipping company have to work together to ensure that safety measures are both suitable for every day work and at the same time meet the legal and company requirements. Where a safety measure proofs useless, a new way to implement safety needs to be developed together. Only if everyone supports the safety concept on board, will it be consistently implemented.

Read more about how to raise safety awareness on board under our heading "Occupational health and safety".