Articles Posted in Maritime Safety

The U.S. Coast Guard is authorized to board vessels at sea in order to do vessel safety inspections, and if discrepancies are found, they are authorized to escort the vessel and crew back to port and deny future voyages until those discrepancies are resolved.

An example of this is when the Coast Guard conducted an at-sea boarding of F/V ARCTIC STORM this past Thursday. According to the Coast Guard, there were six counted safety violations on ARCTIC STORM, including that the vessel life raft and hydrostatic release had expired back in 2006. This event, which is fortunately actually a non-event, serves as a good reminder to keep up with safety regulations while out fishing.

The Coast Guard Authorization Act of 2010, Title VI, and the Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation Act of 2012, Title III, encode current laws and regulations regarding safety requirements on a fishing vessel. This gear must be kept in good repair, easily accessible, fit to the person using it, and within the expiry. The expiry is important because rubber, adhesives, fabrics, and many other materials used in rafts, personal flotation devices (PFD), and immersion suits eventually deteriorate in the extremes of weather and sea. Likewise, inflation propellants lose their pressure and efficacy over time. It can be and often is a matter of life and death to have appropriate safety gear that doesn’t come apart at the seams when you most need it.
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Recently, during a Port State Control inspection of an oil tanker, the personal gas safety meters of one member of the Coast Guard and one of the tanker crew went off when the crew member opened the valve to a pressurized tank holding Grade E Sour Crude. Sour crude oil contains a high amount of sulfur (over 0.5%), and some of this sulfur occurs as hydrogen sulfide (H2S) gas. Reported to have been standing no more than two feet downwind of the valve release, the Coast Guard member suffered severe H2S exposure symptoms over the next few days, resulting in renewed warnings by the Coast Guard on this serious danger.

You know that “rotten egg” hydrogen sulfide odor when you smell it at low levels, even below one part per million, but if you smell it in enough quantity, you probably won’t smell it for long. That’s because, at 100ppm or above, it quickly paralyzes the nerve centers inside your nose. If you don’t get away fast enough, other parts of your body become paralyzed, in the worst cases leading to unconsciousness, coma, and death. Even 10ppm may pose a health risk, and 50-100ppm is enough to overcome a person. At lower levels, H2S exposure symptoms include irritated eyes, nose, throat, and lungs. Higher levels of H2S include headache, dizziness, nausea, and vomiting. These symptoms may have a delayed onset of hours or days, as the unfortunate Coast Guard member mentioned above experienced.
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