So today we happen to carryout our monthly safety drill onboard. our focus today was on the "Man overboard" drill. as usual prior to the start of the drill we all assemble at the life boat station, except for the ship captain at the bridge.
Man overboard: This is an emergency situation onboard a ship where a member of the crew or passenger has fallen off the ship into the water and is in need of immediate rescue. The "man overboard" is an exclamation given by who ever first saw the crew or passenger go overboard to notify other crew member of the situation at hand keeping an eye contact and equally throwing the nearest life buoy at the victim in the water.
The essence of the safety drill which is carried out once in every month is to keep the crew members in check on what to do Incase similar emergency occur while onboard. Below are the method to recover a victim of Man overboard.
Whosoever see someone fall over the ship side is to immediately throw a life buoy to the area where the victim fell this helps to keep the victim afloat and also to point at the area where the victim fell. some life buoy are fitted with some signals which makes it visible at night and from a distance.
The Oow on the bridge or the duty officer should immediately be alerted.
The Oow or the duty officer on the bridge is to immediately carry out the following actions
. He will put the wheel hard on the side that the person fell overboard.
. He will instruct the lookout and anyone else on the bridge to keep the life buoy in sight.
. He will obtain the position of the ship from the GPS.
. He will broadcast over the ship’s public address system the fact that a man has fallen overboard.
. He will inform the captain.
. He will summon the bosun and tell him to prepare to recover the man, either by rescue boat or throwing a boarding ladder over the ship’s side.
If in the company of other vessels he will hoist flag OSCAR during the day and sound three prolonged blasts on the ship’s siren to inform them of his predicament. At night he will switch on his not-under-command lights (two all-round red lights mounted vertically above one another on the mast)and inform them by radio.
. He will carry out a Williamson turn and steady up when he is on the reciprocal of his initial course.
. He will reduce speed in preparation to manoeuvering for the recovery of the man.
In the meantime the bosun will have either prepared the rescue boat for launching or made other appropriate arrangements to recover the man.
Finally he will manoeuvre the ship upwind of the man and recover him.
Thank you for reading.
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