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Guidelines for Health and Safety on Board Small Fishing Boats

FishSAFE has overseen the development of the Safety Guidelines for Small Commercial Fishing Vessels. These Guidelines are the product of a concerted effort by both the fishing industry and government to provide best practice guidelines aimed at minimising accident and injury rates amongst the inshore fishing fleet. The Guidelines are designed to be a useful and practical tool for everyone involved in the operation of inshore fishing vessels of 24 metres or less. The Guidelines are aimed at meeting the needs of everyone involved in inshore fishing operations from frontline fishing deck-crew through to skippers and owners of vessels. They will help enable deck-crew to work safely and to identify hazards while allowing skippers and owners to meet their obligations under Health and Safety Legislation and Maritime Rules.

These Guidelines have been developed by past and present fishermen working with industry and government representatives. They represent the combined wisdom of many years experience in the industry and everyone who participated in their development learnt a lot as well as gave a lot.

FishSAFE has been set up to provide support and advice about how to be safe and be profitable at the same time. In order to achieve this, connected to the Guidelines is a FishSAFE Safety Passport process that provides the necessary training and support with minimal cost to the participants apart from one day of time to attend the training in their homeports.

FishSAFE acknowledges the assistance of Grant Finlayson of Marine Focus Ltd, who did the majority of the drafting work, and Eric Holiday of Pro-Safe Marine in developing the Guidelines.

The Guidelines offer a three-tiered approach. A comprehensive set of resource material that is intended as a reference tool for owners and skippers will be developed during 2006. In most cases this would be kept ashore, away from the vessel.

The second tier is the “real” Guidelines intended to be kept on the vessel, and with the skipper and crew as the target audience. The owner and skipper can tailor this material to the individual vessel and type of fishing operation. This is the material currently available on this website.

Introduction

1. About the Guidelines

Part One
Specific Identified Hazards

Chapter 1
Emergency Procedure

1. General Prevention Strategies
2. What happens in an emergency? - Muster Stations
3. Emergency Training
4. Fire on board
5. Man overboard
6. First Aid
7. Flooding
8. Abandon Ship
9. Emergency Contacts
10. Operating with helicopters

Chapter 2
Fire Prevention and Fire Safety

1. Fire Prevention and Fire Safety
2. General Fire Prevention
3. Fire Drills
4. Fire Fighting
5. Fire Fighting Equipment
6. Fire Detection Equipment

Chapter 3
Safety in Vessels

1. General Safety - Housekeeping
2. Personal Protective Equipment and Appropriate clothing
3. Machine Guards
4. Isolation Procedures
5. Hazardous Substances
6. Lifting Gear
7. Portable Electric Tools
8. Surface of working decks
9. Ventilation
10. Lighting
11. Ropes and Mooring Lines
12. Boarding and disembarking
13. Keeping the vessel water tight
14. Escape Routes
15. Machinery Stops
16. Fuelling safety
17. General Training
18. Trip Planning/Pre sailing check list

Chapter 4
Watchkeeping

1. Organising the navigational watch
2. Duties and responsibilities
3. Navigational Equipment
4. Fitness for Duty
5. Signals

Chapter 5
Safety in Fishing Operations

1. Generic safety in fishing operations
2. Recovery of fouled/snagged gear
3. Fish and Ice Handling
4. Safe use of knives
5. Lifting gear safety

Chapter 6
Safety in Machinery Spaces

1. Refrigeration Systems
2. Compressed Air Systems
3. Gas Cylinders and Installations
4. Electrical Systems
5. Hydraulic Systems
6. Hot Work

Chapter 7
Weather/Sea Conditions

1. Weather Conditions
2. Extreme Sea Conditions
3. Fog
4. Crossing the bar

Chapter 8
Human Factors

1. Fatigue
2. Stress
3. Alcohol and Other Drugs

Chapter 9
One Man Operations

Part Two
Specific Fishing Operations

Chapter 10
Trawling

Chapter 11
Seining

Chapter 12
Long Lining

Chapter 13
Trolling

Chapter 14
Dredging

Chapter 15
Pot and Trap Fishing

Chapter 16
Set netting

Chapter 17
Diving

Chapter 18
Jigging

Part Three
General Information on Health and Safety issues

Chapter 19
Duties and Responsibilities

1. Employer (the person who pays the wages)
2. Skipper (the person who controls the place of work)
3. Crew (who are paid wages)
4. Sharefishers (self-employed)
5. Principal (someone who hires self-employed people)
6. Other people who visit the workplace in the course of their work (observers, compliance officials, contractors etc)

Chapter 20
Managing Health and Safety

1. Legislation
2. Developing a Health and Safety Policy
3. Providing Information
4. Selection and Placement of Crew
5. Training
6. Induction for Visitors and Others
7. Employee Participation
8. People who are not employees
9. System Auditing

Chapter 21
Hazard Management

1. What is a hazard
2. When does a hazard become significant
3. Hazard Identification
4. Hazard Assessment and Management
5. What does “all practicable steps” mean?

Chapter 22
Accident/Incident Management

1. Reporting
2. Accident Registers
3. Self-Investigation, Follow-Up and Review

Version 1.0. Last updated 27 June 2006.