Lloyd’s Register, DNV and ABS have jointly announced an initiative to improve the safety of their surveyors on assignment. It will have an impact on shipyards, offshore platforms, manufacturers and other third party sites. The three organisations stressed that they expect their clients to provide a safe place of work at all times for surveyors.

The initiative focuses on the principle that the working environment, including equipment, provided for a surveyor must be safe. It identifies five key safety concerns that surveyors face. In addition, it identifies a number of clear and simple expectations specific to each of these concerns that need to be in place if serious injuries and even fatalities are to be avoided. The five concerns are:

• entry into confined spaces
• access to, from and within the workspace
• safe plant and equipment
• working at height
• transferring between vessels at sea.

Mark Pavey, Lloyd’s Register Safety Manager, said: “We only have to look at accident records to realise very quickly that the principal risk to the health and safety of our surveyors (who often have to work alone) occurs on third party sites, and, as experienced as our surveyors are, they are heavily reliant on a ship’s crew or the site controller for their safety. This joint initiative aims to highlight this situation, raise everyone’s awareness and unite class societies in rectifying unsafe practices where the lives of our surveyors are put at risk.”

Per Linden, DNV Safety Manager, added: “Even experienced surveyors can be put under pressure to carry out their work in a potentially unsafe location concerned that failing to do so may result in another class society being used. Under this initiative a refusal to work from one of us due to an unsafe condition will represent a refusal from us all and we value the strength of this collective approach”.

Doug Ward, ABS Safety Manager, commented: “Although the vast majority of locations around the world have good safety arrangements in place, it remains the case that some locations and countries don’t implement satisfactory safety procedures. Too frequently, a surveyor has to decide whether he or she should enter a confined space that may not have been adequately ventilated, climb scaffolding that appears flimsy or poorly erected, or step between vessels in pitching seas without a life preserver or adequate support crew. We have to encourage our clients to make the surveyor’s decision to proceed the right one.”

The organisations said that they will now inform their clients and those who control the work places of this initiative and work with them in a proactive and positive way to improve safety. “We can improve safety because the expectations are straight forward and based on common sense”, said Pavey. “Class NK and Russian Maritime Register of Shipping (RS) have already signed up with us, (along with CRS) and it is our hope that this will act as a catalyst for the members of the International Association of Classification Societies (IACS), who are currently studying the issue, to join the initiative in the near future. We all face the same hazards in similar locations around the world and we can all benefit from being involved.”