DNV GL, Gard initiate watertight doors awareness campaign

TIN news:  Due to re-occurring deficiencies during surveys, and accidents leading to injuries and fatalities, DNV GL announced that joined forces with Gard P&I Club, to launch an awareness campaign on watertight doors. 

As DNV GL explained, watertight doors are crucial for reducing ship vulnerability in cases of flooding. An open watertight door in a flooding scenario is a failure that rapidly may lead to capsizing or foundering depending on the ship design, and for which there may be no recovery. Due to their vital functionality in such cases, managing watertight doors as a safety barrier is a highly complex operation involving technical systems, people and processes.

In particular, a watertight door compromises several technical systems (structural, electrical, hydraulic, control), with many possible failure modes, correct operation during voyage and in emergency situations. Except from this, there is the human element of crew and officers, their awareness of the involved risk and the knowledge and motivation to operate the system correctly during operation and in cases of emergency. 

The awareness campaign, targeting all relevant stakeholders in the industry, aims to create better understanding of how the watertight doors are designed, operated and maintained, and to promote in-situ awareness of officers and crew members operating the doors. In addition, it intends to develop a proactive closing culture, which means to being prepared for possible external events, such as a collision or grounding or bad weather and to create awareness regarding the occupational risk of incorrect passing of watertight doors.

The project team has also been working with the industry in assessing work orders in planned maintenance systems related to watertight doors. An example of work orders is part of the awareness campaign package.