Hazards Analysis of Routine Ship Towage operations in Indian Coastal Waters

Main cause of accidents is just not always bad luck. Literature on safety has emphasised on the facts that accident finally leads to unfortunate consequence. The first step of risk assessment is to identify the hazards that are present. The Routine Ship Towage, also called harbour towage, is potentially a hazardous operation.

The main objective of this research is to identify and quantify the important factors impacting on the safety of routine ship towage operations in Indian coast. In doing so, initially, the existing literature on factors influencing safety of harbour towage operation was analysed to design questionnaire. Rest necessary data was collected through questionnaires. Finally, the factor analysis (Principal Component analysis) was applied to find grouped dimensions from identified hazard variables from literature and subsequently the critical analysis of incident type frequency, cause and consequences to get a clear picture of critical safety risk factors. As a result, the research found 20 criteria in 6 dimensions safety risk factors such as Crew Incompetency, Rough Weather, Poor Work Process, Suitability of Tug Type, Poor Safety Management System, and Poor Navigational Risk Assessment.