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Damage Stability
Damage Stability
Damage Stability
Damage stability has been one of the buzz word in the maritime
industry in last few years.
And you’re doing yourself a massive disservice if you don’t take time to
understand damage stability.
Sometime you may find all this as one booklet called “damage stability
booklet”. And on some ships, you may find three different booklets
titled as above.
A plan showing clearly for each deck and hold the boundaries of the
watertight compartments, the opening therein with means of closing
and position of any control thereof, and arrangement for the correction
of any list due to flooding.
In simple words, the plan needs to show the
layout of all the compartments such as cargo tanks, ballast tanks, fuel
tanks etc.
Apart from all this information, the location of these will be displayed
on the ship’s plan.
2) Damage control booklet
The name says it all. This booklet gives the information to the master
about how to control the effect of damage.
Sounding of tanks to check where the water is flooding and with what
rate
Along with this information, some ship’s damage control booklet may
also provide a flow chart to deal with damage situations. Below is one
of such flowchart.
Rest of the damage control booklet will consist of the information and
guidance to support required actions as per this flowchart.
For example, one of the action requires the vessel to monitor tank
sounding. Damage control booklet will have one section with the ready
format for recording tank soundings.
These are the calculations made during the design stage of the ship
and verified after the construction.
The damage cases are not applied to the ballast conditions because the
damage stability requirements apply to the tankers in loaded condition
only.
For this ship below are the loaded conditions in the intact stability
booklet.
Let us take damage case 101. This damage case requires assuming
damage to 6 compartments.
After these assumed damages, the ship needs to comply with damage
stability requirements mentioned in MARPOL Annex I, Reg 28.
As per Marpol Annex I, reg 28…
And for damage case 101, we will have a total of 9 damage stability
conditions, each for one loading conditions. Let us name these
conditions as
Each damage case will have 9 damage stability conditions. For this
ship, there are a total of 21 damage cases and total 9 intact loaded
conditions.
And the end results of these calculations are supposed to comply with
the damage stability criteria as per MARPOl Annex I, reg 28.
Let me explain.
But in reality, our actual loading conditions during the voyages may be
totally different from that in intact stability condition.
Our actual loading may not match with any of the loading conditions in
the stability booklet.
All oil tankers of 5000 T deadweight or more shall have prompt access
to computerized shore-based damage stability and residual structural
strength calculation programs.
In the real world, this program is usually named as “emergency
response service” and is provided by classification societies.
Though this is mandatory for oil tankers, ship owners prefer this
service for other types of vessels too, especially on container ships.
In case of a damage and breach of hull plating, the master can call this
number and update regarding the incident.
Master then need to send the initial reports, loading condition before
the damage and extent of damage by email.
It can be used for showing the compliance with the damage stability
requirements. Some vessels still do not have the facility in the
loadicator to calculate damage stability.
If the vessel’s actual loading condition is not matching with any of the
pre-defined loadicator conditions in the intact stability booklet, this
loading condition can be sent to the ERS.
They will check the loading condition and advise if it complies with the
damage stability requirements.
Conclusion
A seafarer may or may not go through any incident requiring the use
of damage stability on board.
Knowing about damage stability does not mean knowing the complex
calculations. It is to know the exact actions in case of damage and
knowing about the resources on board that would help in these
actions.