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Commercial Fisheries News
Volume 35 Number 2
October 2007
Conducting effective emergency drills; remember ‘Four Ts’
Our last article (see CFN August 2007) discussed ensuring that each individual on board who has not received instructions and/or has not participated in emergency drills receive a safety orientation. We created a new crewmember checklist and the specific duties of each new individual in an emergency drill.
It is fairly simple to review and check off the safety equipment and its use on the checklist. However, captains often ask me what constitutes an effective drill?
The answer is the “Four Ts” – training, teamwork, technique, and tension. Always keep these in mind when conducting an emergency drill.
Training:
• Each drill should result in crewmembers knowing more than they did before the drill and should instill confidence in them to better deal with emergencies.
• Federal commercial fishing vessel safety regulations require drills to cover a wide range of possible scenarios.
• Debriefing the crew after the drill is as important as conducting the drill.
Teamwork:
• Teamwork is a function of attitude, which starts at the top.
• Crewmembers should learn to work together.
• Crewmembers should learn to take orders from each other and delegate responsibilities.
• Stress the importance of effective communication and leadership.
Technique:
• Crewmembers should learn how to work together.
• Make every attempt to cross-train your crewmembers; you never know if a crewmember will be injured and unable to respond.
• When debriefing following a drill, always emphasize the positive points; refer to negative outcomes as “areas for improvement.”
Tension:
• Make drills as realistic as possible without endangering anyone.
• Crews should learn to work under certain amounts of stress.
• Introduced stress should be positive; belittling and ridiculing are not only ineffective, but also counterproductive.
Prepare to train
Another important ingredient in conducting an effective drill is to prepare yourself to train other crewmembers. Here are a few ideas:
• Know what you want to happen as a result of your training;
• Be enthusiastic about your training topics;
• Develop a positive attitude toward drills;
• Emphasize better and safer work habits to reduce the likelihood of a disaster happening; and
• Stress the importance of initial response in a real emergency.
It’s also important to know what you are trying to communicate. Prior to conducting training, review supplemental training aids, and attend safety training session and safety workshops with hands-on training.
Believe that you and your crew must:
• Be safe.
• Be knowledgeable.
• Be ready.
• Be able to aggressively and effectively deal with a sudden emergency.
And be future-oriented. There is always room for improvement. Never focus on how poorly things were done in the past.
Don’t fight the regulations. If you don’t support them, your crew won’t either. Then everyone loses! The crew’s attitude toward emergency drills reflects the drill leader’s attitude toward them.
A good slogan to remember is: “Train as you operate and operate as you train.”
Listen
Conducting drills is about continuous learning and improving for both the drill leader/instructor and the crew.
Be an active listener, treat everyone as a valued member of the team, and be sure to utilize the talents and experience of the crew. Use the firefighter as the leader on the firefighting team, the diver as the man overboard retriever, etc.
An effective drill encompasses the fact that you will more than likely have to deal with multiple events during an actual emergency, such as firefighting, flooding, man overboard, and abandon ship.
The precise way drills are conducted will closely reflect the way a crew is likely to respond in an emergency.
Fred Mattera
NESTCo
A qualified Coast Guard-approved marine drill instructor, Fred Mattera is the owner/president of North East Safety Training Co. (NESTCo), which conducts fishing vessel drills and inspections and basic safety training workshops.
Mattera has been a commercial fisherman since 1972 and the owner of the Point Judith, RI-based 84' freezer trawler Travis & Natalie since 1984.
He also has been the president of the Point Club, a fishing vessel mutual insurance group, since 1998 and has served on the board of directors for Sunderland Marine Mutual Insurance Co., the principal underwriter for the Point Club and more than 2,000 US fishing vessels, since 1998.
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