The North of
England P&I club has published an authoritative illustrated guide to the main 'rules of the road' for shipping to help reduce the significant annual losses suffered by the industry due to collisions and other avoidable navigational errors.
An international survey by the Nautical Institute last year* revealed nearly 50% of seagoing officers believe navigational errors are due to ignorance or disregard of the IMO International Regulations for Preventing Collisions at Sea, 1972 (Colregs).
Institute president Captain Robbie Middleton has thus strongly supported the new publication, which he believes 'provides a valuable text to re-establish good practice'.
In his foreword Captain Middleton says: 'For experienced officers there is an opportunity to work through the text as a refresher and to use the booklet as a training aid when coaching junior officers and cadets on watch.'
The 30-page ring-bound booklet is based on the popular series of Colregs posters published by the North of England since 2001. The posters cover the 10 most widely used rules with a reminder of the rule text and a good-practice illustration.
'The Colregs poster are supplemented in the booklet by brief but expert guidance on how to implement the rules and avoid the pitfalls,' says Steven Jones, risk-management executive at the North of England.
Much of the text is written by Captain Roger Syms who, since 2002, has been heavily involved with the Nautical Institute's strategic Colregs project and is thus directly aware of world-wide experience and failings of the regulations. The UK Government's Marine Accident Investigation Branch has also contributed a number of the ideas in the guide.
The North of England has distributed the publication this month to all members and ships entered in the 50 million GT club.
Copies are also available to non-members, price £30, from the club's distributor Anchorage Press, 275 St Margarets Road, Twickenham, TW1 1PN, UK, telephone +44(0) 20 8892 9905, email mail@anchoragepress.co.uk, web www.anchoragepress.co.uk.