Board Of Inquiry News

Three Indian Navy personnel were killed in an explosion on a ship at a naval dockyard in Mumbai on Tuesday, the navy said.It gave no reason for the blast but said a board of inquiry would investigate."The ship's crew responded immediately and quickly brought the situation under control.

Improved funding and management changes have the nation’s largest ferry system on a course to better times. Challenges remain, but WSF tackles each one in turn. Unlike the citizens of British Columbia, which pays a German shipyard to build its ferries, Washington state residents resolutely invest at home. By law, ferries are built locally and the results, overall, seem win-win. The state’s Office of Financial Management estimates that every $75 million in ferry construction generates about $90 million for the state’s economy.

The guide helps to identify countermeasures to avoid human errors and bad decisions. Discover how to manage the human element on all levels – from the engine room, to the bridge, to the shore. From our summary of “The Human Element – A Guide to Human Behavior in the Shipping Industry,” we examine the chapters “Making Sense of Things” and “Risk Taking,” breaking down the most relevant information. Dirk Gregory and Paul Shanahan of the UK Maritime and Coastguard Agency developed the original guide. People are surrounded by vast amounts of information and need to make sense of it all.

Senate bill aims to mitigate impact of labor disputes at America’s ports. In a letter sent today, the Retail Industry Leaders Association (RILA) welcomed the introduction of the Protecting Orderly and Responsible Transit of Shipments (PORTS) Act in the U.S Senate. The bill, sponsored by Senator Cory Gardner (R-CO), would amend the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) to provide state governors a mechanism under federal law to mitigate the destructive impact of port labor disputes on the economy at both the state and federal level. Specifically, the legislation would authorize a governor from a state where a port labor dispute is causing economic harm to form a board of inquiry and start the Taft Hartley process.

Washington State Ferry M/V Tacoma will return to work on the Seattle/Bainbridge Island route starting March 28 after suffering electrical damage last summer. The Tacoma lost power and suffered significant damage to its electrical switchboard system transiting from Seattle to Bainbridge Island in July 2014, requiring ferry maintenance workers, engineers and contractors to spend eight months inspecting and rebuilding the system. In mid-March, crews conducted a battery of tests at the dock and at sea to ensure the electrical system is fully operational.

Capt. George A. Capacci Interim Assistant Secretary WSDOT/Ferries Division reports in the 'WSF Weekly Update'  on the 'Tacoma' repair plan as follows: "This week, we received an initial update on the Tacoma repair plan from Siemens Marine Solutions. The report says a fuse blew in the vessel’s propulsion control system without indication to the operating engineers, triggering a chain of events that led to the power failure. We continue to review the cause of the incident. A Board of Inquiry, WSF’s highest level of investigation, convened this week and expects to complete their work once the vessel repair is complete. Preliminary findings show the Tacoma will be out of service until at least December 2014. Source: WSF Weekly Update

Interim Assistant Secretary WSDOT/Ferries Division, Capt. George A. Capacci, says that ongoing investigations suggest that damage to the ferry's propulsion system following a 29, July disabling breakdown may be more extensive than previously thought. "This week, WSF engineers, alongside vendor technicians from Siemens Global, Inc., continued to take part in an ongoing and thorough investigation into what went wrong in the Tacoma’s loss of propulsion power on July 29. Siemens believes the damage is more extensive than the initial review revealed. For this reason, Siemens will require additional time to complete their investigation and prepare a recommended repair plan. "This has been a challenging week for Washington State Ferries and the customers we serve.

HMCS 'Algonquin' and HMCS 'Protecteur' return to Esquimalt harbour following their collision while conducting exercise manoeuvres en route to Hawaii. There were no reported injuries. “The Royal Canadian Navy will be conducting an investigation into this unfortunate incident in order to determine exactly what happened,”said Commodore Bob Auchterlonie, Commander of Canadian Fleet Pacific. The two warships were conducting towing exercises, which require close-quarters manoeuvring, when the incident occurred.

Three sailors were killed and 19 injured, 11 of them seriously, in a fire that broke out on board naval warship INS Magar on the evening of Feb. 22, as it was dumping live expired missiles off the Visakhapattanam coast. The warship was reaching the end of operations to dump explosives when one of the remaining four to five missile boxes went off. The victims were immediately airlifted and rushed to Kalyani hospital and the naval base. The ship suffered no major damage and returned safely to harbor on its own. The navy has ordered a board of inquiry to probe the cause of the incident. (Source: www.expressindia.com)

"There is no need for a presidential board of inquiry or a court injunction to end the lockout of more than 10,000 dockworkers at West Coast ports. Members of the ILWU have offered to return to work as soon as their employers take the locks off the docks. If port owners -- represented by the Pacific Maritime Association (PMA) -- will simply accept the union's offer, then ILWU members can return to work while both sides continue working toward a settlement. "Federal intervention in labor disputes is a bad idea. It's an especially bad idea when carried out by a president who has tried repeatedly to limit -- and even eliminate -- the right of workers to join unions and bargain collectively.