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3 THE COMMERCIAL FISHING SAFETY RECORD
Pages 38-72

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From page 38...
... . A basic issue is whether safety problems affecting fishing industry vessels and fishermen are significant enough to warrant government intervention beyond existing and planned safety regulations, voluntary efforts to improve safety, and provision of search and rescue (SAR)
From page 39...
... Vessel Total Losses Vessel casualties resulting in the total loss of the vessel. Fatalities Incidents involving loss of life.
From page 40...
... Coast Guard SAR data provide additional information on vessel casualties, but do not discriminate between documented and undocumented vessels. Fatalities CASMAIN data are believed to be fairly complete for fishing vessel fatalities occurring at sea.
From page 41...
... Crew sizes are very rough estimates based on assumptions. The actual number of persons aboard fishing industry vessels varies greatly.
From page 42...
... Although SAR data include less information than CASMAIN data, they provide useful additional information on the severity and location of SAR incidents involving commercial fishing vessels, and the general scope and nature of emergency events not meeting CASMAIN reporting thresholds. SEER Data The Coast Guard's Summary Enforcement Event Report (SEER)
From page 43...
... On average, more than 200 documented fishing industry vessels were lost each year. Vessel total losses were significantly lower in 1986 and 1987, but the information is insufficient to establish a downward trend.
From page 44...
... In assessing safety problems affecting fishing industry vessels, it is important to distinguish between these four measures. Each is important and can provide a different perspective on the nature and causes of vessel casualties.
From page 45...
... Capsizing accounted for only 2 percent of vessel casualties and 8 percent of vessel total losses, but 33 percent of vessel-related fatalities. These data demonstrate that no single type of incident stands out as the major safety problem in the commercial fishing industry.
From page 46...
... Substantial vessel casualties, vessel total losses, and vessel-casualty-related fatalities occurred in all regions. The consequences of vessel casualties also varied significantly by region.
From page 47...
... Although a resource-intensive process, some insight on this dimension could be developed by accessing CASMAIN data and casualty reports where names of vessels of certain types or engaged in certain activities, such as fish processing, are known. For example, a 1983 Coast Guard study used this methodology to determine that, from 1972 through 1982, the frequency of serious fires aboard fish processing vessels was dramatically higher than for other types of fishing industry vessels.
From page 48...
... Because of these limitations, the CASMAIN data provide only rough, but useful, indications of the relative contribution of different factors to safety problems. Figure 3-5 shows that for vessel casualties with known causes, human causes played a role in 40 percent of casualties, 45 percent of total losses, and 61 percent of those related to fatalities.
From page 50...
... of vessel total losses resulting from fires and explosions. Vessel causes were the primary cause of 33 percent of vessel total losses resulting from flooding, compared with only 3 percent from collisions.
From page 51...
... This implies that there is a need to address all of these areas in searching for a complete solution. The data also show that causes of safety problems vary widely by region; they may also vary significantly by gear type, vessel configuration, or usage, as suggested by the high incidence of fires aboard fish processing vessels reported in the 1983 Coast Guard study.
From page 52...
... SAR data attribute 75 percent of groundings and 69 percent of collisions to personnel error. Vessel Casualty Rates Fishermen commonly consider inshore operations on small and midsized fishing vessels significantly less dangerous than offshore operations on larger vessels.
From page 53...
... However, developing casualty rates for fishing industry vessels was severely hampered by the absence of reliable data on the number of fishing vessels, vessel material condition, fishing gear configurations, exposure variables, and other factors. Furthermore, there are far fewer larger vessels.
From page 54...
... Therefore, there is an insufficient basis to estimate casualty rates for state-numbered vessels. The data and rates suggest that each year, about 3.5 percent of fishing industry vessels were involved in vessel casualties meeting reporting thresholds for marine casualties.
From page 55...
... Distance Offshore Inland Waters ~ 0-3 NM 1~ 3-20 NM 20-100 NM _ ~ 100 NM FIGURE 3-11 Distribution of fishing industry search and rescue cases. 1980-1987 SAR data.
From page 56...
... The concentration of fishing-vessel SAR events close to the coast can probably be explained by the fact that most fishing takes place relatively close to shore and that all fishing vessels must transit these waters. However, it is clear from the SAR data than even close to shore, fishermen are frequently involved in life- or vessel-threatening events.
From page 59...
... The larger vessels reflect a relatively smaller number of involvements overall, yet are more likely to be involved in an incident. FATALITIES According to the CASMAIN data base, there were 648 commercial fishing fatalities from 1982 through 1987, an average of 108 per year (Table 3-4~.
From page 61...
... I FIGURE 3-17 Primary causes of commercial fishing fatalities. Source: USCG 1982-1987 CASMAIN data.
From page 62...
... Coast Guard officials believe that most commercial fishing fatalities are captured in CASMAIN data, principally because Coast Guard policy permits issuance of letters of presumptive death needed to settle estates when remains of fishermen lost at sea are not recovered. The reliability of CASMAIN fatality data could not be evaluated, except in Washington State, where state vital statistics were compared with CASMAIN data as part of the West Coast regional assessment.
From page 63...
... FIGURE 3-18 Commercial fishing fatal incident rates by vessel length. Source: USCG 1982-1987 CASMAIN data for all recorded fatal incidents.
From page 64...
... TABLE 3-5 Estimated Commercial Fishing Fatality Rates (All Fatalities) Annual Fatality Rate per Vessel Total AnnualEmployment 100,000 Category Fatalities Fatalities(thousands)
From page 65...
... Source: USCG 1982- 1987 CASMAIN data. 65 85 24 108 430 2,230 11,240 109 120 229 920 5,940 106,280 78 20 47 47 38 11 vessels will be involved in a life- or vessel-threatening event than will their counterparts on smaller fishing industry vessels.
From page 66...
... These percentages are consistent with the SAR data presented earlier, which show that a high number of life-threatening events occur inshore and on inland waters. There are limitations to the usefulness of PMR for assessing commercial fishing risks.
From page 67...
... PERSONAL INJURIES As noted earlier, insufficient data are available on which to base even a rough estimate of how many injuries occur in the commercial fishing industry or to what degree injury rates may vary by vessel length, deck layout, or other factors. However, there are sufficient data to indicate the kinds of injuries and causes of greatest concern.
From page 68...
... The scale of personal injury incidents in the fishing industry is not known but is thought to be large relative to injuries experienced in most other industries. (Art French, M.D., Alaska Sea Grant)
From page 69...
... The Commercial Fishing Industry Vessel Safety Act of 1988 (CFIVSA) calls for insurance industry procedures to collect better information on injuries.
From page 70...
... Implementation issues include overhauling existing data collection and recording practices, developing taxonomies to guide data coding, arranging to exchange or share data among organizations, and determining resource requirements. Alternative 2: Require Vessel Registration Although all uninspected commercial fishing vessels are required to carry state numbers or be documented with the Coast Guard, there is no complete record of which vessels are actively engaged in commercial fishing.
From page 71...
... Professional registration could be employed as a first step toward certification or licensing by requiring a professional registration document or card as a precondition for work in any capacity aboard fishing vessels. The card could be provided without a test, but made revokable so that persons violating regulations (such as failure to report a marine casualty)
From page 72...
... Human, vessel, and environmental causes are all major contributing factors in casualties, but the data are extremely limited. Safety-strategy design, therefore, must incorporate other information beyond hard data such as reasoning about likely causes and effects and the vast anecdotal evidence available.


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