IMCA's Work on DP Incidents

The International Marine Contractors Association (IMCA) is keen to encourage ever-higher levels of reporting of dynamic positioning (DP) system station keeping incidents in order to learn by experience, and to share that experience remains key to improving safety levels.  

"No sooner had we published and circulated our seventeenth annual DP station keeping report (IMCA M 192), on incidents that occurred during 2006, than our internal team is hard at work on the preparation of the report on 2007 incidents," explains IMCA's Technical Director, Jane Bugler.

Looking Back to 2006

A total of 60 reports on station keeping incidents were received of which 59 are analysed in IMCA M 192. Of these, 37 were categorised as 'incidents', 10 as 'undesired events', one as 'down time'; five as 'near misses'; and six as 'hazard observations. Anonymised 'incident trees'

are produced for each of the 59 analysed incidents.

Range of Vessel Activity

As in the previous year, offshore loading and dive support reported the most incidents. These were closely followed by pipelay and drilling.

However, these figures are more indicative of the number of vessels reporting rather than the actual number of incidents experienced by particular vessel types.

Vessel Type Incidents

Offshore loading 17

Dive support 13

Pipelay 10

Drilling 9

ROV 6

Crane 3

Rock dumping  1

Incidents categorised by main cause: Reference systems and human area have the largest percentages as the main cause for incidents, with power generation being the most significant other area.

Main cause Number Percentage

Reference 9 25%

Human error 8 22%

Power generation 6 17%

Environment 4 11%

Computer 3 8%

Electrical 3  8%

Thruster 2 6%

External force 1 3%

TOTAL 36