The Coast Guard’s portion of a special inspection protocol over El Faro and other commercial vessels is hampered by a few key areas- budget, training, and notification are among the top, according to a USCG Officer.
The Alternate Compliance Program allows independent class societies, like the American Bureau of Shipping, to do surveys while acting as an agent of the Coast Guard. The intent behind the program is to acknowledge the work already being done by class societies, reduce how much of that work is duplicated, and lighten the burden on the Coast Guard to carry out all inspections.
Since the rollout of the program, USCG Sector San Juan Marine Inspection Training Officer Jerry McMillan says the Coast Guard has reduced the time it spends on a vessel from “two long, full days” before ACP, to only a few hours after. With the reduced hours on board, however, comes a reduction in knowledge base.
That’s one of the concerns that was raised about ACP during the initial Coast Guard Marine Board of Investigation hearing session on the El Faro sinking in February, and it took focus again Thursday.
McMillan says his main obstacle has been getting apprentice inspectors on ships to train. This is driven in part by an overall reduction in ACP marine traffic for the port, as well as the reduced number of journeymen-or longtime, experienced inspectors- available to aid in the training. Of the journeymen the Coast Guard does have, there have been issues getting them all of the preferred qualifications.
“The way the Coast Guard budget works, sometimes we don’t get the funding until late in the year, late in the fiscal year. So when the spring breakouts were happening, I don’t know if we actually had the money to do it… we didn’t have the money to do it,” McMillan says.
He told investigators he actually recently learned about $28,000 being diverted from his budget for prevention and put toward some other area which he didn’t specify. He says it’s normal for them to be short on funds.
“Could we use more people? I understand there are competing resources in the Coast Guard and those are difficult choices for the Coast Guard to make. I do the best job I can with the resources that we have, and I think we do- we do a good job. Could I use one or more people, absolutely,” says John Hannon, the Program Manager for the Coast Guard Office of Commercial Vessel Compliance US Flag Commercial Vessel Inspection Program.
He acknowledged that the priority concern identified by traveling marine inspectors for this year is getting to participate in ACP inspections.
One of the inspectors who has been held up by funding firsthand is Chief Warrant Officer Andrew Schock, who is a Marine Casualty Investigator. Schock took part in a March 2015 inspection on El Faro, which found a steering gear overturned. Schock ultimately had ABS called, although the ship was allowed to return to Jacksonville for the permanent repair.
While there were some other small problems he encountered, Shock says the ship looked good overall.
“We understood they were old ships, but our knowledge of the TOTE ships were that they were well maintained, so we didn’t really expect any problems,” Schock says.
Another obstacle to the training opportunities has been the amount of time the Coast Guard is notified ahead of a survey.
McMillan says he gets, on average, a day or two notice from the American Bureau of Shipping about pending work on a ship. He confirmed ABS itself was only finding out about the work around the same time- noting the short notice is coming from the ownership level. Guidelines require 14 days notice, but McMillan says he has never tried to postpone a survey because of a scheduling conflict, instead they just don't attend.
The Coast Guard is required to attend 10% of work relating to new construction, dry docks, and quality audits, but that same standard does not apply for statutory exams, like annual surveys.
In all, both believe ACP gets the same results as the work the Coast Guard did before.
“I would say yes, it’s equivalent, as long as it’s properly implemented,” he says.
The biggest challenge to implementation, once again, circles back to experience and resources, McMillan says.
There has been a new push among Marine Inspection Training Officers to increase training, and McMillan says they’re making some gains- including that a position has been created to focus specifically on training. Hannon says they put a strategy in place early on to also focus specialties and increase the civilian workforce to try to compensate for the decrease in training.
“We are the organization delegated with the safety of life at sea, and it’s certainly something that we take very seriously,” Hannon says.
They’re also in the process of developing some new guidelines specifically for the new LNG vessels. In fact, when asked by the Board whether Sector San Juan has made any changes to ACP inspections since the El Faro sinking, McMillan said they haven’t, mainly because they haven’t serviced any similar vessels since then. He says TOTE and other companies are in the process of rolling out newer LNG vessels, which they’re working to develop specific guidelines on.
Overall, McMillan added that TOTE is one of the better companies he has worked with in terms of safety management and vessel condition. He says he was comfortable with El Faro sailing following a March survey he was involved with on board.
In addition to speaking on ACP broadly, the witnesses also answered questions about lifeboats, which were raised by investigators earlier in the hearing. A surveyor with the American Bureau of Shipping previously told the Board that he does not have to witness lifeboats being launched in to the water and the crew operating those lifeboats in order to sign off on a ship's annual survey. He said crew proficiency testing is something that falls to the Coast Guard to verify.
McMillan says they do not actually require crews to launch lifeboats in to the water while in port, either. He says international regulations have changed in recent years to acknowledge that can be dangerous, specifically for injury to the crew or damage to the lifeboats, under the current lifeboat design. That is something that’s being reviewed, although he noted that the crew is still required to launch quarterly. There was some contradiction from Hannon and Schock, who told the Board they thought that testing would fall under ABS.
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