Unlike merchant marine vessels, safety regulations for fishing vessels have been mainly left to the discretion of each national administration. Learnt from bitter experiences the global safety aspects (stability, constructions, equipment) have been improved in the last decades for the Dutch beamtrawlers, however the personal safety aspects (linked to the working conditions) are still a matter of free and competitive interest for the shipyard/designer and skipper-owner. The traditional beamer layout--single deck hull, extended forecastle and the accommodation with wheelhouse aft--gives some major unsafe drawbacks: very poor vision lines; high noise levels; high occupational accidents. Only by integration of an initial theoretical safety problem method, as developed by the Safety Science Group of the Delft University of Technology, and the practical RIVO beamtrawler design knowledge, the drawbacks can be solved with acceptable residual (occupational) risks. |
