Composition of Emergency Teams in the

Contingency Plan:
1. The Command Team – will be on the Bridge ( called Command Center)
and take overall charge of all operations. Hence, frequent feedback,
short and crisp, is necessary from each team to the Command Center.
Navigation, communication, maintenance of records of all actions and
their timings, etc. will be carried out at the Command Center.
2. The Emergency Team – would be divided into two, depending on the
emergency. Where the emergency is in the E/R, the second engineer
will be the leader of the Primary Team and Chief Officer will lead the
back-up team. If the emergency is elsewhere, the Chief Officer will be
the leader of the Primary team and the Second Engineer will lead the
backup team.
3. The Support Team – also called the medical team, will look after
administration of first aid, if and when required. They will prepare the
patients for evacuation, prepare lifeboats in case of necessity to
abandon the ship,  shut watertight doors and vents, provide assistance
to other teams as directed by the Command Team, etc.
4. Engine Room Team – also called Roving Team, will be under the
charge of Chief Engineer. They will attend to E/R systems, services and
controls, start emergency fire pump when required, isolate electricity
from compartments on fire, shut off ventilation systems to compartments
on fire and provide assistance to other teams as directed by the
command team.
5. Crew for Rescue Boat – This team is mainly for man overboard or for
picking up survivors from the water. They will prepare the rescue boat
and on specific instructions from the command team, lower and launch
the rescue boat, rescues the man or survivors and get hoisted back on
board.
IMO for preparing Contingency Plans for
Various Emergencies:

All crews are familiar with a system of procedures and guidelines for
performing potentially hazardous and safety related operations.  For example:

 Entry into enclosed spaces.

 Actions after collision.
 Abandonment.

The majority of these procedures and guidelines have been well documented
in publications such as the Code of Safe Working Practises for Seamen,
SOLAS, MARPOL, MGNs etc.  However they relied on the Master, officers
and crew remembering them from their studies.  The additional problem lay
with them being ‘generic’ rather than vessel-specific.  Other procedures were
developed from the experience of the Master on board at a particular time,
which caused confusion amongst officers and crews when the Master was
relieved.

This was one of the reasons for the introduction of ISM and, in particular, the
vessel’s SMS.

Since 1 July 2002 all vessels of 500 gross tonnes and above must carry a
SMC and will be the subject of internal and external audits to verify that the
documented procedures are being followed.  It is true to say that a large
number of companies delayed the production and subsequent approval of
their SMSs until very close to the implementation date.

Company SMSs were developed utilising a range of resources, for example

quality managers appointed from both within the company and externally,
consultancy companies and ‘off the shelf’ SMS models.  This led to a
proliferation of differing methods for producing SMSs and the ways in which
they were presented, particularly at shipboard level.
The Maritime Safety Committee (MSC) of the International Maritime
Organization (IMO) identified this as a problem area and stated that they were
“concerned that the presence on board ships of different and non-harmonized
emergency plans may be counter-productive in case of an emergency” hence
the adoption of Resolution A.852(20), on 27 November 1997, of Guidelines for
a Structure of an Integrated System of Contingency Planning for Shipboard
Emergencies.

These guidelines will be the basis for your study in preparing emergency
and damage control plans.  They may vary from the system on board your
vessel/s but the essential elements will be similar, namely : Planning,
Preparing, Training, Response actions, Reporting.