4 Damage control booklets
Clasification Society 2024 - Version 9.40
Statutory Documents - IMO Publications and Documents - Circulars - Maritime Safety Committee - MSC.1/Circular.1245 – Guidelines for Damage Control Plans and Information to the Master – (29 October 2007) - Annex - Guidelines for Damage Control Plans and Information to the Master - 4 Damage control booklets

4 Damage control booklets

  4.1 The information listed in section 3 should be repeated in the damage control booklet.

  4.2 The damage control booklet should include general instructions for controlling the effects of damage, such as:

  • .1 immediately closing all watertight and weathertight closing appliances;

  • .2 establishing the locations and safety of persons on board, sounding tanks and compartments to ascertain the extent of damage and repeated soundings to determine rates of flooding; and

  • .3 cautionary advice regarding the cause of any list and of liquid transfer operations to lessen list or trim, and the resulting effects of creating additional free surfaces and of initiating pumping operations to control the ingress of water.

  4.3 The booklet should contain additional details to the information shown on the damage control plan, such as the locations of flooding detection systems, sounding devices, tank vents and overflows which do not extend above the weather deck, pump capacities, piping diagrams, instructions for operating cross-flooding systems, means of accessing and escaping from watertight compartments below the bulkhead deck for use by damage control parties, and alerting ship management and other organizations to stand by and to co-ordinate assistance, if required.

  4.4 If applicable to the ship, locations of non-watertight openings with non-automatic closing devices through which progressive flooding might occur should be indicated as well as guidance on the possibility of non-structural bulkheads and doors or other obstructions retarding the flow of entering seawater to cause at least temporary conditions of unsymmetrical flooding.

  4.5 If the results of the subdivision and damage stability analyses are included, additional guidance should be provided to ensure that the ship's officers referring to that information are aware that the results are included only to assist them in estimating the ship's relative survivability.

  4.6 The guidance should identify criteria on which the analyses were based and clearly indicate that the initial conditions of the ship's loading extents and locations of damage, permeabilities, assumed for the analyses may have no correlation with the actual damaged condition of the ship.


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