The Safe Return to Port regulations have been in place since July 2010. Reaffirmed by the Bahamas Maritime Authority in its bulletin of October 2018 (Bulletin No.179), and later released in marine notice of January 2020 (Marine Notice 03), it is the operator’s responsibility to show ongoing compliance throughout the vessel’s lifetime. The requirement is to demonstrate the crew’s ability to respond to a Safe Return to Port casualty and restore critical system functionality within the specified timeframe of one hour for propulsion and manoeuvring systems and two hours for systems supporting safe areas.

The problem

The impact of this regulation on the operation of passenger vessels is not to be underestimated: the crew need to understand exactly which actions need to be taken in every possible SRTP casualty to restore system functionality. For large and complex vessels, this can mean understanding the actions associated with hundreds of different casualties, each of which can require many actions: there may be up to 100 different actions in different locations along the vessel.

Relying purely on the shipyard-delivered SRTP documentation can prove difficult in practice: the documentation is written for Class approval not for operational use, which means that the process of selecting the casualty and understanding every associated action, its dependencies and priority is complicated, even in the simplest of vessels. Besides the data management issue, there is the logistical issue of managing a large response team and of understanding overall response progress and issues, as well as being able to transfer lessons learnt to the next drill or crew.

The solution

SRtP Onboard™ is a software solution that supports the officers and crew in managing the response to an SRTP casualty: it provides the crew with all information relevant to each casualty and simplifies the logistical complexity through the assignment of actions to mobile groups and monitoring progress of the entire response in real time. Action cards, either in paper form or via WiFi-connected tablets, give the crew the necessary information to locate and carry out their assigned tasks. Inherent continuous improvement is built into the software: the underlying data can be updated after each drill so that the lessons learnt are available for the future. Detailed reports are available after each drill so that issues can be understood, and to prove compliance to the appropriate authority.

The software

SRtP Onboard™ provides a proven and complete SOLAS Safe Return to Port solution to support the operational requirements and to provide continuous evidence of compliance to Flag. Fully compliant with IMO as well as the Bahamas Maritime Authority Marine Notice 03, SRtP Onboard™ software delivers a powerful, fully digitised solution and a proven process for operators of vessels of any size.