Seven IMCA Safety Flashes About the Bridge Team: Alarms, Wind Farms, a Quiet Watch and a Transfer Nobody Stopped
Source: IMCA Safety Flashes SF 17/25, SF 03/24, SF 01/24, SF 21/22, SF 24/20, SF 17/26 and SF 18/24, several drawn from MAIB and American P&I Club reports
Why these seven: each is a short, public case about how a bridge team shares work, information and authority
Relevant to: Masters, OOWs, DP Operators, workboat and survey vessel crews, anyone who stands a bridge watch
Why Read Safety Flashes About The Bridge
IMCA’s Safety Flashes are short, anonymised and published for free. Most are about equipment and lifting. A handful are about something harder to engineer: how the people on the bridge divide the work, talk to each other and decide when to stop. We picked seven. Bridge resource management is usually described in terms of principles: allocating resources, communicating, assertiveness and leadership, situational awareness, and the experience of the team. Each flash below shows one of them failing, or working.
| Flash | Date | What happened | BRM principle most in play |
|---|---|---|---|
| SF 17/25 Handling alarms on the bridge | 17 Sep 2025 | A DPO silencing an alarm pressed the adjacent Take button and put the vessel in manual lever mode. | Communication and workload (alarm load, panel design) |
| SF 03/24 Navigation near wind turbines | 12 Feb 2024 | A survey vessel entered a turbine safety zone twice; the OOW turned the wrong way and did not tell the Captain. | Team experience and situational awareness |
| SF 01/24 Workboat collision with turbine platform | 9 Jan 2024 | The master did paperwork at the chart table while steering by hand between turbines; nobody was keeping a lookout. | Allocation of resources |
| SF 21/22 Vessel grounding, fatigue was a factor | 26 Sep 2022 | A mate asleep on a calm night watch grounded a tow after 29 hours worked in 48. | Allocation of resources (rest as a resource) |
| SF 24/20 Positive stop work by Master | 14 Aug 2020 | A Master challenged a sailing order on dangerous goods rules; his company backed him. | Assertiveness and leadership (positive) |
| SF 17/26 Vessel contact during materiel transfer | 1 Oct 2026 | Two vessels moored alongside drifted together as weather worsened; neither master suspended the transfer. | Assertiveness and shared situational awareness |
| SF 18/24 Loss of propulsion control (KIRKELLA) | 3 Sep 2024 | A control handover accepted with mismatched levers; collision with a tug. | Communication (closed loop) |
SF 03/24: A New OOW And A New Captain
During survey operations a chartered vessel entered a wind turbine safety zone twice while trying to achieve the closest approach line. The first breach was handled on board with a safety stand down; after the second, the vessel was immediately stood down and told to leave the site until safe controls were agreed with the client.
IMCA lists the causes. The OOW lost situational awareness and turned to port when he should have turned to starboard, given the north-to-south tidal set. He was experienced, but new to this vessel and did not know its slow-speed handling while towing equipment. The Captain was also new, so the bridge team had not worked together long. The OOW did not tell the Captain when control of the vessel was lost. The team did not fully appreciate the risk of close-quarters navigation near an offshore structure, standing orders were not followed, and the bridge toolbox talk at shift change was not properly done.
Its recommendations: strengthen bridge watchkeeping standards and route planning for close-quarters work; give the shift-change toolbox talk and handover more time and detail on confidence, awareness, communication and contingency scenarios; and strengthen the vetting of crew competence and suitability, both by the member and the charter company, and again before a project starts.
SF 01/24: The Chart Table Is Not A Lookout
A workboat transferring two teams to two wind turbines was steered slowly between the turbines by its master, who also did paperwork at the chart table. Absorbed in the work and losing track of time, he did not keep a proper lookout. The boat, travelling at about 5 knots with the autopilot off (company orders did not allow it in wind farms), slowly turned to starboard and its bow struck one of the towers. One crew member suffered two broken ribs. The mate was on the aft deck doing familiarisation training and the crew member was busy elsewhere. The crew were relatively new to the wind farm.
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