Wind Farm Survey - New Captain, New OOW and the Closest Approach Line
Survey vessel (anonymised)
Survey vessel · Offshore wind farm · Published February 2024
Source: IMCA SF 03/24
The Situation
You are the Captain of a survey vessel chartered to work near an offshore wind farm. This scenario takes you through the whole task of running a close-approach survey line with a new team: the familiarisation, the risk assessment, the standing orders, the shift-change brief and the run itself. Your earlier choices carry forward. It is a training reconstruction based on IMCA SF 03/24.
The Lesson
The controls are a chain: build the team before the job, write the trip line into the plan, make the call automatic in the standing orders, hand over properly, and stand down at the first breach.
Human Element
A new OOW and a new Captain who had not worked together, an unfamiliar tow, a tidal set, standing orders not followed, and a handover brief that skipped the content that mattered. Five linked stages, then a breach.
Try the First Decision
PLANNING AND PREPARATION. You have joined a survey vessel as Captain a few days ago, and your OOW also joined recently. The vessel is chartered to work near an offshore wind farm and will tow equipment. The survey needs a close approach line near the turbines. The client has set a safety zone around each turbine, and the tide runs north to south. Neither of you knows how the vessel handles at slow speed with the tow. How do you plan the work?
This is a preview — the full scenario branches from here based on what you choose, with real consequences and a debrief at the end.
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