EXPERIMENTAL CONTRIBUTION TO THE SAFETY ON BOARD FISHING VESSELS

It's universally accepted and supported by both national and international statistical analyses that working aboard fishing vessels is a risks activity causing accidents all over the fishing time. According to I.L.O. (International Labour Organisation) estimations, about 24000 fishermen (on a basis of 13 millions) die at sea every year in the world. In particular, 160 (on 270 000) of E.U. fishermen lost their life at work, in 1998. The safety concept involves organising, designing, managing aspects which support the working mechanism of fishermen, pointing out the whole "fishing vessel" system since the early design stage. The above mentioned statements led us to pick up a lot of measurements on board of some commercial fishing vessels, recording both vibratory and noise data, in order to characterize the potential "danger points" and then to propose possible technical solutions, according to the standards for this working environment. Noise measures allowed, in particular, individualizing the highest noise values in closed working environment. This paper gives the results of a number of experimental investigations aimed at producing suggestions to get to an improved design of such kind of vessels. To this end, starting from the operational flow analysis and evaluation of potential risks related to different fishing operations, possible technical alternatives are proposed, related either to protect fishermen from noise and vibration or to the working deck lay-out, by applying the mechanization on some elements presently used in fishing operations. This way, a contribution to raise both the safety and health level on board will be offered, according to the recently issued national and international rules on fishing vessels.