ROBERT PENNER
Chief, Maritime Safety
U.S. Army Transportation School
Joint Base Langley-Eustis, Virginia
The weather is getting nicer, but the inside of your Army watercraft is still carrying its winter bulk. It’s time to shed that winter fluff and take care of your accumulation of equipment. Technical Manual (TM) 4-15.21, Maritime Standards and Safety, defines excess equipment as “any equipment carried in excess of BII [basic issue items] requirements for general purposes or specifically to be used by the crew for training.” Excess equipment may be nice to have, just in case, but it also poses hazards.
Excess equipment can make the already overwhelming maintenance obligation of our vessels more overwhelming, as TM 4-15.21 states, “Excess emergency and safety equipment must be serviceable and properly maintained.” Excess equipment often gets forgotten about and starts to waste away, rendering it unserviceable. Some of it is already unserviceable, hoping to be used for parts. We have encountered this many times in our safety inspections. The wrong piece of equipment is brought out for inspection and doesn’t run, only for the crew to realize this was the equipment they were using for parts. Imagine you were on a vessel in an emergency and the “parts” equipment was mistakenly brought out to be used in a lifesaving situation. This could waste valuable minutes of response time or even cost a Soldier their life.
Living space is tight onboard vessels. We learn to squirrel away things in just about every nook and cranny we can find. During our safety inspections, we find excess equipment in compartments, closets, passageways and even blocking emergency escapes, making movement and egress a particularly difficult process, sometimes impossible. In some cases, we find excess equipment blocking access to lifesaving or firefighting equipment. We also find inappropriate storage activities so often that Watercraft Safety Advisory 01-05 was written.
On top of egress difficulties, excess equipment may also pose a fire hazard, which is defined by TM 4-15.21 as “increased fire load items such as plastic trashcans and unauthorized flammable paneling. … General housekeeping will also keep fire hazards to a minimum.” Increased fire load items are anything that will provide more fuel for any fires that may occur. One of the responsibilities of the crews is to ensure you keep the fire load — such as the wooden shelf you expertly crafted out of spare plywood for your 18-inch entertainment center or the plastic trashcans we find all the time on just about every vessel — to a minimum. Plastic not only increases the fire load, but it also introduces toxic fumes when burning. That is why TM 4-15.21 identifies plastic trashcans as unauthorized for use onboard watercraft.
There are several documented cases where fires were caused by inappropriately stored fire loads. Watercraft Safety Advisory 17-01 addresses concerns specifically for the Logistic Support Vessel. Avoid storing a high volume of Class A materials in spaces with high temperatures (exhaust stack spaces, linen closets near incandescent lightbulbs). Class A fires involve wood and wood products, cloth, textiles and fibrous materials, paper and paper products. Vessel masters and chief engineers, as you conduct your monthly sanitary inspections, take a moment to assess what you really need to keep onboard to stay running. Do yourself and your crew a favor and determine if you really need some of the extra equipment onboard, or could it be better served turned in or stored in a container for other vessels to use.
If we’re in your area and you would like us to conduct a courtesy walk-through, just let us know! For further information or copies of the Watercraft Safety Advisories, please contact the Maritime Standards and Safety Office at (757) 878-1327, DSN 826-1327 or email at maritimesafety@army.mil.
Editor’s note: This article was originally published in The Spearhead, the official newsletter of the U.S. Army Transportation Corps & School.