Accidents & Personal Injury

Personal Injury – Fast Rescue Craft

Contact: Daphne Wassermann

Type of Project

Personal Injury
Mechanical Engineering
Marine

Outline of Project
A fast rescue craft was being lowered from a vessel with a maintenance engineer in the craft. The wire rope holding the craft snapped, causing injury to the engineer.

The matter hinged on the reason for the failure of the rope and whether, with good maintenance, the deterioration should have been detected. During previous maintenance the sheave over which the rope passed (photograph 2) had been replaced with a sheave of smaller dimensions. This change in geometry placed an increased load on the rope during launching of the vessel. Calculations showed that this increase alone would not cause sudden failure.

It was concluded that the rope failed by repeated small overloads caused by the undersized geometry of the sheave. The deterioration of the rope should have been visible and preventive action could have been taken.

key skills used by cadogan consultants

• Mechanical understanding and calculation
• Metallurgical knowledge
• Investigation and report writing