Man over board!

Greenpeace as an organization prides itself on safety. Safety underpins everything we do and we always make sure all our staff and activists are up with best practice, and HAVE practiced, so that no one comes to any harm.

A big part of any ship work is training. Anyone who goes on the ship must have a week’s worth of onboard training, and even en route, the training continues!

Here’s a post from Dan, second mate on the ship, and an experienced participant in MOB (man over board) exercise carried out yesterday en route to Lyttleton.

The time is 1600, and three prolonged rings of the ship’s alarm bells mark the start of this month’s MOB exercise. The Rainbow Warrior is six nautical miles due East of Cape Turnaround and with the sound of the alarm bells still ringing in the crew's ears, the old girl begins her own turnaround, this one a specialist MOB maneuver known as a Williamson turn. Coaxing the vessel around takes a while; with long-time Captain Derek ably assisted by the matinee idol of the ship - 2nd Mate Dan (who coincidentally is the writer of this blog).

In the mean time the cook, one of the ship's engineers, and a member of the campaign team keep an eye out for the simulated MOB (a small buoy weighted with a shackle) and stay pointing at “him/her” so as not to lose sight of them. The British Built ex-trawler soon provides a lee in which to launch the designated rescue boat. There is a hive of controlled activity on the main deck - launching a boat in open water can be hazardous work. But under the watchful eye of Chief Mate Pep all goes well and the boat and crew are soon in the water speeding to the casualty .

Pablo and Alex, the crew in the rescue boat, are directed via VHF radio and quickly find and recover the "person". Upon their return the boat is recovered and the exercise is over. All in all a very successful drill. But after realising how hard it is to see a small object floundering amongst the waves, a few of the campaign crew pledge to constantly wear fluoro so they'd be easy to see. I expect a sudden and drastic drop in fashion standards onboard.

- Dan