Contingency Response plan for Yacht Company Onshore - Case Study Example

 Contingency Response Plan for a Yacht Company Onshore Part I: Onshore Contingency Response Plan This part of the document contains the detailed onshore contingency response plan for AURORA HOLIDAYS, the luxury yacht service company. 1.1 Purpose The purpose of the contingency response plan is to ascribe responsibilities to personnel working ashore for AURORA HOLIDAYS for the purpose of responding to various emergencies that may come across on the yachts during the course of their operations. The plan of action listed herein to be taken by various personnel is intended for the purpose of personnel working ashore only. Separate afloat contingency plans are to be developed for the purpose of managing emergencies on board, which are to be maintained on board each yacht. A copy of these shall be kept at the central office, and the local offices each at the Caribbean and the Mediterranean. 1.2 Definitions The following definitions are established for the purpose of this contingency response plan. CEO CEO means the Chief Executive Officer of AURORA HOLIDAYS who is the overall in-charge of the company is responsible for all the operations of the company. Boat Manger The manager means the person in-charge of all the nautical operational matter of AURORA HOLIDAYS and looks after such issues as the deployment, defect rectification, berthing/ un-berthing, embarkation and disembarkation of all the equipment, personnel and stores required for the personnel. He is the overall in-charge as far as management of the yachts are concerned. He is the second in the chain of command who can act as the CEO in his absence. HR Manager HR Manager means the Human Resources Manager in-charge of all the human resources matter of the company. He is also the administrative head of the company. Marketing Manager He is in-charge for all the marketing activities of the company. The marketing manager is also acts as the sales manager and looks after all the marketing and selling aspects of the company. Skipper of the yachts Skipper of the yachts means, the person who is over all in-charge of the yacht. He is vested with the operational command and control of the yacht. Under the command and control of the skipper, the vessel is managed. Each yacht has a 1st mate, Chefs, seamen/women, stewards and other staff as per the required scale. Local Office Managers Local Office Manager is the person vested with the responsibilities of managing the designated local office at the specified place such as at the Caribbean and at Mediterranean. He may have personnel, equipment and facilities under his command and control. Incident Incident means a situation where life or property belonging to AURORA HOLIDAYS, either onshore or offshore, endangered due to a hazardous condition and is in a situation where it has caused or likely to cause destruction, or pollute or accident pertaining life and property pertaining to AURORA HOLIDAYS or that of others, or being a subject to such condition by others. It also includes situations in which a vessel is detained or held hostage. These situations are discussed subsequently. Controlling Officer Controlling officer means an officer of the management, usually the CEO or the next person in the command in the chain of command in the absence of the CEO, who is controlling emergency situations. He has the overall responsibility of managing the situation. Executive Officer He is an officer who executes the orders issued by the CEO. The Boat Officer is the designated executive officer. On-scene Commander On-scene Commander is the person, under whose command and control, emergency situations are being managed at the site of the incident. 1.3 Responsibilities The responsibilities assigned under the aegis of this contingency plan to the key personnel of the company are placed as under: Table 1: Responsibilities of personnel while managing incidents Designation Responsibility Duties CEO Controlling officer 1. Acts as overall in-charge. 2. Issues orders to take appropriate action depending upon the type of incidents being handled. Boat Officer Executive officer 1. Executes all the orders issued by the CEO 2. Does the duty of the Controlling officer in the absence of the CEO Human Resources Manager Administrative and Support Officer 1. Provides all necessary support during the course of an operation of an incident. Marketing Manager Public and Media Relations Officer 1. Acts as the spokesperson for the company 2. Prepares media briefing for the company in consultation with the CEO. On-Scene Commander Skipper of the concerned vessel or manager of the concerned local shore facility 1. Takes necessary action as directed by the CEO and in accordance to the SOPs. The Responsibility Chart for managing the incidents is as placed below. Figure 1: Responsibility chart for managing during contingencies 1.3 Procedure The procedures that are to be followed during emergency situations are discussed in the succeeding paragraphs. To enable effective execution of these procedures, the operational process of the company and the facilities available are discussed. 1.3.1 Operational Process AURORA HOLIDAYS is a luxury yacht service having highly specialized yachts, operating in both the Mediterranean and the Caribbean Seas. The company provides tailor made yachting, water sports, diving, and tourist services to the need of its guests. Presently it operates two yachts; as placed as under: 1. AURORA GLORY, the 85-ft Princess motor yacht 2. AURORA PRIDE, the 82-ft Oyster sailing yacht Figure 2: AURORA GLORY, the 85' Princes motor yacht of AURORA HOLIDAYS Figure 3: AURORA PRIDE, the 82' Oyster sailing yacht OF AURORA HOLIDAYS 1.3.2 Facilities In addition to the yachts, the company has following shore based facilities: Central office One small office cum store based in the Caribbean One small office cum store based in the Mediterranean The Central Office is used as its administrative headquarters, which also controls all the operations of the company such as marketing, human resources management, financial and as main liaison with various government and private agencies and professionals required for managing the services of the company. The two small offices cum store rooms based in the Caribbean and the Mediterranean are used for the purpose of maintaining liaison and also sometimes as booking office for the company. The facility map of the company is placed as under. Figure 4: The facility map of AURORA HOLIDAYS The local offices are also designed to keep small stores to meet contingency requirements while the yachts are operating in these waters. 1.4 Reporting of Incident For reporting of the incidents the following guidelines are framed. 1.4.1 What is to be reported The following incidents are considered as emergency situations and are to be informed 1. Fire on board the vessels or other facilities of the company 2. Flooding of the vessels 3. Situations arising out of natural calamities a. Severe cyclonic conditions or deep depressions caused to meteorological disturbances b. Tsunamis or earthquakes caused out of geological disturbances 4. Situations arising out of human actions a. Collision b. Piracy – taking hostage of vessel or personnel c. Causing oil pollution accidentally or due to negligent operations 5. Detention of vessel due to violation of laws of the land in which the vessel is operating 6. Any other situation, which the skipper of the vessel or in charge of the facility considers to be beyond his/her control 1.4.2 To whom the report is to be made Apart from following the standard reporting procedure to be followed on board, all incidents leading to emergency situations are required to be reported immediately to the highest authority i.e. the CEO irrespective of the time of the day or night. Simultaneously, the boat officer is to be informed. Other officers such as the HRM and the Marketing Manager are also required to be kept in picture. 1.4.3 Who can initiate the report Under ordinary circumstances, the report can be initiated by the concerned skipper of the vessel or the manager of the facility. However, in emergency situations, this can be initiated by the witness of the incident, who may even be the lowest formation of the personnel hierarchy. The communication channels to be adhered under these circumstances are placed in the figure below. Figure 5: Communication channels to be followed for reporting of the incidents In the figure above, note the bold red lines, which denote the communication channel to be followed for reporting of incidents. 1.4.4 How the report is to be made Every attempt is to be made by the person reporting the incident to disseminate the information using the fastest available means, which may include but not limited to radio phones, cell phones, landline phones, Internet phones employing voice, SMS, or MMS, E-mail or Fax or any other means that is tenable by the reporting person at the time of reporting. 1.5 Implementation of Procedure 1.5.1 On receiving the report Immediately, on receiving report, each incident is to be evaluated on the basis of the gravity of the situation. Accordingly, action for the situation is to be initiated as per the standard operating procedures (SOP) developed for each situation, in the form of check-lists and guidelines. These checklists and guidelines are to be available on board each vessel and also at the Central office, in-addition to the concerned local offices. It is expected that the officers controlling specific emergency situations, the on-scene commanders, and other personnel involved in handling the incident are required to be fully conversant with the situations so that they can make appropriate decision to mitigate the situation. 1.5.2 Issuance of Instructions Implementation of the procedures may be carried out by issuing instructions by the Controlling Officer or his/her designated staff, delivered either as oral instructions, or as written orders. On receiving the instruction, the intended person or persons is to take necessary actions as directed by the instruction or deemed fit under the particular circumstance, which may include such actions as: Gathering of information Actions for seeking assistance Controlling of information Execution of specific actions during the situation Actions after the incident Review of the incident Keeping records of the incident The list is not exhaustive, but may include other actions depending upon the nature of the situation, stage of the situation or rapidity with which a situation may develop. 1.5.3 Time for implementation As in a developing emergent situation, not much time is generally not available; therefore, to best time limit to implement the order is always immediately on receipt of the information. However, in occasions where it is possible to have more time at disposal before onset of the situation or time available before initiation of actions, implementation may be delayed accordingly. 1.6 Gathering of Information All out efforts are to be made for gathering authentic information from all possible sources and compiled accurately so that the actions ordained for mitigating the situations are without any ambiguity. Gathering of information is also to be encouraged by all personnel concerning a situation. 1.7 Actions for Assistance In incidents where the need for external assistance for instance in case of fire, or flooding or hijacking and so on, a predetermined list of agencies and personnel are to be contacted is to be made available in advance. Such lists are to be along with the standard operating procedures (SOP) folder, which will facilitate communication to the concerned authorities, agencies or personnel as necessary. The list may include contact details of such authorities and agencies as: Yacht repair agencies Pollution clean-up agencies The Fire Department Port or Harbor control Coastguard Immigration authorities Anti-piracy headquarters Hospital and medical facilities Police Surveyors Insurance agents Media personnel and media management companies The lists are to be made on the basis of full examination of the type of situation is made and a separate checklist is to be made for each situation, which are to be available with the SOP folder. 1.8 Control of Information Control of flow of flow information especially prevention of unnecessary information to unauthorized and to people or agency, not concerning with the incident is to be controlled. To enable this effectively, a spokesperson is to be designated, under normal circumstances; the Marketing Manager will normally act as the Public Relation Officer (PRO) of the company unless otherwise specified in published memorandums of the company. To exercise effective control and to enable dissemination of factual and relevant information, the PRO will prepare timely briefings in consultation with the CEO and hand them out to the media and any other agency that needs information pertaining to the incident. Managing the media being a tricky task, and being of utmost importance for portrayal of right image of the company, at no stage, the PRO will hand out any information to the media or any unauthorized agency or personnel. Likewise, no person other than the PRO or an officer designated by the CEO is to divulge any information to the media or any unauthorized agency or personnel. 1.9 After the Incident 1.9.1 Rendering of report On termination of the operations of the incident, all concerned officers and personnel are to render detailed report on the incident. The report is to be submitted in the prescribed format and to be containing the prescribed information. 1.9.2 Compilation of report On receiving the reports from various officers and personnel, the Human Resources Manager is to compile and prepare it for review. 1.10 Incident Review 1.10.1 Conduct of review meeting After an incident has taken place, it is essential to review it so that shortcomings committed can be identified and corrective actions can be taken. For this purpose, a review meeting is to be convened as soon as the incident is over or at the earliest available opportunity and in any case not later than a week after the incident is over. 1.11 Records Records pertaining to the incidents may be carefully compiled and kept for posterity and for such purposes as: Claiming insurance benefits Submission as documentary proof to be submitted to various authorities or in the court of law Submissions of evidences in the case of criminal offenses As a case study for handling similar situations in future For the purpose of building company archive 1.12 Information flows outside of office hours Under demanding situations, when there is a requirement to disseminate information outside of office hours, all such information is to be passed invariably through the CEO. In all other circumstances, the communication channel as depicted in Fig 5 is to be followed. 1.13 Advices to agents The companies’ agents, suppliers and distributors working closely with the company are advised to follow the instructions contained in this plan. This would not only ensure projection of all entities involved in the supply chain of providing luxury-yacht services as a seamless organization, but also help contain damage or loss caused due to the particular incident to a large extent. Appendices Appendix 1 – Home Contact No. of Officers of Central office Appendix 2 – Home Contact No. of Personnel of Yacht-1 Appendix 3 – Home Contact No. of Personnel of Yacht-2 Appendix 4 - Home Contact No. of Personnel of Local Office (Caribbean) Appendix 5 - Home Contact No. of Personnel of Local Office (Mediterranean) Appendix 6 - Contact No. of Personnel from Insurance Agencies Appendix 7 - Contact No. of Personnel from Other Agencies: Lawyers, Surveyors, Chemists, Pollution and environmental officers, Port and Harbor control, Coastguard, Police, Fire fighting department Appendix 8 - Media Response - MTI Appendix 9 - Internal Phone List Appendix 10 - Agents List Appendix - Personal Log Part II: Critical Appreciation of Contingency Response Plan In this part of the document, the critical appreciation of the Contingency Response Plan (CRP) pertaining to the company is undertaken for the following scenarios: 1. Collision 2. Cyclone 3. Piracy Three scenarios were developed based on the above three situations and the contingency response plan (CRP) developed in Part I was put to test. The difficulties encountered and the defects found were analyzed in the light of the following thought leaders: 1. At what point does the situation become an " emergency" 2. Who makes that decision? 3. How is the command structure defined? 4. Who needs to be within that command structure? 5. How are you going to delegate responsibilities? 6. What external organisations will you need to contact? 7. How are your actions and decisions coordinated and recorded? 8. At what point does can the situation be downgraded and passed back to normal operations? The reflections made out of the evaluation of the CRP in each of these scenarios are placed in the succeeding paragraphs. 2.1 Scenarios 2.1.1 Scenario One: Collision at Sea As per the preliminary information received by the company’s central office that the 85’ Prince-motor yacht collided with another vessel while making a trans-Atlantic cruise to the Caribbean. 2.1.2 Scenario Two: Cyclone Communication with the 82’foot Oyster sailing yacht has been lost since the fast three days. The last known position was when about 76 hours before the vessel was cruising over Sargasso Sea, while making a trans-Atlantic voyage to Caribbean. A severe cyclonic storm was forecasted in the area, 200 miles east to the vessels last know position. Besides, Gulf Stream with very strong currents are expected to retard the vessels progress towards the Caribbean. 2.1.3 Scenario Three: Piracy The 82’ luxury Oyster sailing yacht with the family of a wealthy guest on board has been hijacked and the hijackers are demanding usually high ransom and are threatening to mutilate or even kill the guests if their demand is not within 24 hours. 2.2 Reflections The three scenarios were considered in the light of the eight thought leaders and the reflections made are placed in the following paragraphs. In Scenario One, it is not clear form the contingency plan that at what point does the situation become an “emergency". A collision could be a head-on collision rendering the vessel totally unseaworthy, even can’t be towed back to the nearest harbor for effecting repair works. Similarly, in the case of Scenario Two, it is not clear how to judge whether, the situation has become an emergency. However, in Scenario Three, there is no ambiguity due to the gravity and urgency or the situation. Likewise, both Scenario One and Scenario Two, it is also not clear from the CRP, who actually would make the decision whether the situation has reached emergency stage. It is natural that assigning an incident as an emergency would be taken by the CEO, but this should have been clearly spelt out in the CRP. However, to act on all the three scenarios, the command structure is well defined with clear assigning of the responsibilities and communication lines. All the personnel available and needed to be in the command structure have been included. Besides, for all the scenarios, delegation of responsibilities is easy along the designated lines starting from all the orders emanating from the CEO, down the second-in-command in the chain of command, who is designated to execute all the orders. For all the three scenarios, though the CRP makes a mention of the list of agencies to be contacted but does not clearly elucidate which external organisations are to be contacted under what type of emergency. Similarly, even though the CRP makes a mention of recording the events, yet it does not in any manner provide guidelines to how the actions and decisions are to be coordinated and recorded. For instance, if a log of all the decisions and actions are kept, who would maintain that, and where it will be kept and so on. Another important lacuna observed in the CRP that it is silent about the point at which a situation can be downgraded and reverted back to normal operations. Bibliography Read More