What is a risk assessment on a ship and how is it done?

A risk assessment is the systematic thinking-through of a job before it starts: what could cause harm, how likely and how severe that harm would be, and what controls will bring the risk down to an acceptable level. Under the ISM Code every ship's safety management system must assess the risks to people, the ship and the environment, so risk assessment is not an optional formality but the working core of shipboard safety, applied to routine tasks through generic assessments and to non-routine or hazardous work through job-specific ones.

The method follows recognisable steps. Identify the hazards: moving machinery, stored energy, work at height, enclosed spaces, chemicals, electricity, hot surfaces, the sea state and weather, and the pressures of time and fatigue. Identify who could be harmed and how, including people not doing the job, such as a watchkeeper below a working-aloft site. Evaluate the risk, usually with a matrix that scores likelihood against severity, commonly on a five by five grid, giving a ranking that decides whether work may proceed, needs additional controls, or must not go ahead. Then select controls in the order of the hierarchy: eliminate the hazard or substitute something safer first, then engineering controls and safe systems of work such as isolation, lock-out and permits, then procedures and supervision, with personal protective equipment always the last line, never the first.

The assessment is written down and, critically, communicated: the toolbox talk before the job is where the paper meets the people doing the work, and a crew member who was not briefed is not protected by a form in a file. It links directly to the permit-to-work system, since enclosed space entry, hot work, working aloft or overside, and electrical work all require both an assessment and a permit. It must be reviewed when anything changes: the weather, the tools, the people, or a near miss that shows the assessment was wrong.

Two habits separate real risk assessment from paperwork. First, involve the people who will do the job, because they know where the task actually bites, and the unread generic assessment is a common audit finding after accidents. Second, keep assessing while the work runs: every crew member holds stop-work authority in a functioning safety culture, and if conditions change, the job pauses and the assessment is revisited. Done honestly, the process costs minutes; the accidents it prevents cost limbs, lives and careers.