18/08/2025
Top 5 Greatest Threats On Board
according to Capt. A. Lignos
The greatest threat at sea isn’t the ocean itself.
It isn’t the waves or the storms.
The real danger lies in the endless work schedule.
It’s not nature that wears us down
it’s the routine that takes lives.
1. Enclosed Spaces
The number one! Ruthless unstoppable-unforgiving! I still remember one training video that said.. if you knew that there was a madman with a chainsaw behind that door, would you step inside?
This is how deadly a space can be. One breath of the wrong air. That's it.
The first man dies from the gas.
The second dies a hero, trying to save him.
This is a coffin, not a workspace.350 enclosed-space asphyxiation deaths since 1996; IG P&I recorded 83 deaths in 2015-2020, most from oxygen depletion. Multiple studies show over half of fatalities are would-be rescuers.
2. Mooring Lines
A mooring line snaps with the energy of a bomb.
When it breaks, it cuts flesh like paper.
It crushes ribs. It splits skulls. It doesn't wound. It vaporizes.
31 dead, 858 severely injured in 5 years.
This is physics, not fate. Blend it with fatique and sleepiness and you have the perfect deathtrap!
3. The Engine Room
Contained violence. Constant vibration. Unbearable heat. Flammable fuel. Exposed voltage. Moving shafts. Machinery failure, fire and eplosion caused 79 dead from 2013. Much more severely injured.
The only surprise is that it doesn't happen more often. Especially when maintenance is skipped -This is not if, but when.
4. The Fall
Your harness is clipped in. You feel safe.
The procedure you've done a thousand times is what kills you.
One moment of distraction is all it takes.
Gravity doesn't care about your training.
5. The Fishing Deck
One of the deadliest jobs on earth. A fatality rate 28 times the average.
Between 21 and 147 deaths per 100,000 annually.
Capsized boats. Ice storms. Fatigue. A deck slick with ice and blood. A wire that can cut a man in two.
This isn't a job. It's a lottery where you lose.
But the most prolific killer has no safety procedure.
It has no warning sign.
It's the exhaustion that feels like concrete in your veins.
The isolation that eats you from the inside.
The pressure that fractures your mind.
More seafarers die by their own hand than from any single type of accident.
The silence is what kills them.
This isn't bad luck.
This isn't the cost of business.
This is a choice.
A choice made in boardrooms, not on deck.
A choice to treat human life as an acceptable loss.
These aren't stories. They are statistics.
And behind every statistic is a name, a family, a face.
Speak. Share it. Change it.
