Migrant Boat Encounter: Procedures for Captains

Following on from OnboardOnline's recent articles regarding the increased risk to superyachts of encountering a migrant boat (see Part 1 and Part 2), Captain Rod Hatch, Captain Adrian Croft (both PYA Council) and Allmode Security have studied volumes of information, analyses and reports regarding the migrant crisis.

Here we present a set of simplified guidelines for captains, SSOs and CSOs to print and laminate for training purposes onboard, and for reference in the event of a migrant boat encounter.

Aide Memoire

The recent increase in migrant movement around the world and most specifically the Mediterranean Sea has raised a significant safety issue for the maritime sector.

As refugees from regional conflicts and migrants from further afield try to gain access to what they perceive will be a better life in Europe and elsewhere, the potential impact upon yachts transiting the region has become a very real and credible threat to the safety and security of legitimate seafarers, and vessel owners/Charterers.

Private and commercial vessels are becoming increasingly embroiled in rescue efforts due to the rapid increase in migrant traffic and the diminishing resources of governments, international organisations and naval/military forces.

Yacht crews are being asked to administrate an enormous issue with potentially catastrophic consequences; however most captains, officers and crew members are not appropriately or correctly trained to manage such an incident.

Unless the crew has been briefed about such situations, and there is a plan in place for everybody to follow, the safety of all on board may be compromised.

The following Aide Memoire has been prepared by the PYA in conjunction with Allmode Security, an international yacht risk management organization, to assist yacht captains in planning for the possibility of an encounter with a migrant boat.

The Notes are a digest of a mass of detailed background reports, projections and recommendations.

The intent is to provide yacht captains with simple checklists which in some cases can be used as templates to produce yacht-specific plans, or can be printed and laminated as is and used to rehearse crew pre-season and to refer to in the heat of a situation none of us has faced before.

Map 1: “Routes and Migrant Heat-map
Legend: 1. = Land Migration Routes. 2. = Sea Migration Routes

To download the 'Full Procedures' PDF file please click here

*Image credit: Wikipedia CC2.0 license