Why drills fail when the emergency doesn’t follow the script
Estimated read time: 80–95 minutes
Audience: Cadet → AB → Junior Officer → Chief Mate
Introduction – Drills are not rehearsals, they are diagnostics
On paper, drills are meant to prepare crews for emergencies. In reality, drills are diagnostic tools. They reveal how people move, where confusion forms, and which assumptions collapse under time pressure. When drills go wrong, it is tempting to smooth them over and “do better next time”. That instinct wastes the most valuable information the drill produced.
Most real emergencies do not defeat crews because they are extreme. They defeat crews because the real event does not resemble the drill.
What drills are actually testing
A drill does not test whether people know their stations. It tests coordination under uncertainty. It exposes whether equipment is accessible, whether communication survives noise and motion, and whether deck routes remain usable once smoke, water, or crowding appears.
From zero knowledge, the key insight is this:
If a drill feels smooth and comfortable, it probably isn’t testing the right things.
MOB drills: the illusion of visibility
Man Overboard drills are often conducted in good visibility, calm weather, and daylight. In real incidents, people fall at night, unnoticed, and without witnesses. The deck response that matters most is immediate recognition and marking of the casualty, not textbook manoeuvres.
Deck crews play a critical role here. Poor lookout discipline, cluttered rails, or unsecured deck items increase the chance of an unnoticed fall. MOB drills that do not stress detection and immediate action create false confidence.
Fire drills: where deck reality diverges first
Fire drills tend to focus on teams, hoses, and boundaries. On deck, the first failure is often access. Smoke, heat, or water make familiar routes unusable. Equipment that looked reachable during inspection becomes unreachable during the drill.
Fire on deck escalates when early actions are delayed. Crews who hesitate because they are waiting for orders lose critical minutes. Effective drills empower deck personnel to act decisively within defined limits, not wait passively.
Abandon ship: the drill nobody wants to challenge
Abandon ship drills are usually the most scripted and least realistic. Lifeboats are prepared, crew are accounted for, and the evolution ends early. This avoids risk — but it also avoids truth.
The real failure point in abandon ship situations is transition: moving from a functioning ship to survival craft under stress, noise, and partial system failure. Drills that avoid this transition do not prepare crews for it.
🔻 Real-World Failure: Fire and Abandonment on Norman Atlantic
In December 2014, the Ro-Ro ferry Norman Atlantic suffered a catastrophic fire in the Adriatic Sea, resulting in multiple fatalities. While the fire itself was the initiating event, post-incident investigations highlighted severe breakdowns in drill realism and preparedness.
Crew and passengers struggled with evacuation routes, access to survival equipment, and coordination under smoke and adverse weather. Systems that functioned during drills failed under real conditions. The gap between rehearsed procedure and actual execution proved fatal.
For deck crews, the lesson is not about ferries alone. It is about understanding that drills which avoid discomfort, confusion, and partial failure do not build survival capability.
Why crews revert to instinct under stress
Under real emergency stress, humans fall back on habit, not procedure. If drills do not deliberately challenge habit — forcing alternative routes, degraded communications, or missing equipment — then instinct will lead crews into predictable traps.
Senior deck officers design drills to expose weakness, not to demonstrate competence.
Knowledge to Carry Forward
Drills are not about compliance. They are about discovering how the system breaks while it is still safe to do so. A drill that finishes neatly has taught very little. A drill that reveals confusion, delay, or access problems has done its job.
Competent deck officers treat drills as controlled failures — and learn from them ruthlessly.
Tags
On Deck, Drills and Exercises, Man Overboard, Fire Drill, Abandon Ship, Emergency Response, Human Factors, Deck Safety, Failure Modes