Protective Clothing & Equipment

- General
Protective Clothing & Equipment -
General
 Merchant Shipping Regulations require employers to
ensure that every employee engaged in a specified
work process, or who may be at risk from such a
process, is supplied with suitable protective clothing
and equipment.
 Overalls, gloves and suitable footwear are the
proper working dress for most work about the ship
but these may not give adequate protection against
particular hazards in particular jobs.
Protective Clothing & Equipment -
General
 Specific recommendations for the use of special
protective clothing and equipment will also be found
in certain sections of the Code but there will be
other occasions when the need for such special
protection can only be determined at the time by the
officer in charge of the particular operation.
Protective Clothing & Equipment -
General
 Protective clothing or equipment does nothing to
reduce the hazard, it merely sets up a frail barrier
against it.
 The first step in injury prevention should be the
elimination of the hazard to the extent that is
reasonable and practicable.
 Personal protective clothing and equipment should
be relied upon to afford protection against the
hazards that remain.
Protective Clothing & Equipment -
General
 Defective or ineffective protective equipment provide
no defence. It is therefore essential that the correct
items of equipment are selected and that they are
properly maintained at all times.
 The manufacturer's instructions should be kept safe
with the relevant apparatus and when necessary
referred to before use and when maintenance is
carried out.
 The equipment should be kept clean and should be
disinfected as and when necessary for health
reasons.
Protective Clothing & Equipment -
General
 A responsible officer should inspect each item of
protective equipment at regular intervals and in all
cases before and after use. He should ensure that it
is returned and properly stowed in a safe place.
 Personal protective clothing and equipment should
always be checked by the wearer each time before
use.
Protective Clothing & Equipment -
General
 All personnel who may be required to use protective
equipment should be properly trained in its use and
advised of its limitations.

 Personal protective clothing and equipment can be

classified as follows: Head protection (safety
helmets, hair protection); Hearing protection; Face
and eye protection (goggles and spectacles, facial
shields); Respiratory protective equipment (dust
masks, respirators, breathing apparatus); Hand and
foot protection (gloves, safety boots and shoes);
Body protection (safety suits, safety belts,
harnesses, aprons); Protection against drowning
(lifejackets, buoyancy aids and lifebuoys
Head protection - Safety helmets
Head protection - Safety helmets

 Objects falling from a height present a hazard

against which safety helmets are most
commonly provided.
 Other hazards include abnormal heat, risk of
a sideways blow or crushing, or chemical
splashes. These four different types of
common risk are given as a guide only and
are not intended to be comprehensive.
Head protection - Safety helmets

 Since the hazards are so varied in type it will be

appreciated that no one type of helmet would be
ideal as protection in every case. Design details are
normally decided by the manufacturer whose
primary consideration will be compliance with an
appropriate standard.
Head protection - Safety helmets

 The shell of a helmet should be of one piece

seamless construction designed to resist impact.
The harness or suspension when properly adjusted
forms a cradle for supporting the protector on the
wearer's head. The crown straps help absorb the
force of impact. They are designed to permit a
clearance of approximately 25 mm between the
shell and the skull of the wearer. The harness or
suspension should be properly adjusted before a
helmet is worn.
Bump caps

 A bump cap is simply an ordinary cap with a hard

penetration-resistant shell. They are useful as a
protection against bruising and abrasion when
working in confined spaces such as a main engine
crankcase or a double bottom tank. They do not,
however, afford the same protection as safety
helmets and are intended only to protect against
minor knocks.
Hair nets and safety caps

 Personnel working on or near to moving machinery

have always to be on their guard against the
possibility of loose clothing, jewellery, or their hair
becoming entangled in the machinery. In the case of
long hair, hair nets or safety caps should be worn
where any risk of entanglement exists.
Hearing protection

 All persons exposed to high levels of noise,

e.g. in machinery spaces, should wear ear
protectors of a type recommended as
suitable for the particular circumstances.
Protectors are of three types - ear plugs,
disposable or permanent, and ear muffs
Hearing protection

 The simplest form of ear protection is the

glass-down ear plug. This type however has
the disadvantage of limited capability of noise
level reduction. Ear plugs of rubber or plastic
also have only limited effect, in that extremes
of high or low frequency cause the plug to
vibrate in the ear canal causing a
consequential loss in protection.
Hearing protection

 In general, ear muffs provide a more effective form

of hearing protection. They consist of a pair of rigid
cups designed to completely envelope the ears,
fitted with soft sealing rings to fit closely against the
head around the ears. The ear cups are connected
by a spring loaded headband (or neck band) which
ensures that the sound seals around the ears are
maintained. Different types are available and
provision should be made according to the
circumstances of use and expert advice.
Face and Eye Protection

 In selecting eye and combined eye and face

protectors, careful consideration should be
given to the kind and degree of the hazard,
and the degree of protection and comfort
afforded
Face and Eye Protection
 The main causes of eye injury are:

(a) infra-red rays--gas welding;

(b) ultra-violet rays--electric welding;

(c) exposure to chemicals;

(d) exposure to particles and foreign bodies

Protectors are available in a wide variety, designed to British Standard

specifications, to protect against these different types of hazard.
Face and Eye Protection

 Ordinary prescription (corrective) spectacles,

unless manufactured to safety standard, do
not afford protection. Certain box-type
goggles are so that they can be worn over
ordinary spectacles.
Respiratory protective equipment
 Respiratory protective equipment of the appropriate type is
essential for protection when work has to be done in
conditions of irritating, dangerous or poisonous dust, fumes or
gases.
 The equipment may be either a respirator, which filters the air
before it is breathed, or breathing apparatus which supplies
air or oxygen from an uncontaminated source. The selection
of the correct respiratory protective equipment for any given
situation requires consideration of the nature of the hazard,
the severity of the hazard, work requirements and conditions,
and the characteristics and limitations of available equipment.
Advice on selection and the use and maintenance of the
equipment is contained in the relevant British Standard, which
should be available to all those concerned with the use of
respiratory protective equipment on board ship.
 Respirators
 It is most important that the face-piece incorporated
in respirators and breathing apparatus is fitted
correctly to prevent leakage. The wearing of
spectacles, unless adequately designed for the
purpose, or of beards and whiskers is likely to
adversely affect the face seal.
Respirators

 The respirator selected must be of a type designed to protect

against the hazards being met.
The most common type is the dust respirator, affording protection
against dusts and aerosol sprays but not against gases. There
are many types of dust respirator available but they are generally
of the ori-nasal type, i.e. half-masks covering the nose and
mouth. Many types of light, simple face masks are also available
and are extremely useful for protecting against dust nuisance
and non-toxic sprays but should never be used in place of proper
protection against harmful dusts or sprays.
Respirators

 The positive pressure powered dust respirator incorporates a

face-piece connected by a tube to a battery-powered blower unit
carried by the wearer to create a positive pressure in the face-
piece and thus make breathing easier and reduce face-seal
leakage.
The cartridge-type of respirator consists of a full face-piece or
half mask connected to a replaceable cartridge containing
absorbent or adsorbent material and a particulate filter. It is
designed to provide protection against low concentrations of
certain relatively non-toxic gases and vapours.
Respirators

 The canister-type of respirator incorporates a full face-piece connected

to an absorbent or adsorbent material contained in a replaceable
canister carried in a sling on the back or side of the wearer. This type
gives considerably more protection than the cartridge type.
The filters, canisters and cartridges incorporated in respirators are
designed to provide protection against certain specified dusts or gases.
Different types are available to provide protection against different
hazards and it is therefore important that the appropriate type is
selected for the particular circumstances or conditions being
encountered. It must be remembered, however, that they have a limited
effective life and must be replaced or renewed at intervals in
accordance with manufacturers' instructions .
Respirators

 Respirators provide NO protection against oxygen

deficient atmosphere. They should never be used to
provide protection in confined spaces such as tanks,
cofferdams, double bottoms or other similar spaces
against dangerous fumes, gases or vapours. Only
breathing apparatus (self-contained or airline) is
capable of giving protection in such circumstances.
Breathing apparatus

 The type of breathing apparatus to be used when

entering a space that is known to be, or suspected
of being deficient in oxygen or containing toxic
gases or vapours is given in section "Entering
Enclosed or Confined Spaces" - 'Breathing
Apparatus and Resuscitation Equipment'.
Breathing apparatus should not be used under
water unless the equipment is suitable for the
purpose, and then only in an emergency.
Hand and Foot Protection

 Gloves
The correct type of gloves should be chosen
according to the hazard being faced and the kind of
work being undertaken. For example, leather gloves
are generally best when handling rough or sharp
objects, heat-resistant gloves when handling, hot
objects, and rubber, synthetic or PVC gloves when
handling acids, alkalis, various types of oils, solvents
and chemicals in general. The exact type selected
will depend upon the particular substance being
handled, and in these cases expert advice should
be followed.
Hand and Foot Protection
 Footwear
Foot injuries most often result from the wearing of unsuitable
footwear rather than from failure to wear safety shoes or boots. It
is nevertheless strongly advisable that all personnel whilst at
work on board ship, wear appropriate safety footwear.

The hazards commonly encountered cause injury as a result of

impact, penetration through the sole, slipping, heat and crushing.
Safety footwear is available which is designed to protect against
these or other specific hazards, manufactured to various British
Standards appropriate to the particular danger involved.
Protection from falls
Protection from falls

 All seamen who are working aloft, outboard or below

decks or in any other area where there is a risk of
falling more than 2 metres, should wear a safety
harness (or belt with shock absorber) attached to a
lifeline. Likewise if a vessel is shipping frequent seas,
persons on deck should wear a harness and, where
practicable, should be secured by lifeline as
protection from falls and from being washed
overboard or against the ship's structure.
Inertial clamp devices allow more freedom in
movement.
Body protection

 Special outerwear may be needed for

protection when the seaman is exposed to
contact with particular contaminating or
corrosive substances. This apparel should be
kept for the particular purpose and dealt with
as directed in the relevant sections of this
Code.
Protection against drowning

 Where work is being carried out overside or

in an exposed position where there is a
reasonably foreseeable risk of falling or being
washed overboard or where work is being
carried out in or from a ship's boat a lifebuoy
with sufficient line should be provided. In
addition and as appropriate a lifejacket or
buoyancy aid should be provided.