Risk Assessment and Management for Maritime SAR and Oil Spill Response

This report summarizes selected publications that deal with maritime Search and Rescue (SAR) operations, winter navigation as well as oil spill response. In the first part of this report, the SAR capabilities, response times and effects of weather on Finnish Search and Rescue Units (SRUs) are evaluated. Besides this, the risk of oil spill and effects of winter conditions were evaluated. Two of the most relevant accident types – collisions consequences on oil tanker and RoPAx vessels – were evaluated. Both tankers as well as RoPax vessels are very common vessels in the Gulf of Finland, carrying thousands passengers or tonnes of oil. However, during the project it was found that there are currently no particularly reliable methods for assessing which sea areas are most prone to accidents. This highlights the need for future research in the methodology. Furthermore, a model is presented that describes the interaction between ships and the ice when navigating in an ice channel. This model helps to understand better the increased side forces and yaw that occurs in ice channel when compared to sailing in open waters. This can be used to train bridge personnel to better understand their ship's behavior under challenging ice channel conditions, thus decreasing risk.  A final model describes how fast an oil slick will spread in an ice channel as a function of factors such as the ice concentration and ice floe size, allowing for better estimation of how far oil will spread until effective clean-up measures can be taken

Suomenlahden etsintä- ja pelastustoimen mallinnus

The Finnish waters of Gulf of Finland provide a perfect setting for recreational boating activities. Each year, a considerable number of boaters are in need of medical or technical assistance. An extensive sea rescue system is operated by the Finnish Boarder Guard and the Finnish Lifeboat institution, to perform Search and Rescue (SAR) and assistance operations to safeguard life at sea. The main questions are related to the required number, type and location of the rescue vessels to attain a desired service level. This study evaluates the performance of Search and Rescue for recreational vessel in Gulf of Finland by making a simulation model of the sea rescue services. The discrete-event simulation and the Monte Carlo technique are applied to make the simulation model. The model is based on an extensive incident data analysis of historic incidents in the Finnish Gulf of Finland. The current version of the model still needs significant improvements before it can provide trustworthy decision support, but the preliminary results indicate that the approach works in principle and that valuable information about the system performance can be obtained from such an approach.Vapaa-ajan veneily on suosittua Suomen aluevesillä Suomenlahdella. Merkittävä määrä veneilijöitä vuosittain tarvitsee lääkintää tai teknistä apua näillä alueilla. Rajavartiolaitos ja Meripelastusseura ylläpitävät laajaa meripelastusjärjestelmää, jonka tarkoituksena on suorittaa etsintä- ja pelastustehtäviä ja turvata ihmishenkiä merellä. Meripelastusjärjestelmään liittyviä tärkeimpiä tutkimuskysymyksiä ovat tiettyyn palvelutasoon vaadittavien alusten lukumäärä, tyyppi ja sijainti. Tässä tutkimuksessa arvioidaan vapaa-ajanveneilijöihin kohdistuvien etsintä- ja pelastustehtävien tehokkuutta meripelastuspalveluista tehdyn simulaatiomallin avulla. Mallin luonnissa sovelletaan diskreettien tapahtumien simulointia (discrete-event simulation) ja Monte Carlo -menetelmää. Malli perustuu laajaan Suomenlahden onnettomuustilastotiedon analyysiin. Mallin tämänhetkistä versiota on parannettava merkittävästi ennen sen käyttöä päätöksenteon tukena, mutta alustavat tulokset osoittavat, että malli toimii periaatteessa ja että järjestelmän toimivuudesta saadaan arvokasta tietoa mallin lähestymistavalla