Damage control plan and damage control booklet

Provide clear information on

	The ship's water tight compartmentation.
	Equipments related to maintain the boundaries and effectiveness of the compartmentation

	Proper precaution can be taken to prevent progressive flooding through openings.
	Effective actions can be taken to control progressive flooding.
	Recover the ship's loss stability.

Clear and easy to understand.

Includes information directly related to damage control.

Provided in working language of the ship.

Translation to one of the official languages by SOLAS convention.

Damage control plan

Scale: not less than 1 : 200.

Isometric drawings for various purposes.

Includes inboard profile, plan views of each deck and transverse sections to the extent necessary to show followings:

	Watertight boundaries of the ship.
	Locations and arrangement of cross flooding systems.
	Mechanical means to correct list due to flooding.
	Locations of all internal watertight closing appliances.
	Locations of internal ramps or doors acting as an extension of the collision bulkhead, their control.
	Locations of local and remote controls, position indicators and alarms.
	Locations of water tight compartments and water tight closing closing appliances, which are not allowed to be opened during navigation.
	Locations of all doors in the shell of the ship, position indicators and leakage detection.
	Locations of all watertight closing appliances in local subdivision boundaries above the bulkhead deck and on the lowest exposed weather deck, together with locations of controls with position indicators, if applicable.
	Location of bilge and ballast pumps, their control positions and associated valves.
	Pipes, ducts or tunnels, if any, through which progressive flooding has been accepted by administration.

Damage control booklet:

Information in damage control plan repeated in damage control booklet.

Includes general instruction for controlling the effect of damage such as:

	Immediately closing all watertight and weather tight closing appliances.
	Establishing the locations and safety of persons onboard, sounding tanks and compartments to ascertain the extent of damage and repeated sounding to determine rates of flooding.
	Cautionary advice regarding the cause of any list and of liquid transfer operations to lessen list or trim, and the resulting effects of creating additional free surfaces and of initiating pumping operations to control the ingress of water.

Contains additional details to the information shown on damage control plan, such as:

	Location of all sounding devices, tank vents and overflows which do not extend above the weather deck.
	Pump capacities and piping diagrams.
	Instruction of opening cross flooding systems.
	Means of accessing and escaping from water tight compartments below the bulkhead decks for use by damage control parties.
	Altering ship management and organizations to stand-by and coordinate assistance if required.

Locations of non water tight openings with non automatic closing devices through which progressive flooding might occurs are indicated.

Contains guidance on the possibility of non structural bulkheads and doors or other obstructions retarding the flow of entering seawater to cause at least temporary conditions of unsymmetrical flooding.

If results of the subdivision and damage stability analyses are included, additional guidance are also provided to ensure that the ship's officers referring to that information are aware that the results are included only to assist them in estimating the ship's relative survivality.

The guidance to identify criteria on which the analyses were based and clearly indicate that the initial action conditions of the ships loading extents and locations of damage, permeabilities, assumed for the analyses may have no correlation with the actual damaged condition of the ship.

Placement onboard

Passenger ships, damage control plan should be permanently exhibited on the navigation bridge, as well as the ships control room and equivalent.

For cargo ships, the damage control plan should be permanently exhibited or readily available on the navigation bridge. Also, it should be permanently exhibited or readily available in the cargo control room.

Updated: September 17, 2007