Working in shipyards is notoriously dangerous, in fact you are twice as likely to injure yourself working in a shipyard than you are working on a construction site or manufacturing plant.

OSHA developed a series of documents called “SHIPS” (Safety and Health Injury Prevention Sheets) for the shipyard industry. These SHIPS are available on the OSHA.gov website, and cover an array of shipyard safety topics including ship fitting, control of hazardous energy, rigging, and hot work.  The complete list of SHIPS can be found on this webpage: https://www.osha.gov/dts/maritime/.

OSHA has also developed the Shipyard Employment eTool with the American Shipbuilding Association, the National Shipbuilding Research Program, and the Shipbuilders Council of America.  The etool is an online resource for shipyard safety information. It includes general requirements under OSHA regulations, and common hazards in the following shipyard areas of work; support operations, barge cleaning, ship building, ship breaking and ship repair.  Each section has subsections that pertain to the area of work. For instance, the shipbuilding page includes information on confined spaces, cleaning, hotwork, surface preparation, and painting that have all been adapted specifically for shipbuilding.

It is important for employers to be familiar with all of the OSHA regulations and safety guidelines that apply to shipyard work. For more information on shipyard safety training or OSHA regulations please call (877)399-1698.