18 FOGHORN er is available. Get people out of sightlines. The maritime environment creates unique barricade challenges; many spaces aboard a vessel are open or have limited locking mechanisms, so this phase of your planning deserves spe- cific walk-through drills on your actual vessel. Identify your best barricade positions in advance. By the time you need them, it will be too late to think about where they are. Confront. If you have avoided and barricaded and it still was not enough, you may be left with no choice but to con- front the threat. This is not a decision anyone makes lightly, and it should only be reached when the alternative is worse. Keep in mind, when that moment arrives, hesitation costs lives. Use your environment. A fire extinguisher, a boat hook, a heavy door, whatever is at hand becomes a tool. The goal is not to win a fight; it is to disrupt the attacker’s momentum long enough to create an opportunity to es- cape or protect others. Experience has consistently shown that when an attacker is met with unexpected, coordinated resistance, it can alter or stop their course of action entirely. DEFENSIVE TOOLS ABOARD What Is Legal, What Is Practical A natural question following the Hawaii incident is wheth- er crew members should carry defensive tools. It is a rea- sonable conversation, and it deserves a thoughtful answer rather than a reflexive one. The answer depends heavily on your operational context, applicable federal maritime law, state regulations, port au- thority requirements, and company policy. Passenger vessel operators in U.S. waters operate under U.S. Coast Guard ju- risdiction and must comply with Maritime Transportation Security Act (MTSA) security frameworks, which means that any policy around defensive tools must be developed in concert with legal counsel and your company’s security plan. What is appropriate on a commercial dive boat operat- ing in remote waters is different from what is appropriate on a harbor excursion vessel carrying 200 passengers. Some general principles apply broadly. Pepper spray or OC (oleoresin capsicum) spray is legal for civilian use in most U.S. jurisdictions and represents one of the most practical crew-accessible defensive options when permitted by policy. It can help create distance in a confined space, it does not re- quire close physical contact with an assailant, and, critically for the maritime environment, it is non-lethal. Conversely, one main drawback to pepper spray is the risk of overexpo- sure, which subjects anyone in close proximity to the ef- fects. Crew members who carry or have access to OC spray should receive formal training on its deployment, including the effects of wind and ventilation in marine environments. Impact tools that already exist aboard a vessel include flashlights, boat hooks, fire and extinguishers, all which can serve a dual defensive function when crew members have been trained to think of them as such. The difference between a crew member who grabs a flashlight instinctive- ly in a crisis and one who is paralyzed in deciding what to do is almost always the difference between training and perhaps more importantly, mindset. Whatever your organization decides about defensive tools, the policy must be written, communicated, and trained, not assumed. Every crew member should know exactly what resources are available, where they are located, and under what circumstances they may be deployed. RENDERING AID AFLOAT The Hawaii stabbing raises a question that goes beyond the incident itself: what happens to the wounded when you are miles from shore and your captain is the one who needs medical attention? The human body can only tolerate so much blood loss be- fore it can no longer recover. A penetrating wound to a ma- FOGHORN FOCUS Do not underestimate the value of calm, confident presence. As I tell every group I train: “When you walk into a crisis projecting competence, you reduce the physiological fear response in everyone around you.” That matters.
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