54
FOGHORN
REGULATORY REPORT
crew who’ll operate them make for a 
smoother transition from shipyard to 
operations. That engagement reveals 
early whether the as-built boat is di-
verging from the plans and standards, 
weights and centers, weld quality, 
materials, and pipe sizing, and lets 
questions like embarkation flow or 
docking-slip access get answered while 
a change is still cheap. Building in sea 
trials and familiarization time, not 
just acceptance testing, also lets crews 
start drafting SMS procedures around 
the vessel’s real configuration instead 
of a generic template. 
Machinery monitoring built in 
from day one. Condition-based 
maintenance depends on the right sen-
sors and data feeds, and that’s a speci-
fication decision, not an afterthought. 
Engine, gearbox, and generator mon-
itoring, vibration and temperature 
trending, run-hour and fuel logging, 
are all far cheaper to build in than to 
retrofit later. Operators should specify 
exactly what data their SMS software 
needs from day one, so the vessel starts 
her service life with real operating data 
instead of a blank maintenance log.
Change management during the 
build. Construction projects evolve, 
designs change, equipment is substi-
tuted, and schedules compress. Each 
carries the same operational risk an 
SMS is built to manage and applying 
that same change-control mindset to 
the build, not treating change orders 
as purely commercial, keeps safety 
from falling through the cracks of a 
compressed schedule.
Closing the loop from operations 
back to design. This is where the con-
nection matters most. This isn’t really 
a chicken-or-egg question: operations 
and design aren’t competing for which 
comes first, each one is supposed to 
feed the other. If there’s a floor under 
everything else here, it’s this: at an 
absolute minimum, lessons learned in 
service should shape the design of what 
comes next. An SMS generates exactly 
the data a designer needs and rarely gets: 
near-miss reports, maintenance trends, 
crew feedback, and root causes. This 
data tends to stay in the operator’s SMS 
records and never reaches the yards de-
signing the next vessel. Operators build-
ing or converting have real leverage to 
insist on the reverse flow: feeding SMS 
lessons into the specs for the next hull 
instead of starting from a clean sheet. 
The familiar plan-do-check-act cycle 
shouldn’t stop at the wheelhouse door; 
it should widen to take in the shipyard 
too, as shown below.
Wendella Tours & Cruises’ experi-
ence on the Chicago River illustrates 
this well. Tight turns, heavy traffic, 
and current mean close-quarters near 
misses are a recurring, well-document-
ed hazard in the fleet’s SMS reporting. 
Rather than logging each one and 
moving on, that pattern became an in-
put into propulsion and maneuvering 
specs for newer vessels, with improved 
stopping performance built in as a di-
rect response. That’s the loop working 
as intended: a hazard that shows up 
repeatedly in operations gets carried 
forward as a design requirement, not 
just a training talking point, and the 
next vessel is measurably safer for it.
WHY THIS MATTERS NOW
With America’s growing interest in 
domestic shipbuilding capacity and 
quality, PVA members are well posi-
tioned to lead by example. Bringing 
SMS thinking to the shipyard doesn’t 
just produce a better vessel, it shows the 
shipyard, the Coast Guard, and insur-
ers that safety isn’t a program switched 
on at delivery. It’s a continuous thread 
from concept to keel to operations, for 
the vessel’s entire service life and for 
whatever comes after her. The question 
worth asking at every stage of a con-
struction project isn’t just “does this 
meet the requirement,” but “how will 
this be operated and improved once 
she’s in service, and what do we owe 
the next design because of it?” That’s 
the SMS question, and it belongs in the 
shipyard as much as the wheelhouse.
ACT
(revise the 
design or spec) 
DO
(build) 
ACT
(make it better) 
DO
(run the SMS) 
CHECK
(inspect, sea trials,
as-built review) 
Lessons learned from 
operations become the spec 
for the next boat or refit
CHECK
(audits, near-miss data) 
PLAN
(spec the 
newbuild or refit) 
PLAN
(operations) 
EXTENDING THE  PDCA LOOP FROM VESSEL OPERATIONS INTO THE SHIPYARD 

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