A study concerning DP officers and their knowledge and experience handling ships within the 500m zon.

This thesis investigates DP operators' knowledge and experience concerning vessel handling when switching from Auto DP to manual manoeuvring within the safety zone. Additionally, it investigates whether increased knowledge and experience in the field can contribute to the reduction of DP related incidents. This was accomplished by a survey and a focus group interview with four active DP operators. The results from these two methods have been analysed and compared with each other as well as with previous thesis to find potential factors that influence operators' knowledge and experience of manual manoeuvring within the safety zone. In the survey it was observed that the confidence and knowledge among DP operators is high. Moreover, it has been observed that operators with more experience are more confident in managing their ship manually. Regardless, the problem remains that incidents still occur. During the process of this thesis, critical elements were identified that affect operators in their decision-making. The elements identified include Organization and Administration, Human Factors, Situational Awareness, and Technical Aspects. These critical elements are connected and have an indirect impact on operators and their decision-making regarding the transition from Auto DP to manual operation. Furthermore, this thesis asserts that increased knowledge and experience of manual operation contributes to the reduction of DP related incidents. One of the most critical elements that was identified was the lack of regulations for training inexperienced DP operators. There has also been discovered that there are no fixed procedures for manual operation which control the training process for inexperienced DP operators