Overboard soundings
When a ship has ran aground, it is of good practice to take the overboard soundings in a well defined pattern and to send these soundings together with other relevant information to the Company and other rescuing parties. This will allow them to assess the situation properly with regard to the ship's stability, stress on the hull and allow them to take the right measures to refloat the vessel or take any other rescuing action if the master hasn't done so yet.
For vessels of less than 200 m in length, the hull will be divided in 10 equal parts. Starting from the stem over starboard to the stern and than back onto the stem over port giving thus 20 sounding points (Figure 1).