William H. Moore, Senior Vice President, American P&I Club, responded to SAFETY4SEA questions by providing insight into the current and future safety concerns. Dr. Moore reveals Club’s focus areas for 2017 and poses key questions to industry stakeholders to raise awareness into the significant global financial and commercial challenges that shipping industry faces.
SAFETY4SEA: Do you think there was a significant success and/or progress made with respect to maritime safety during 2016? Focusing on your area of expertise, what were the most important industry developments within 2016?
William Moore: Unprecedented financial pressures on shipowners resulting from the difficult global markets have made it a challenge to shipowners in making progress on safety related upgrades in 2016. This makes it difficult for shipowners to invest in safety training as well as maintain vessels to high level of safety standards.
The financial pressures impacting safety are further exacerbated by the high costs of compliance with environmental regulatory requirements such as compliance with ballast water management, as well as the costs of compliance with recent NOx and SOx emission standards.
Any positive improvements resulting from IMO regulations entering into force upon the industry in 2016 are yet to be seen. Most notably, the SOLAS amendments that have entered into force in 2016 related to container gross mass verification (GMV) and electronic chart display information systems (ECDIS).
In particular, there are safety concerns regarding the overreliance on ECDIS whereby casualties have been observed due to overreliance on the systems as the primary means of navigation, ship officers having not completed system specific ECDIS training and undetected navigation errors that would likely have been found using traditional paper charts.
S4S: Focusing on your area of expertise, what do you think that it will be the biggest safety challenge(s) for the maritime safety for the 2017?
W.M.: One of the biggest safety challenges remaining in 2017 will be preventing further loss of lives, ships, cargo and the threat of marine pollution from the risks inherent with the loading of cargoes susceptible to liquefaction, particularly nickel ore, in a manner not consistent with the IMSBC Code. This tragically continues to be all too common due to commercial pressures inherent in the trade as the problem cannot be solved by the shipowner community alone. The governmental authorities, in the countries where nickel ore is loaded, should be strongly encouraged to enforce shippers to comply with the proper IMSBC testing and certification protocols. Otherwise, fatalities and lost vessels due to carrying nickel ore cargoes will once again be in the news for all the wrong reasons.
Also, the impact of cyber threats on the operational safety of ships needs to be fully acknowledged by the wider shipping community. In an age of increasing use of technology, cyber risk management systems should be considered as part of companies’ safety management systems as per the ISM Code as safety and environmental management systems were considered in the 1980s and 1990s.
Finally, given the very large sizes of new ships, such as container and passenger ships, safety and salvage risks in the events of casualties is now, and will continue to be a significant safety and environmental protection concern in 2017 and beyond.
S4S: What would be the 2017 resolutions for your company/ organization? What are your goals and aspirations to enhance shipping safety? Do you have any new projects on the pipeline and/or plans for 2017 that you would like to share?
W.M.: The American Club has had a long tradition of a commitment to loss prevention initiatives for both safety and environmental protection in cooperation with the Club’s membership. The primary focus areas for safety for 2017 are being directed at the prevention of collisions, groundings and seafarer safety in prevention of slips, trips and falls. Over the last 10 year period, collisions have accounted for more than US$120 million in claims. In cooperation with our industry partner, IDESS IT in Subic Bay, Philippines, the American Club will be issuing a new comprehensive e-Learning module on compliance with International Regulations for Preventing Collisions at Sea 1972 (COLREGS).
Regarding slips, trips and falls, these incidents continue to be the primary incidents that lead to shipboard related injuries. In 2016, the Club initiated a program to inform its Members through case study examples and will continue focusing on this initiative through 2017.
Another Club initiative to be focused on compliance with forthcoming ballast water management requirements with both safety and environmental management components.
S4S: What is your overall forecast for shipping safety in 2017 and what would you like to share and/or wish and/or ask other industry stakeholders?
W.M.: The following are questions that the American Club would like to pose to other industry stakeholders for 2017 related to safety taking into account the significant global financial and commercial challenges:
- What initiatives are being considered regarding the prevention of casualties to very large ships, particularly container ships and passenger ships?
- What more should the industry stakeholders be doing to further ensure the compliance with the IMSBC Code, particularly in light of the loss of life and vessels related risks of liquefaction to such cargoes as nickel ore?
- What efforts are being made by shipowners to invest in safety training for seafarers given constraints in financial resources?
- How is the challenge of timely maintenance of ships being met to ensure safety?
The views presented hereabove are only those of the author and not necessarily those of SAFETY4SEA and are for information sharing and discussion purposes only.
