Capt. VS Parani, HSSEQ Manager, Tufton Asset Management Ltd makes an assessment of 2021 and shares his message for the new year across the global maritime community.

Whenever there is an accident involving the loss of cargo on a ship, the blame is often placed on the ship’s crew but is this justified? Are we ignoring issues in the cargo chain upstream, and during the shore-ship interface?

Captain VS Parani discusses the need of expertise, as the keel of effective leadership at sea. Citing maritime casualties and personal experience, he argues that STCW certificates are only the starting point.

Leadership, as a special component of safe operations at sea, is a skill resulting from a complex combination of mindset characteristics which can be learned, argues Capt. VS Parani, naming the key features he believes to be the most critical for a great leader at sea.

During the 2019 SAFETY4SEA Cyprus Conference, Capt. VS Parani, HSSEQ Manager, Oceanic Marine Management Limited, discussed how heuristics can be used for better decisions onboard ships, stressing that seafarers make several high-stakes decisions every day- not all end well, given that there are on average 100 total ship losses and 1000 fatalities every year, mostly attributed to human error.

Plan sharing meetings are very important for safety so each person knows what the others are doing and they avoid incompatible tasks, argued Captain VS Parani, noting that meetings should not be cancelled even amid time pressure. On this respect, he shared eight ideas to make meetings more efficient. 

Most of us maritime professionals may, through our competency exams, diplomas and training courses, gradually build our knowledge to a level which is good enough to perform our respective jobs- maybe even excel in it. That helps us to know what to do, why to do it and how to do it well. That helps us to lead with expertise, argues Captain VS Parani.

Captain VS Parani, author of the Golden Stripes- Leadership on the High Seas, shares lessons learned from two different groundings which occured due to similar failures, highlighting once again the importance of safety culture onboard.

Capt. VS Parani, HSSEQ Manager and author of the well-received 'Golden Stripes- Leadership on the High Seas', stresses the importance of having a highly motivated crew to run ships smoothly and suggests ways to empower, encourage and maximize crew potential, considering that "Excellent crews" lead to "Excellent Ships".