SAFETY4SEA Team met Clay Maitland, Managing Partner, Founding Chairman, NAMEPA at Posidonia 2016, June 6-10, Metropolitan Expo, Athens for an interview regarding major safety challenges in shipping industry

-   As a starting point, could you outline the main goals of the Association? The chief aims of NAMEPA, which draws its name from the Hellenic Marine Environment Protection Association (HELMEPA) - which was the first such organisation formed from within the commercial shipping industry - is to secure the participation of the private sector shipping industry in support of safety at sea and improvement and protection of the oceans and, in the case of North America, the rivers and Great Lakes. Your membership comprises a broad spectrum of international industries from banks to oil companies. How do you work with them effectively and how do you ensure your objective to save the seas is not compromised by conflicting interests? We have not found much of a difference of opinion in our members' commitment to 'saving the seas'. I think that the reason for this is that in joining an organisation such as NAMEPA, there is an implicit commitment to sincerity; our members understand that we are not a policy-making nor an advocacy organisation. We are a support association, working with government, the academic community, students of all ages, and within the shipping industry itself. There are so many...

3rd Safety4Sea Forum - Session 1: Clay Maitland

_ Attend any given conference on shipping, particularly maritime finance, and you will hear, and see, many presentations, accompanied by PowerPoint, predicting a recovery some time in 2013. Read some articles in the trade press, and you will learn that "cash-rich Greek shipowners" are heavily invested in second-hand and newbuilding-resale purchases, notwithstanding ominous economic and market signs. What, however, if these omens of recovery are wide of the mark? Indicators seem to be pointing toward a much longer global recession, which is not a good sign for shipping in general. For a change, let's look at the big picture: Shipping, particularly in the dry and liquid bulk trades, is dependent on China, and to a larger extent, Asia. The drought and severe storms in North America, which is the world's granary to a large extent, have led to forecasts of the worst harvest in a generation. China in particular is heavily dependent upon what Americans call soybeans, and British insist on terming soyabeans. These are used primarily to feed livestock. Higher soya prices mean that the cost of food prices in China will go higher. Food is a big part of Chinese consumer spending, and is therefore politically a "hot...

European crisis and shipping economy My eye was caught by a recent article: "Tanker Sector May Be Over the Worst", quoting a Norwegian bank's analysis that the tanker market, including VLCCs, suezmaxes, aframaxes, panamaxes and medium range clean product tankers, has bottomed out. As Lawrence Peter "Yogi" Berra, a great contemporary philosopher, reportedly said, "It's not good to make predictions, especially about the future". My reading is that actual crude oil production will fall in the second half of 2012, and that this will reduce the demand for tankers, and therefore the all-important tanker rates. There is, however, another reason to be pessimistic, and that is the state of the world economy. Yogi notwithstanding, I predict that the euro will eventually either be dismantled, or will be reduced to a smaller core area. There is little reason to believe that the European powers are anywhere near to curing the broken single currency experiment. It is increasingly obvious that the European crisis is at the heart of the global economic recession, which is going to be longer and probably deeper than we are presently willing to admit. It is clear that the fate of the euro will be decided in Spain...

Lifoboat safety - safe ships IMO's Maritime Safety Committee has concluded its 90th session, its delegates having worked their way through the usual fearsome agenda. Not surprisingly, the discussions involving the reactions to the Costa Concordia incident have been those which have attracted most attention. In this matter the organisation is somewhat handicapped by the ongoing proceedings and inquiry taking place in Italy, with these themselves being delayed somewhat by the criminal proceedings against the vessel's master making matters rather more complex. There are however a number of sensible interim measures which have been recommended in an MSC circular. For a start the seemingly endless arguments about whether lifejackets should be kept in cabins or located near the embarkation might have moved on a little with a recommendation that additional lifejackets should be readily accessible in public spaces, muster/assembly stations or in the lifeboats. This may not have been an issue at the time of the Titanic's loss, but pretty well all last century arguments have raged as to the sanity of requiring passengers to be required to rush below to their cabins to retrieve their lifejackets before proceeding to their muster stations. Should the ship be sinking fast, or...

Changing the Rules of Engagement Piracy is expanding to West Africa; nine attacks were reported in February, double the number in the month before. Piracy is also well-entrenched in Southeast Asia, which recorded 31.5% of all incidents worldwide over the past twelve months to the end of January. This blogspot has said - repeatedly- that a rethink, and to some extent a new approach, will be needed if pirate attacks are to be contained, not to say reduced. The "business model" now employed by pirate gangs is relatively low-risk and is sufficiently remunerative to, at least, its leaders, that it is likely to spread into new areas, such as parts of coastal South America. Whatever it is that we are now doing - "best practices", the presence of armed and unarmed security teams embarked aboard ship, and various talking shops: Working Groups 1 and 3 of the Contact Group for Piracy Off the Coast of Somalia and the UN Office on Drugs and Crime's Counter-Piracy Programme, to name a few, the frequency and geographical area of this brutal affliction hasn't been significantly affected. The type of thuggery now occurring with growing frequency off the Nigerian coast, some of it 110...

Each casualty is a 'learning experience' April is said to be the cruelest month. It is memorable for disasters, from the Titanic to Texas City, Deepwater Horizon and so on. Of course, there are eleven other months in the calendar, each with its rueful anniversaries. Most accidents are eventually forgotten: the public's memory may still embrace the Titanic, and the upcoming centennial of its loss will be widely observed; but who now recalls an even greater sea disaster, the sinking of the Empress of Ireland in 1914? Each casualty is a "learning experience." No doubt this will be true of Costa Concordia as well. Beside the specific issues of each accident, a few of the general lessons learned down through the years are worth considering. A first lesson, to be brutally frank, is that loss of life is less generally accepted, if that is the right word, than it was a century ago. The public generally demands that its floating pleasure palaces will be safe, and afloat. Accidents are not only unacceptable;they are unexpected to a far greater degree than in bygone times. And as for oil spills, as we say in New York, fuhgeddaboutit. The second lesson is that...

Passengership safety remains an important issue As we approach the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic this coming April, passengership safety remains an important issue. Between 1990 and 2000, the cruise market increased by 60% and ship size grew to vessels capable of carrying well over 3,600 passengers. Naval architects have devoted attention to methods of achieving rapid and safe evacuation, particularly access to lifeboats located at various parts of the passengership's superstructure. Chutes or slides are now available for passengers to enter lifeboats already in the water, either directly into the lifeboat, or by means of a transfer platform. These systems are designed to be effective in unfavourable weather conditions, or when the ship has heeled over. It is, or should be, understood that passengers on board a cruiseship may not be nimble, and perhaps may be partly handicapped. This affects the design and stowage of the lifeboats. The loss of Titanic in April 1912 began a revolution in passengership safety that has continued to the present time. Although an international conference was held in 1914, it was not until 1932 that an international convention for the safety of life at sea was agreed upon by major...

Cargo liquefaction danger hasn't gone away On Christmas day, the bulk carrier Vinalines Queen, carrying a cargo of nickel ore from Morowali, Indonesia, to China, went missing. The ship and its crew of 22 must now be considered lost. Although it is certainly too soon to ascribe a known cause of sinking, it is probably fair to say, as an American judge did many years ago: "Sometimes circumstantial evidence can be very convincing, just as when you find a trout floating in the milk". There continues to be a crying need for greater information, understanding and enforcement of regulations - as well as testing - of cargoes that may liquefy. Nickel ore is one such. Intercargo, the International Association of Dry Cargo Shipowners, has commendably been a leader in fighting for international action to protect the lives of seafarers, at risk when bulk cargo vessels, like the Supramax Vinalines Queen, suddenly disappear. Over the years, many such losses involved vessels carrying direct reduced iron (DRI), a cargo prone to heating when wet, sometimes resulting in a disastrous explosion. It took many years for international authorities to recognize the culpability of unscrupulous shippers and consignees - one of our industry's little...