This time of the year always gives a great opportunity to consider lessons learned and set new year’s resolutions for new beginnings. For that matter, Mr. Jacob Damgaard, Associate Director – Loss Prevention, Britannia P&I, makes an assessment of 2021 and shares his message for the new year across the global maritime community.
SAFETY4SEA: How would you briefly describe 2021? What is your assessment?
Jacob Damgaard: A rollercoaster.
S4S: What were the lessons learned for the maritime industry in 2021 and what to keep for the new year moving forwards?
JD: I feel that the industry has learned that it can be very difficult to set common goals in a sector as global as shipping. This is not something new to the industry but agreeing on common environmental targets and the level of ambition across the different regions and sectors within the industry has proven difficult. Setting ambitious environmental targets will also be on the agenda for 2022 as the time to address the challenges of climate change is ticking and customer demand for emissions-free transport is only likely to increase.
S4S: Focusing on your area of expertise, what do you think that will be the biggest challenge(s) for the industry in 2022?
JD: I believe that the pandemic will continue to be the dominating factor not just in shipping, but across the entire world in 2022. The size of the challenge will depend on how the pandemic evolves and what influence the discovery of Omicron, and potentially other variants may have. If the new variants prove to be more contagious than the Delta variant, then this is likely to have an impact on the ports where crew can be relieved, and ships may be required to quarantine before being allowed alongside which will cause further delays and disruption to the world’s supply chains.
S4S: What are you looking forward to in 2022? What would you be most glad about seeing changing in the maritime industry next year?
JD: Like the rest of world, I hope that the pandemic will come at an end, or at least reach a point where we can live our lives with some level of normality. Hopefully, this will allow all those many seafarers who worked tirelessly throughout the pandemic to ensure the world’s supply lines continued to function, so that the world’s population experienced less disruption to their everyday lives, to be able to return to their loved ones for a well-deserved break.
S4S: If you could make one wish for the maritime industry for the year to come, what would you ask for?
JD: Again, I have to mention seafarers and the pandemic. The Ever Given incident in the Suez Canal showed to the outside world the importance of shipping when it comes to world trade. I hope that the world will recover from COVID-19 and normal trade operations are restored, and the scenarios we have seen throughout the pandemic with seafarers being stuck onboard a ship for many extra months will come to an end. A sound and mentally fit seafarer is essential to ensure not just safety onboard but also the safe transport of goods around the world.
- We need to repeat… the focus on safety.
- We need to lose… individual agendas.
- We need to gain… acknowledgement for our industry and seafarers.
- We can succeed by… working together.
The views presented are only those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of SAFETY4SEA and are for information sharing and discussion purposes only.
