The Isle of Man Ship Registry (IOMSR) is making significant strides to enhance safety standards within the global shipping sector, but we’d urge the industry to come together to collectively do more, argues Bill Liddell, Senior Surveyor at IOMSR.
In our work and actions IOMSR prioritizes seafarer safety and vessel safety, emphasizing the importance of seafarer welfare – in January 2021 we introduced our crew welfare App – and through promoting robust safety measures.
These efforts to bring about meaningful change include regulatory input and a current focus on ‘enclosed space safety’ – this is an area where we see urgent need for change, highlighted by data monitoring from InterManager, the international trade association for the ship management industry.
From 1996 to April 1, 2025, 358 people lost their lives in enclosed space accidents, with 50 per cent occurring in cargo hold and accessway areas. The figures also show that 38.9 per cent of those happened to just three levels of personnel: Chief Officer, Able Seamen and Stevedores.
These statistics underscore the requirement for enhanced safety measures. That is also why we are actively involved in some important research and collaboration.
The registry is currently working with OCIMF (Oil Companies International Marine Forum) to address this issue of enclosed space entry safety.
OCIMF coordinates workshops to develop comprehensive safety protocols and best practices. This collaborative effort is taking a holistic approach aiming to develop comprehensive safety protocols and best practices that can be adopted industry-wide.
Among the areas being targeted include a deeper understanding of the gas hazards presented including toxic effects of CO2 and the need for standardized signage around which robust risk assessment and safety control processes can be developed.
Identifying the need to address the missing requirement for refresher training at management level and the guidelines on gas monitoring equipment selection are also under scrutiny as a result.
The report into the deaths of three stevedores found unconscious in the cargo hold access space of a bulk carrier in 2022 highlighted significant issues with language barriers between shore workers and crew, as well as a lack of effective shore side supervision, so the ways to overcome these, we believe, need to be addressed from an industry-wide perspective and not just a flag state perspective.
Together with collaborating bodies we are working towards methods of increasing wider understanding, standardizing safety signage, addressing barriers to languages in foreign ports and changes to rules, with the ultimate goal of reducing the number of lives lost.
Effective supervision is crucial for ensuring safety in enclosed spaces. It should be clearly established who must provide supervision of potentially affected parties.
Safety management systems should have robust risk assessment processes to produce effective operational procedures, carried out by staff knowledgeable in the process being assessed.
We once heard a phrase, ‘a casualty is a failed risk assessment’ – unfortunately you can’t hope to mitigate a risk you haven’t been able to consider due to insufficient knowledge or poor operational controls.
In connection with cargoes and their impact on enclosed space hazards, we can improve the risk assessment process by clarifying what needs to be assessed in a uniform manner, so that the equipment, processes and procedures required to achieve the safest end goal results.
As part of our commitment to enhancing safety standards, IOMSR has introduced technical advisory notices to achieve consistent risk assessment processes.
The aim is to provide guidance on assessing cargoes and their potential hazards, defining necessary equipment and procedures and ensuring continuous monitoring and review for use by vessel managers when developing operational procedures.
Many cargoes or chemical processes within enclosed spaces are capable of causing gas hazards.
The atmosphere looks perfectly normal and the only way to determine a hazard to life exists is to measure for specific hazards, with specific instruments, following safety processes that require you to do so – without justified exception.
As an industry we need to do more to get this right.
The views presented are only those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of SAFETY4SEA and are for information sharing and discussion purposes only.
