Tag: Gard Club

Over the last five policy years, 2014 to 2018, 18% of all pollution incidents handled by Gard Club claims teams have been caused by bunker spills, with an average cost per incident in excess of USD 100,000. But what is the cause of these incidents?

Gard alerts on the risk of briber, corruption, money laundering and financing of terrorism, highlighting the importance of using efficient systems to detect, prevent and deter crime, mostly focusing on financial crime.

Safely securing containers is a crucial procedure not to be missed, given that safely transmitting containers is important for stakeholders; Thus, Gard highlights the importance of container lashes being tightened, but not over-tightened.

As Gard informs, in a significant number of collisions, the club has found that the majority of mariners do not reduce speed to avoid a collision. However, it notes that in case there is a potential for collision, reducing speed can have many benefits.

Today, 14 November is World Diabetes Day. Gard's Christina Tsouni, Claims Executive, Piraeus and Alice Jackson Amundsen, Vice President, Arendal, join in the effort to raise the awareness among their readers of the risks of the disease, particularly to seafarers, and recommendations for life-style changes that can reduce these risks.

DNV GL, together with marine insurers The Swedish Club, Norwegian Hull Club, Skuld and Gard have completed a study of the properties of environmentally acceptable lubricants (EALs) for stern tube applications, in response to the growing number of stern tube bearing failures recently. In fact, DNV GL sponsored lab tests demonstrating that EALs behave differently than traditional mineral oils under transient pressure and temperature conditions. 

Malware aims to damage files or entire computer systems, steal data, or disrupt networks. They can be viruses, worms, Trojans, spyware, adware, backdoors, rootkits, and bots. To protect your systems against a malware, there are numerous inexpensive Antivirus software programs, but first and foremost one must know how malware spreads so they can avoid it in the first place.

Container fires may now be occurring on a weekly basis and in Gard’s experience most are associated with cargo misdeclaration. However just as with tackling the fire itself, tackling misdeclaration is a significant industry challenge. Thus, Mark Russell, Vice President, Head of Cargo Claims in London and  Charmaine Chu, Claims Executive in Hong Kong discuss the severity of cargo misdeclaration and the impact it has in the shipping market.

In the following article, Capt. Siddharth Mahajan, Loss Prevention Executive Asia, Singapore, at the Gard P&I Club, discusses challenges associated with the use of scrubbers as one of the two most popular options for compliance with IMO 2020 and shares preventive recommendations for scrubber-related breakdowns.

According to IMO, exhaust gas scrubbers are a compliant method to reduce vessels' sulphur emissions and ensuring compliance with MARPOL Annex VI. Yet, some coastal states and ports have implemented local regulations with stricter measures that either restrict or prohibit the discharge of washwater from open loop scrubbers or prohibit the use of scrubbers, according to Gard.