Tag: Interviews

Mr Patrick Verhoeven, Secretary General of ECSA, gave an interview to  GREEN4SEA team about  European Shipping Week 2015 and latest developments in maritime environment.  G4S: The inaugural European Shipping Week is due early March : What are your goals & aspirations for the event ? What would be a positive outcome ? P.V.: The main aim of European Shipping Week is to make European policy-makers aware of the value-added shipping brings for Europe and its citizens. Now that we have both a new European Parliament and European Commission in office, the time is right to demonstrate what our industry is all about. This ties in with the review of the European Maritime Transport Strategy, which the European Commission is currently undertaking. I hope the week and, especially, the Flagship Conference of Wednesday can provide positive input to this process.  At the same time, European Shipping Week forms a unique occasion to show in real terms the diverse range of operations shipping represents: containers, bulk, general cargo, ferry, roro, cruise, offshore … Next to the main conference and related seminars, we will do that through a series of on-site visits to the ports of Antwerp, Ghent and Zeebrugge.   G4S: What is ...

S4S: What was the biggest Safety & Environmental protection improvement over the last 10 years? How did it change the industry? M.F: As a classification society, we had big improvements and important steps in rules and regulatory developments. Certainly, the balance between safety and environment became much more important than before.  We had actually an important step in the approval of the Common Structural Rules which were approved by the IACS last December. Also, we have important works going on in the safety over the container ships and a lot of issues going on in environmental parts with several regulations coming up and lot of work done by the various class societies individually and also IACS for implementation of these regulations.   S4S: Do you realize the growing momentum for investing in eco -ships? What are the relevant services and offerings you may provide? M.F: Eco- ship has been a new venture in ship building and in the order book of new buildings. Surely the market has changed, the market is very different than what used to be just a few years back and there are a lot of things that the class society is doing in this aspect. Honestly, ...

During Posidonia 2014 S4S: Tell us a few words about your company's activities. Which services and products you provide? G.S.: Spec Tec is the leading entity in IT in shipping. We were born 30 years ago, actually on 14th January next year we're going to turn 30! We provide software solutions for ship management. S4S: How has the modern software changed for the better the life of those on board? G.S.: With the advent of the new rules and regulations during the last twenty years, modern software has made it possible to the crew on board to better comply and work in a more efficient way and also shipping companies to operate in a more cost-effective way. S4S: What was the biggest shipping industry challenge over the last 10 years? G.S.: The changes in rules and regulations. If you look into the shipping market thirty years ago there were five rules only whereas today there is an enormous number of rules which they don't apply international anymore. It's not only IMO which issues new rules but it's also EMSA, AMSA etc, it has become enormously complex. It all started in 1996 with the introduction of the International Safety Monitoring code; ...