Dear member and fellow maritime professionals
Already half way through January, but welcome to 2026; and a belated Happy New Year to you and your family. In a turbulent world, may it be a good one for you.
IIMS celebrates its 35th anniversary later this year. That’s something to be proud of, and as an Institute we have come a long way in a little over a third of a century. I was curious to research and discover what a 35th wedding anniversary is known as. To my surprise and delight, I discovered it is referred to as a coral anniversary! The nautical connotations made it seem very appropriate indeed.
Last month leading up to the Christmas break flew by. But before the festive period well and truly took hold, IIMS delivered some meaningful training which attracted huge interest and many attendees. I have written a short report about this flurry of activity in this News Bulletin for those who were unable to participate.
Last year proved to be the busiest travel year for me, and we delivered some excellent conferences and seminars globally. This year offers far fewer long-haul airplane flights for me thankfully, but no lesser commitment to continuing to offer some excellent training opportunities. We will share a more detailed event plan in next month’s News Bulletin. So, having said I have no plans for extensive travel, there is one exception, early in 2026. I am making the trip to co-host the annual IIMS Baltimore Conference to be held at the usual MITAGS facility on the city’s outskirts on Friday 30th and Saturday 31st January. As ever, James ‘Randy’ Renn and Ray Bracken have mined and assembled a great collection of speakers for your benefit. Join us face-to-face or remotely by Zoom. I look forward to seeing some of you there. For more details about the programme click here.
In last month’s News Bulletin, I referenced a number of new international maritime regulations coming into force from January 2026. The list is extensive. Forgive me for particularly highlighting the UK commercial under 24-metre small craft sector for a moment. The MCA’s new Sport or Pleasure Vessel Code officially came into force on 12th December 2025. I have devoted some space to this fresh set of regulations because it marks the biggest shake-up in twenty-five years in this sector and replaces the long-established document MGN 280 (amongst others). The learning curve for the IIMS Certifying Authority is steep, just as it will be for coding scrutineers, examiners and, of course, vessel owners and operators too. The new code applies immediately to new coded vessels, but existing boats have up to 3 years to become compliant.
And finally, I wanted to point you towards Edition V of the Safety & Loss Prevention Briefings Compendium, which IIMS has published today. I had rather hoped this year’s edition might be considerably smaller than previous years, but sadly we have noticed what seems to have been an unwelcome, sharp increase in the number of incidents and accidents at sea, on rivers and inland waterways in 2025. This publication brings it altogether in one place and is available to download now in PDF format. It really is a sobering read, but it has a place on every marine surveyor’s electronic bookshelf, and I recommend it to you.
Survey well in 2026.
Mike Schwarz