Welcome to the eighth annual review of CHIRP Maritime reports, covering all the cases we published during 2022 and including some in-depth articles specially commissioned to highlight important safety topics.
This was our first full year under the guidance of Adam Parnell as Director, Maritime, and Dave Watkins as his deputy, and you will see their influence in the way we analyse reports and seek to extract key points for our readers. As always, they benefit from the wise counsel of our Maritime Advisory Board (MAB) and feedback from our growing band of Ambassadors, who volunteer their time to spread the safety message as widely as possible.
In our editorials in 2022 we have often mentioned recurring themes in the reports we receive, and a common theme has been a lack of communication, either between those on board a ship or between the ship and the shore. It strikes me that our small team at CHIRP Maritime have managed to avoid many of the potential pitfalls of failing to communicate effectively. Adam and Dave give regular briefings and hold discussions with our MAB, our Ambassadors and other staff members to ensure we all
know what is going on. They always welcome input from the CHIRP Maritime community, and all of us feel free to express our opinions on any topic, whilst recognising that Adam has the final decision. If more ships followed this excellent style of leadership I believe we would have a much safer and more efficient industry.
2022 was another difficult year for seafarers. As the Covid-19 situation showed signs of improving, mariners were faced with added dangers due to conflicts, especially in waters off Ukraine, and we have marvelled at the courage of many of our colleagues who have, for example, kept vital grain shipments moving despite the risks. In shipping, we are well aware of the sacrifices being made to keep the world’s trade moving, but more generally there is widespread ignorance of the services our seafarers continue to provide. I can only repeat what I wrote last year – perhaps one day the world will acknowledge the great debt it owes to the men and women at sea.
Given the difficult conditions, it is a wonder that our reporters still find time to submit so many excellent reports to CHIRP Maritime, but they have never failed us, and this Annual Digest is above all else a tribute to their dedication. I
am delighted to thank all our reporters on your behalf.
Our Maritime FEEDBACK magazine continues to be published in English, Chinese, Filipino, Indonesian, Spanish and Portuguese, so we are most grateful to all the sponsors and translators who help make this happen.
We have again been fortunate in finding generous sponsors who have made it possible to produce this Annual Digest. They are listed at the end of the Digest and we are extremely grateful for their support and their ongoing commitment to safety. The generosity of all our sponsors is acknowledged in our publications, and we could not function without them, but our reporters (both individuals and companies) remain anonymous for obvious reasons. It is a pleasure for me to once again acknowledge them all and thank them for their support, without which we would not exist. The usefulness of their reports is demonstrated by the increasing number of examples where CHIRP Maritime is quoted in other publications, and by our growing number of readers around the world.
This year we saw a few more reports from the towage and leisure sectors, but very little from the fishing and offshore fleets. I am sure there are useful lessons to be learned from these vitally important parts of the industry, so we would welcome more reports from those of you who work in them.
Once again, we have divided the Digest into themed sections to assist readers to find the topics which most interest them, but as always there are reports which could be allocated to several different sections so we urge you to study all the sections because they all contain reports which will be of interest both to seafarers and people in shore positions. One message which does come through, unfortunately, is that not all companies are able to demonstrate a robust safety culture, and there are still ships where living conditions are abominable, safety is ignored, and crew welfare counts for nothing. We may even be seeing an increase in the number of reports about such vessels, which indicates that the various inspection
régimes are not always capable of finding and correcting the problems. I can promise you that CHIRP Maritime will speak up on your behalf if we are made aware of such cases.
Within some sections you will again find Insight articles that illuminate topics covered in that section or provide additional information. They are written by experts, and are well worth reading.
Introduction by Editor: Captain Alan Loynd, FNI FITA MCIArb BA(Hons)
Download the annual digest: CHRIP 2022-2023 Annual Digest
