CHIRP Annual Digest 2025-2026 reveals that the organisation received 330 reports concerning safety, welfare, and compliance issues across all sectors, including commercial shipping, superyachts, fishing, pilotage, offshore installations, ports, search and rescue units, recreational vessels, and the “shadow fleet”.
Whilst praising those who had contributed, Adam Parnell, CHIRP’s Director Maritime said, “Speaking up is not always easy, but your reports have prevented harm, corrected unsafe practices and improved working conditions for many others.”
While emerging risks such as unmanned surface vessels and “dark fleet” operations are increasingly reported, traditional hazards remain persistent, including enclosed space incidents, unsafe pilot boarding arrangements, and slips, trips, and falls.
Long-standing safety issues remain a feature, including inadequate training, unsafe pilot ladders, poor mooring arrangements, and machinery-related incidents. The CHIRP Annual Digest 2025-2026 also emphasised the importance of balancing commercial pressure with safety, noting that “safety should never be compromised for convenience”.
Key safety themes
Across the 2025 reports, the key issues identified can be broadly grouped into several recurring safety themes:
- Welfare concerns remained significant, including crew abandonment, poor living conditions, pest infestations, and cases of bullying linked to shore-based management culture. These issues continued to raise concerns about compliance with MLC standards and overall crew wellbeing.
- Design-related problems were also prominent, particularly unsafe pilot boarding arrangements, poorly maintained or corroded access ways, blocked escape routes, and unsafe configurations of critical safety systems. Several reports highlighted how design choices directly contributed to operational risk.
- Search and rescue reports showed continuing exposure to high-risk operational environments, including lifeboat incidents, injuries during drills and rescues, equipment failures, and near misses involving vessels and personnel. Training exercises and real emergencies both revealed vulnerabilities in equipment and procedures.
- Engineering and technical reports highlighted hazards such as chemical exposure, engine room incidents, fires, fuel contamination, and unsafe confined space work, along with environmental non-compliance issues such as illegal waste disposal.
- Deck and cargo operations continued to present serious risks, including fatalities in heavy weather, container fires, lifting operation accidents, falls from height, and enclosed space injuries. Fatigue, unfamiliarity, and under-reporting were also identified as contributing factors.
- Bridge, pilotage, and navigation issues remained a consistent safety concern, including non-compliant pilot transfer arrangements, pilot ladder failures, VDR issues, close-quarters situations, and emerging risks from uncrewed surface vessels interacting with conventional shipping.
Download the document: CHIRP Annual Digest 2025