source of knowledge and opinion reflective of the skills, experience, and professional status of the membership of the individual member organisations.
MPC chairman Derek Chadburn emphasises. “We have increased membership, bringing an even wider range of expertise including on our important small commercial vessel and inland waterways sector.”
“Importantly,” Chadburn adds: “we have raised our profile with the government and established a channel of communication with the MCA”
Turning to specific issues tackled by the MPC so far he notes: “Earlier this year we held a workshop and produced a document on the importance of Kind Leadership. Moreover we have established a number of sub groups to address important issues, topically including the dangers posed by lithium batteries but also focusing on a wide range serious challenges for our industries.”
There is already a long list of issues that the MPC has tackled, prominent among them is deaths in enclosed spaces. Appalled that such deaths continue to be all too frequent occurrences in the the shipping industry, it calls for fundamental changes to ship operation and design. It welcomes the shipping industry's new roadmap to prevent this needless loss of life.
MPC member InterManager, the global body which represents ship managers, has been at the forefront of raising this issue. It says: ”Seemingly innocuous compartments, cargo holds and fuel tanks, vital for storage and operation on board any vessel, have become graveyards for far too many seafarers due to a lack of attention, regulation, and understanding.”
A surge of enclosed space related deaths on ships in late 2023 led InterManager to call on the shipping industry to work together to improve safety in these challenging onboard areas. In December last year the deaths of three seafarers and five shore workers in accidents in enclosed spaces in just seven days brought the total known deaths in these dangerous areas of vessels in 2023 to 31. InterManager records these incidents on behalf of the wider shipping community. Its statistics show that since 1996, 310 people lost their lives in enclosed spaces on ships – 224 seafarers and 86 shore personnel in 197 accidents.
InterManager's secretary general Captain Kuba Szymanski warned: “It's a minefield. We’ve created an unsafe environment, and then we blame people for not navigating it properly. It’s absurd.” He highlighted the ineffectiveness of International Maritime Organization (IMO) regulations introduced in 2011, intended to prevent enclosed space fatalities. “Since 2011, an increase in fatalities in our data is related to the introduction of new IMO introduced regulation. This regulation hoped to eradicate all enclosed space accidents. But it was evident that it didn’t because the shipping industry was barking up the wrong tree.” Specifically he argued: “One of the biggest issues is the flawed design of enclosed spaces.” This particularly includes cargo hold access arrangements. As an industry, “we need to have one voice, one approach to safety. Fragmented standards and practices only put lives at risk.”
The MPC has been encouraged by the shipping industry's response to Capt. Szymanski's plea for collaboration and unity across. The formation this year of a pan-maritime industry group and Enclosed Space Entry – Joint Industry Workshop meetings, demonstrates the industry's commitment to addressing this issue. Two Workshops,
124 | ISSUE 110 | DEC 2024 | THE REPORT
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