Page 3 - CHIRP Annual Digest 2017

CHIRP Annual Digest 2017

Introduction

Welcome to the second annual review of CHIRP Maritime Another significant change is that Captain John Rose MNM,
reports, covering all the cases we published during 2017 our Director, Maritime has decided to step down after four
and a number of in-depth articles specially commissioned busy and successful years at the helm. He has been instru-
to highlight important safety topics. The response to the mental in transforming CHIRP Maritime into a much more
first Annual Digest was extremely positive, and we were active and effective organisation, and we owe him a tremen-
especially honoured when the Secretary General of the In- dous debt of gratitude. The Trustees are fortunate to have
ternational Maritime Organization decided to bring it to the recruited Captain Jeffrey Parfitt FNI to succeed John, and
attention of all member states – thus ensuring us a truly they are already working together ahead of the handover
global audience. in January 2018. Jeff is an experienced mariner who has
served in different sectors of the industry, particularly in the
2017 was a memorable year in many ways, and perhaps the offshore market. He also worked for several years as a con-
highlight was the announcement that CHIRP Maritime had won fidential investigator, so he brings a very useful set of skills
the prestigious ‘Safety Service of the Year’ category at the to CHIRP Maritime, and we look forward to working with him
2017 Safety at Sea Awards. All our sponsors and reporters in the years ahead. You will find more details about Jeff and
can take pride in the fact that their generosity and commitment the rest of the team in the appendices.
to safety has been recognised in such a significant fashion.
Once again, the year produced a vast array of different re-
This year also saw the first foreign-language version of Mari- ports which demonstrate how important it is for CHIRP Mar-
time FEEDBACK, when Wallem Shipmanagement and Dalian itime to continue to publicise the dangers in our industry.
Maritime University generously helped us produce 1,000 Together with the Nautical Institute’s MARS programme, we
copies of a Potunghua edition. This has now been joined by reach hundreds of thousands of seafarers and we know they
a Tagalog version kindly sponsored by the Britannia Steam read our reports. In an era when young seafarers may not
Ship Insurance Association. Please let us know if there are always have more experienced colleagues to guide and mon-
other languages you would like to receive or, even better, if itor them at all times, we offer a means for them to learn
you would like to sponsor a version in another language. from the mistakes of others and absorb the lessons which
may help them to avoid making the same mistakes.
Speaking of sponsorship, our first Annual Digest was funded
by a generous donation from the Sir John Fisher Foundation. Our desire to help people learn from the mistakes of oth-
They got us off to a flying start, but this year we had to find the ers has recently been further enhanced by our creation of
money ourselves in a very difficult economic environment. It a database of maritime accident investigation reports, near
seemed unlikely we would be able to secure a single sponsor, miss reports and safety alerts issued by a selection of gov-
so we contacted dozens of organisations to ask for smaller ernment maritime agencies and shipping industry sources
donations and their response was magnificent. They are too around the world. This was a task of Herculean proportions,
numerous to mention here, but we list them all at the end undertaken by Ian Shields over many months, and we owe
of the Digest and are extremely grateful for their generosity. him an enormous debt of gratitude. The searchable data-
base is now available on our website and we recommend it
It is important to state, as always, that CHIRP Maritime is as a source of in-depth knowledge about marine accidents.
run by a very small group of incredibly hard-working peo- Meanwhile, if you are aware of any reporting centres we have
ple, none of whom is employed full time. John Rose and not included, please let us know.
Ian Shields, ably supported by Stephanie Dykes, produce all
the newsletters, videos and podcasts and work tirelessly to Everyone who works at sea deserves to return safely to their
keep us in the forefront of maritime safety. They are guided family at the end of their tour of duty. This should be the
by a Maritime Advisory Board of distinguished professional ambition of every ship manager, every administrator and
men and women who together have over 700 years of experi- everyone else who supervises the business of shipping, but
ence in shipping and safety, and volunteer their time to help there is still a long way to go. The reports in these pages
us to focus on what is important. They also contribute many demonstrate all too often that not everyone has adopted the
of the Insight articles which appear in the Annual Digest. IMO credo that seafarers’ lives matter.

On a more personal note, readers may have noticed that Fortunately, our reporters and sponsors take a more enlight-
Stephanie changed her name in 2017. I am delighted, on ened view. The generosity of all our sponsors is acknowl-
behalf of all of us, to congratulate her on her marriage and edged in our publications, and we could not function with-
wish her every happiness in the future. out them, but our reporters remain anonymous for obvious

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