12th SAFETY4SEA Virtual Forum

The 2021 SAFETY4SEA Virtual Forum is scheduled as a 3-day event from Tuesday 19th to Thursday 21st of October!

This is an event aiming at a target group of Technical, Safety, Operations & Marine departments of Ship Operators and other industry stakeholders.

For more information about the 2021 SAFETY4SEA Virtual Awards, please click here.

 

Attendance is FREE, subject to Registration

 

SCHEDULE

Day 1 – Tuesday 19 October

Panel #1 – Crew Welfare
Moderated by Mr. Apostolos Belokas, Managing Editor, SAFETY4SEA
10:00 GMT / 13:00 ATH / 18:00 SGT

Crew Welfare is on the top of the agenda of several industry stakeholders with calls from the industry by the Neptune Declaration on “Seafarer Wellbeing and Crew Change”. It is now high time that we focused on the vital role that seafarers play for safer and sustainable shipping as well as the whole trade and economy; highlighting ways to improve crew welfare taking into account that the pandemic has added new challenges in the work and daily life onboard.

  • What are the key challenges of this pandemic crisis for the shipping industry? Are there any opportunities for crew welfare?
  • Are there any alarming trends concerning crew welfare?
  • How would you assess industry stakeholders’ response on the issue of crew welfare until today?
  • Where should the industry focus on improving crew welfare today and in the post pandemic world?
  • What are industry’s best practices with regards to crew welfare?
  1. Mr. Simon Frank, Thome Group, Chief Human Resources Officer
  2. Mr. Tom Jenkins, Bahamas Maritime Authority, Deputy Director (Investigations Department)
  3. Mrs. Johanna Kull, Alandia, Loss Prevention Executive
  4. Dr. Eng. William Moore, American Club, Senior Vice President
  5. Dr. Periclis Tzardis, ShipMedCare, Chief Medical Officer
  6. Mrs. Anna Wucher, Mental Health Support Solutions, Clinical Psychologist

 

(PPT) Training in a post-pandemic world: how COVID-19 is driving digitalization
11:00 GMT/14:00 AΤΗ/ 19:00 SGT

  • Mrs. Emmanolia Kolias, Mintra, Sales Director Marketplace – Training in a post-pandemic world: how COVID-19 is driving digitalization

 

(PPT) Future skills in relation to the Human element
11:15 GMT/ 14:15 ATH/ 19:15 SGT

  • Mr. Erik Green, Green-Jakobsen A/S, CEO/Partner – Strategically driving and directing human performance using the Delta Method

 

Panel #2 – Future Skills
Moderated by Mr. Apostolos Belokas, Managing Editor, SAFETY4SEA
11:30 GMT / 14:30 ATH / 19:30 SGT

What used to be considered the “future of work” has already arrived! With COVID-19 accelerating automation, it is expected to displace 85 million jobs by 2025, according to the World Economic Forum. At the same time, BIMCO and ICS warn that the industry must significantly increase training and recruitment levels, in order to avoid a serious shortage in the total supply of officers by 2026.

  • What are the key skills that anyone working ashore and onboard must have?
  • What are the future skills requirements for the maritime industry due to the effects of the fourth industrial revolution?
  • How should the training be transformed to adapt to new reality?
  • How will the Seafarer Workforce look like in 2030? What are the competing forces shaping the maritime world this decade?
  • How concerning is the crew shortage and where ship operators need to shed their attention?
  1. Mr. Kjetil Flood, Mintra, Chief Commercial Officer
  2. Mr. Erik Green, Green-Jakobsen A/S, CEO/Partner
  3. Dr. Konstantinos Poulis, Epsilon Hellas, General Manager
  4. Capt. Nicolo Terrei, Augustea Ship Manning Phils. Inc., Owner Representative
  5. Mr. Bill Truelove, CSMART Training Centre, Managing Director

 

(PPT) Vaccinations
12:30 GMT/15:30 ATH/ 20:30 SGT

  • Dr. Periclis Tzardis, ShipMedCare, Chief Medical Officer – COVID-19 Prevention through Vaccination: Protect yourself and Others

 

(PPT) Overview of Crew Changes
12:45 GMT/ 15:45 ATH/ 20:45 SGT

  • Mr. Nikos Marmatsouris, GAC Shipping SA, Group Senior Marketing Manager – Crew Change Challenges in COVID times

 

Panel #3 – Crew Change/Vaccination
Moderated by Mr. Apostolos Belokas, Managing Editor, SAFETY4SEA
13:00 GMT / 16:00 ATH / 21:00 SGT

200,000 seafarers are affected by restrictions which do not allow them from leaving their ships. According to the latest GMF data, the crisis is only getting worse, as the number of seafarers working over their contracts has grown from 5.8% in May 2021 to 7.4% in June. Given the availability of COVID-19 vaccines and rapid testing what should be further done to develop a range of practical solutions to resolve the ongoing crew change crisis?

  • Where do we stand with crew change figures and vaccination status?
  • What are the key challenges for ship operations with regards to crew vaccination?
  • How effectively have ship operations resumed back to normal with crew vaccination? What are the best practices and where do problems still exist?
  • What  should be industry’s actions from now on to resolve crew change crisis?
  • How would you assess industry stakeholders’ response on crew change crisis until today? What’s is next?
  1. Mr. Konstantinos Galanakis, Elvictor Group, CEO
  2. Mr. Michael  Hughes, Standard Club, Claims Executive
  3. Mr. Arnold Javier, Magsaysay Maritime Corporation, President
  4. Mrs. Katie Lea, V.Group, Senior Crew Management Partner
  5. Mr. John Panorios, Latsco Marine Management Inc, Deputy COO
  6. Mr. Christos Sialakoumas, Dorian LPG Management Corp., Crew Manager

 

(PPT) COVID-19 Impact
14:00 GMT/17:00 ATH/ 22:00 SGT

  • Mr. Konstantinos Galanakis, Elvictor Group, CEO – Covid Impact

 

(PPT) The Airline Effect
14:15 GMT/ 17:15 ATH/ 22:15 SGT

  • Mr. Ross Millar, Steamship Insurance Management Services Limited, Loss Prevention Associate – The Airline Dynamic

 

Day 01 – Tuesday 19 October

SAFETY4SEA Awards Ceremony
14:30 GMT / 17:30 ATH / 22:30 SGT

Award categories:

  • SAFETY4SEA Dry Bulk Operator Award
  • SAFETY4SEA Tanker Operator Award
  • SAFETY4SEA Sustainability Award
  • SAFETY4SEA Training Award
  • SAFETY4SEA Technology Award
  • SAFETY4SEA Initiative Award
  • SAFETY4SEA COVID-19 Resilience Award
  • SAFETY4SEA Personality Award
  • SAFETY4SEA Leadership Award

See event website here

Day 2 – Wednesday 20 October

Panel #4 – Maritime Security & Anti Piracy
Moderated by Mr. Apostolos Belokas, Managing Editor, SAFETY4SEA
10:00 GMT / 13:00 ATH / 18:00 SGT

In first half of 2021, IMB reported a decline in piracy incidents while from September, the geographic boundaries of the ‘High Risk Area’ for piracy in the Indian Ocean have been reduced. Nonetheless, maritime piracy today remains a complex challenge to international law, world trade and needless to say, the safety and security of seafarers (especially in West Africa).

  • What are the key challenges concerning maritime security?
  • What are the lessons learned from the recent incidents?
  • Is the current regulatory framework satisfactory to mitigate piracy risks and improve maritime security?
  • How do the pandemic and the global crisis impact maritime security in short and long term?
  • How could we improve transparency and reporting of the undetected illicit activities?
  1. Mr. Munro Anderson, Dryad Global, Founding Partner
  2. Mr. Chirag Bahri, ISWAN, Director of Regions
  3. Capt. Kostas Bourliaskos, Latsco Marine Management Inc, CSO
  4. Lt. CDR. Diego Cánovas-Cánovas, European Union Naval Force Operation Atalanta, Interagency and Shipping Advisor, Coordinator
  5. Mr. Nikos Georgopoulos, Diaplous Group, Chief Business Development Officer

 

(PPT) P&I perspective on navigational claims under pilotage
11:00 GMT/14:00 ATH/ 19:00 SGT

  • Capt. John Dolan, Standard Club, Deputy Director, Loss Prevention – Safe Navigation & Pilotage

 

(PPT) Safety in the rear view mirror
11:15 GMT/ 14:15 ATH/ 19:15 SGT

  • Capt. Mark Bull, Trafalgar Navigation Limited, Director – Safety in the rear view mirror

 

Panel #5 – Navigational Safety & BTM (Bridge Team Management)
Moderated by Mr. Apostolos Belokas, Managing Editor, SAFETY4SEA
11:30 GMT / 14:30 ATH / 19:30 SGT

In recent years, there have been many casualties resulting from poor navigation. This trend is surprising, given the advances that have been made in deck officer training in the past years along with the greater use of advanced navigation systems, and the implementation of safety management systems and regulation.

  • What are the key challenges with regards to navigational safety?
  • What are the new alarming trends in navigation?
  • Do we need more regulation to address any specific issue with regards to navigation?
  • How technology/digitization may impact ship safety and BTM?
  • What is the secret to navigational safety and effective BTM?
  1. Capt. Mark Bull, Trafalgar Navigation Limited, Director
  2. Capt. Konstantinos G. Karavasilis, UK P&I Club, Senior Loss Prevention Executive
  3. Capt. Sudhir Malhotra, Standard Club, Senior Surveyor, Loss Prevention
  4. Capt. VS Parani, Tufton Asset Management Ltd, HSSEQ Manager
  5. Mr. John Southam, North P&I Club, Loss Prevention Executive

 

(PPT) Accidents and lessons learned in offshore sector
12:45 GMT/ 15:45 ATH/ 20:45 SGT

  • Mr. Julian Hines, Standard Club, Loss Prevention Manager – Accidents and lessons learned in offshore sector

 

Panel #6 – Lessons learned from Major Accidents & Crisis Communications
Moderated by Mr. Apostolos Belokas, Managing Editor, SAFETY4SEA
13:00 GMT / 16:00 ATH / 21:00 SGT

The explosion of the Deepwater Horizon in April 2010 caused the largest oil spill in the USA history and subsequently considerable reputation and financial losses to stakeholders. Years have gone by and numerous shipping organizations have faced similar disruptive events having a negative impact to their reputation within the industry- the MV Wakashio and MV Ever Given being some of the most recent ones.

  • Why maritime accidents still happen? What are the key lessons to learn from previous disasters?
  • What are the most common types of accidents and the alarming trends?
  • What are the important issues to consider in the event of an accident?
  • What are the dos and don’ts when communicating a major accident?
  • How past and recent accidents have impacted industry’s image and what should we do to change any negative perceptions?
  1. Dr. Nippin Anand, Novellus Solutions, Founder & CEO
  2. Mr. William R. Bennett III, Blank Rome LLP, Partner
  3. Mr. George Margetis, Margetis Maritime Consulting, CEO
  4. Capt. Yves Vandenborn, Standard Club, Director of Loss Prevention

 

Day 03 – Thursday 21 October

Panel #7 – Ship Safety – Dry Bulk
Moderated by Mr. Apostolos Belokas, Managing Editor, SAFETY4SEA
10:00 GMT / 13:00 ATH / 18:00 SGT

Bulk cargoes can shift, liquefy, catch fire and even explode as a consequence of poor loading procedures; ships can capsize, lose stability or sustain severe structural damage. Such happenings enhance the risks involved and lead to injury, death, insurance claims, operational delay and considerable expense. Compliance with the mandatory requirements and adherence to procedures  are vital components of an enhanced safety performance.

  • What are the key challenges  concerning the safety of dry bulk carriers?
  • What are the alarming trends concerning dry bulk carriers? Any lessons learned?
  • What are the best practices to develop enhanced safety culture onboard dry bulk carriers?
  • How will the new DryBMS improve the current landscape? What is the feedback from operators?
  • What issues should be in the regulatory agenda with regards to dry bulk safety?
  1. Capt. Akshat  Arora, Standard Club, Senior Surveyor, Loss Prevention
  2. Capt. Panagiotis Nikiteas, Maran Dry Management Inc., HSQE Manager / DPA / CSO
  3. Mr. Dimitris Orfanos, M-MARITIME, HSQE Manager / DPA / CSO
  4. Mr. John Prosilias, IRI/The Marshall Islands Registry, Deputy Technical Manager

 

(PPT) Loss Prevention Presentations Session
11:00 GMT/14:00 ATH/ 19:00 SGT

  • Capt. Konstantinos G. Karavasilis, UK P&I Club, Senior Loss Prevention Executive – Loss Prevention
  • Capt. Martti Simojoki, Alandia, Senior Loss Prevention Manager – Digital Loss Prevention

 

Panel #8 – Ship Safety – Tankers
Moderated by Mr. Apostolos Belokas, Managing Editor, SAFETY4SEA
11:30 GMT / 14:30 ATH / 19:30 SGT

Considering the hazardous nature of the cargo tankers carry, seafarers need to always be alert and thoroughly trained to endure the safe operations of the vessel. Namely, in certain circumstances even a single spark may cause a disaster or another minor event; Hence, what should be primarily taken into account when thinking about tanker safety?

  • What are the key challenges  concerning the safety of tankers?
  • What are the alarming trends concerning tankers? Any lessons learned?
  • What are the best practices to develop enhanced safety culture onboard tankers?
  • How has TMSA  improved tanker safety? What is the feedback from operators? Is there any need for an updated version or a new standard?
  • What issues should be in the next regulatory agenda with regards to tanker safety?
  1. Capt. Steve Blair, Epic Marine Services Ltd, Managing Director
  2. Mr. Alexandros Glykas, DYNAMARINe,  Director
  3. Mr. David Savage, Oceanfile Marine Ltd, Director
  4. Capt. John Taylor, Steamship Insurance Management Services Limited, Loss Prevention Manager
  5. Mr.  Thanasis Theodorou, Capital Ship Management Corp., DPA/CSO, S&Q Manager

 

(PPT) Training and Development Presentations Session
12:30 GMT/ 15:30 ATH/ 20:30 SGT

  • Mrs. Joanna Eugenia Bakouni, Epsilon Hellas, Group Training Manager – Balancing between automation and people: the Future of Maritime Training
  • Dr. Stefanos  Chatzinikolaou, RINA, Consultant, Research – Innovation – Training – Training & Development: Lessons Learned from the Pandemic and way forward
  • Mrs. Chrysanthi Laimou, Diaplous Group, Maritime College Manager –  Training & Development for the Maritime
  • Mr. John Southam, North P&I Club, Loss Prevention Executive – Charting the Future: Are we still catching up?

 

 

 

Attendance is FREE, subject to Registration

 

Nippin Anand, Founder & CEO, Novellus Solutions

Nippin Anand is a licensed Master Mariner and a social scientist with more than two decades work experience in the maritime, oil and gas sector that spans hands-on operations, academic research, consultancy, and certification and regulation. He is an internationally recognised specialist in human factors and safety management and his mission is to help people link theory and practice.

 

Munro Anderson, Founding Partner, Dryad Global

Munro Anderson is a founding partner of Dryad Global, a company specialising in risk analysis and the facilitation of information designed to support companies trading within complex environments. Munro has worked in a range of roles focusing on global issues, at both the operational and strategic level. In founding Dryad Global, Munro has sought to bring his extensive lived experience of providing timely and accurate support tools to senior decision makers in order to achieve commercial aims in the most difficult of operating environments.

 

Capt. Akshat Arora, Senior Surveyor of Loss Prevention, Standard Club

Captain Akshat Arora joined the Standard P&I Club in 2014. He is based in the club’s Singapore office and works in the Loss Prevention department with a particular focus on crew claims, environmental compliance, and dry cargo related matters. He is a Master Mariner with 11 years of sea-going experience on dry cargo ships; and over 10 years of shore experience handling Marine Safety, Security, Loss Prevention, Commercial Operations, Vetting and Technical Management.

 

Chirag Bahri, Director of Regions, ISWAN

Chirag joined ISWAN in 2015 after the Maritime Humanitarian Response Programme (MPHRP) moved its services into ISWAN. He is responsible for the operation and development of ISWAN’s regional work programme in South Asia, South East Asia and Nigeria. He works closely with various stakeholders to provide support mechanisms for seafarers and their families in need. He began his shipping career in India in 2004 after graduating as a Marine Engineer and has worked on various merchant vessels in different capacities, currently holding a Chief Engineer’s License. Chirag was held hostage by Somali pirates on a hijacked vessel in 2010 and has devoted his life to helping seafarers and their families affected by piracy and many other challenges. His passion to serve seafarers has gained widespread recognition, and he has received prestigious national and international awards.

 

Joanna-Eugenia Bakouni, Group Training Manager, Epsilon Hellas

Mrs. Bakouni, Ph.D.c, is the Group Training Manager of Epsilon Hellas, spearheading the Group’s training and development activities. She is also the Course Director for the Certificate in Crew Manning offered by Lloyd’s Maritime Academy and a Lecturer in topics related to Human Resources Management in Shipping in Aegean College, in partnership with the University of Essex and the University of Canterbury Christ. She is a Maritime HR professional, specializing in Learning and Development, with demonstrated experience in Offshore Oil and Gas and Bulk Carriers. She holds a Master’s degree in Human Resources Management, and she is a PhD candidate in Business Administration and Management, focused on Human Resources, Leadership and Organisational Behavior – Psychology, from the University of Piraeus. She is a member of WISTA Hellas and supports as a mentor voluntarily various organizations, including Job-Pairs and Women on Top.

 

Apostolos Belokas, Managing Editor, SAFETY4SEA [Panel Moderator]

Apostolos is the Founder & Managing Director of the SQE Group, including SQE MARINE, SQE ACADEMY, SAFETY4SEA and RISK4SEA. He is a veteran Maritime Safety, Quality & Environmental Expert, Consultant, Trainer and Project Manager with a 30 year background in shipping as Technical, Marine, Safety & Training Superintendent, Consultant and Project Manager. He entered shipping as Engineering Superintendent with a leading ship manager operating a mixed fleet of bulk and oil/chemical tankers and later shifted to regulatory compliance and QHSE specialization  as superintendent and later as a Consultant, Trainer and Project Manager. Apostolos has successfully completed a wide range of QHSE projects including 250+ management system projects (ISM/ISPS/ISO 9001-14001-18001/TMSA/MLC/DBMS), 500 vessel and office audits to various standards and he has trained more than 10,000 people in a wide variety of QHSE and Shipping related subjects. He is holding Mechanical Engineering Bachelor and Master’s specialising in Energy & Environment and Master’s Degrees in Maritime Business and Business Administration (MBA). Apostolos is the founder and Managing Editor of SAFETY4SEA that produces a wide range of paper magazines, the globally leading portal in Safety & Environmental protection for shipping (www.safety4sea.com) and numerous large scale events and he is a frequent speaker in many events across the globe, while he has chaired more than 70 large scale forums so far. You may explore more about the activities of the group at (www.sqegroup.com)

 

William Bennett, Partner, Blank Rome LLP

William Bennett is a Partner in Blank Rome LLP’s New York office. He is Co-Practice Group Leader of the Maritime and International Trade Group and a graduate of SUNY Maritime. Prior to his legal career, he sailed as a licensed officer aboard various types of vessels. His practice focuses on serving clients in the global shipping, energy and international trade markets. He counsels owners, operators, managers, charterers, commodity traders, marine terminals and logistics companies.

 

Capt. Steve Blair, Managing Director, Epic Marine Services Ltd.

A senior Marine Executive with extensive experience in developing and implementing operational procedures to ensure regulatory compliance while delivering high standards to clients. Extensive experience in shipboard management, business management, international management systems auditing and certification. Sound knowledge of current developments and legislative requirements as a qualified Class Surveyor, ISM Code Auditor, ISPS Code Auditor, MLC Inspector, Marine Warranty Surveyor, Inspector to oil majors and Flag State Administrations spanning over a 30-year career. Extensive key transferable skills gained through leading productive management teams while also driving forward best practice processes. Provides strong direction to daily working methods, while also makes improvements. Demonstrates strong communication skills when delivering seminars, producing reports and making appropriate recommendations. My combined training and experience has provided me with the expertise to ensure regulatory compliance while also delivering high standards to clients. Predominantly, my 40 year career has been within shipboard management, business management, international management systems auditing and certification. Additionally, I demonstrate strong knowledge of current oil tanker developments and legislative requirements as a qualified Class Surveyor, ISM Code Auditor, ISPS Code Auditor, Marine Warranty Surveyor, Inspector to oil majors and Flag State Administrations.

 

Capt. Kostantinos Bourliaskos, CSO, Latsco Marine Management Inc.

Capt. Konstantinos Bourliaskos has a background as a deck officer on Hellenic merchant vessels, starting from his graduation from Aspropyrgos Merchant Marine Academy in 2000. He is a certified Company Security Officer and an experienced ISM/ISPS Auditor. He has served as CSO and Alt. CSO in various Greek shipping companies since the adoption of SOLAS XI-2 in 2004. In 2007 he joined the ranks of LMM, serving initially as Assistant CSO and subsequently undertaking supplementary roles such as Marine Superintendent and Crew Operator, until being appointed as CSO in 2014.

 

Mark Bull, Director, Trafalgar Navigation Limited

Mark Bull commenced his career 49 years ago and is currently a Marine Consultant specialising in Navigation Assessments and Navigation Assessor training. He is a Fellow of The Nautical Institute, member of council and member of their technical committee. His company has just been awarded The Nautical Institute’s “Recognition” for Navigation Assessor – Masters’ Self Assessment. He spent 27 years at sea, including 5 in command; 12 years in shipmanagement in senior positions; 3 years in P&I Loss Prevention and 8 years as a consultant. Mark has extensive experience of the ISM Code; implementing the system onboard ship, training his crew and undergoing the first external audit (pre-convention). He then moved ashore where he was responsible for putting the entire fleet through the audit processes, reviewing Master’s comments on the system, amending procedures and re-writing large sections. He qualified as an ISO/ISM Lead Auditor in 1997 and – quote – has lost count of the number of audits he has conducted.

 

Lt. CDR. Diego Cánovas-Cánovas, Interagency and Shipping Advisor, JOC-MSCHOA Coordinator,          European Union Naval Force Operation Atalanta

Lt CDR Diego CANOVAS-CANOVAS was commissioned as an officer in 1997, but he joined the Navy in 1980 as a Seaman Specialist. After serving on board minehunters, corvettes, fregates and aircraft carrier as Air Ops SO, he became Surveyor grade “A” international, and was XO of Spanish Navy Surveying Ship “CASTOR”. Lt CDR CANOVAS-CANOVAS has held various staff appointment on Headquarters, most notably NATO Shipping Centre, at NATO Maritime Component Command in London, UK, and Spanish Navy Fleet HQ, where he was deployed to West Africa as Maritime Security Advisor several times. Currently is in charge of relations with Shipping Industry at strategic level and interagency Staff Officer, and also JOC-MSCHOA Coordinator at EU NAVFOR Somalia as permanent staff, after being involved in the transfer of authority from Northwood to Rota, Spain, and the de-location of MSCHOA to Brest, France, while remaining fully integrated in Operations Dep. at EU NAVFOR Somalia OHQ. The officer holds a Master Degree in Peace, Security and Defence, specializing in Maritime Security in West Africa, and currently is a PhD candidate in International Security. He is Knight of the Royal and Military Order of Saint Hermenegildo at the degree of Commander and Plaque.

 

Stefanos Chatzinikolaou, Consultant – Training & Research, RINA

Dr. Stefanos Chatzinikolaou is Assistant Professor in the Department of Maritime Studies of the University of Piraeus, Greece. He served RINA Classification Society for six years holding the position of the manager of the Global Marine Training Centre and the head of the organisation’s marine research projects in Southeast Europe. His cooperation with RINA continues as he currently provides to RINA Hellas, consulting services in research, innovation, and marine training. He is a graduate of the School of Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering of the National Technical University of Athens, Greece, where he also concluded his PhD studies. His professional background includes research (ten years of experience in EU funded research projects), professional maritime training, and consulting engineering. His main fields of work and interest are ship energy efficiency, ship environmental performance, ship life cycle assessment, ship air emissions, maritime safety, and human factors

 

John Dolan, Deputy Director of Loss Prevention, Standard Club

A master mariner, Capt. John Dolan spent 11 years at sea working primarily on oil tankers. John then returned to university for two years and graduated with a master’s degree in Science in International Shipping. He built on his technical and academic experience by becoming a ship manager and for the next 23 years, he worked in most of the key functions and senior roles in ship management including commercial, marine, safety, operational and technical positions culminating in 10 years’ experience as General Manager / Director level of two large shipping companies. During this period, he was also a Board member of the International Chamber of Shipping where he represented Ireland for five years. Today, as Deputy Director, Loss Prevention at The Standard Club he shares his experience and knowledge with underwriters, claims personnel and club members daily.

 

Kjetil Flood, Chief Commercial Officer, Mintra

Kjetil Flood is Chief Commercial Officer at Mintra. He is a highly experienced executive with more than 25 years in technology and sales.

 

 

 

Simon Frank, Chief Human Resources Officer, Thome Group

Simon oversees both HR and Strategic Marine HR divisions of the Thome Group. His role includes developing onshore and offshore HR strategies in support of the overall strategic objectives of the Thome Group and Thome’s broad range of clients. Simon has more than 20 years’ experience in crewing operations.  In his previous role, he has been with VGroup as Managing Director Crewing Operations East. Simon also has extensive exposure to various ship management companies and ship owners.

 

 

Konstantinos Galanakis, CEO, Elvictor Group

Konstantinos joined Elvictor Group in 2001. In his current capacity, he is responsible for controlling the Group’s business units’ cross-national operations and orchestrating the smooth inter-functional coordination of its diverse value chain activities. He has placed digital transformation as the fundamental pillar of Elvictor’s infrastructure and philosophy since 2002 and setting it as Elvictor’s primary strategy, attaining the creation and development of Elvictor’s cloud ecosystem and an arsenal of innovative cloud interactive tools for the Ship Managers and the Seafarers. His philosophy is pure Kaizen-driven and focuses on gradually improving productivity by involving all employees and making the work environment more efficient through continuous “change for the better” and “continuous improvement”. His focus is on quality control, just-in-time delivery, standardized work, efficient equipment, and infrastructure rightsizing to succeed in the continuous elimination of time and operation waste. He firmly believes that small changes now can have significant future impacts. Concerning the human element, he is the greatest supporter. He believes in continuous investment in the human factor through upskilling, training, career pathing, mentoring and providing technological tools to assist any user and any participant through digital guidance. He is widely recognized as one of the pioneers of information technology applications in his field of Shipping. He is fully committed to promoting transparency, ethics, and quality for operational safety and meritocracy across all the ecosystem and organization levels. He is the founder of SEATRIX Technologies with co-founder the COO/CTO Chris Tzoutzakis. Konstantinos holds a B.B.A, M.B.A., and a master’s degree in Shipping. His historic strategic move was to make Elvictor’s premier listing in crew management globally and historically.

 

Nikos Georgopoulos, Chief Business Development Officer, Diaplous Group

  • Hellenic Naval Academy / Strategy Operations – Hellenic Naval War College / NATO Special Forces training and Operations.
  • Hellenic Navy for 20 years, commanding Special Forces Units.
  • Commanding Officer of the Navy Seals Command and Naval Warships.
  • Senior Director and Vice President in multinational companies
  • Currently in Diaplous Group

 

Alexandros Glykas, Director, DYNAMARINe

Alexandros is a Director of DYNAMARINe, a Naval Architect and Marine Engineer with a PhD in the field of Marine Structures. He has expertise on forensic investigation and adoption of regulatory framework at the IMO. He has thorough experience in Maritime Policy, in the field of Ship to Ship Transfer operations in tanker ships and currently developing best practices for STS in bulk carriers. From 2001-2013 Alexandros was a lecturer at the University of the Aegean, Department of Shipping Trade and Transport. He retired on 2013 as an elected adjunct professor at Maritime Technology. From 2011 till now he co-operates with ALBA Graduate Business School of ACG, as a Professor at the filed of Maritime Technology and Ship Management. Since 2007 he has been extensively involved with Ship-to-Ship due diligence issues, best practises, incident investigation and legal perspective. On 2021 he edited the first book on “Liabilities in STS Operations” written by Mrs. Despoina Vourlidi LLM.

 

Erik Green, CEO, Partner, Green-Jakobsen A/S

Erik Green, CEO, Green- Jakobsen A/S Erik Green is one of the founders of Green-Jakobsen in 2001. He graduated as a Naval Architect in 1990 and has a master’s degree in organisational learning and development. Within the maritime segment Erik’s expertise mostly relates to the development of corporate and individual safety culture (competencies), marine HR and leadership development. As a strategic business consultant with more than 20 years of experience Erik is specialised in helping companies develop both at a strategic, tactical and operational level. His professional competence covers marine HR and safety projects involving both employees and employers and he is an experienced project manager, subject matter expert, strategic executive coach and as a strategic business consultant. Furthermore, Erik is continuously engaged in the development of Green-Jakobsen’s own leadership training concept, and safety maturity development concept and methods.

 

Julian Hines , Loss Prevention Manager, Standard Club

Julian Hines has a naval architectural background spanning 25 years in the marine industry. He has extensive experience in ship design and newbuild supervision and spent a decade in ship technical superintendency. Julian has served as an independent marine consultant, including ISM/ISPS audits, marine commercial, vetting and technical management, FMEA surveys, and marine warranty surveyor before joining Standard Club in 2005 as a marine surveyor dealing with blue water tonnage. Today he specialises in offshore Oil and Gas and renewable energy sector risk engineering, providing loss prevention assistance for offshore division members.

 

 

Michael Hughes, Claims Executive, Standard Club

Michael Hughes trained as a solicitor, qualifying in 2012. He has worked extensively in private practice specialising in personal injury, industrial disease and general litigation. He joined Standard Club in 2014 and has become the go-to expert for subject matters such as People Claims and Covid-19 Claims. He is also the Standard Club representative on the IG’s Personal Injury Committee.

 

 

 

Arnold Javier, President, Magsaysay Maritime Corporation

Arnold B. Javier is the President of the Magsaysay Maritime Corporation (MMC), a maritime human resource company with solutions designed to support the current and future crewing needs of the global shipping and cruise industries. MMC invests heavily in the sourcing, selection, and training of maritime officers and crew members to ensure that its clients have the best professionals for the job. Arnold’s professional experience includes years sailing as Deck Officer onboard Chemical and Product Tankers. His over 25 years of experience in the shipping industry includes responsibility for manning and crew management in MMC’s network offices in the Philippines, Indonesia, China, Eastern Europe, and Central and North Americas. Arnold is a graduate of the Philippine Merchant Marine Academy class of 1991, and took his Master’s degree in Shipping Business and Management from the Philippine Merchant Marine Academy Graduate School. Outside the boardrooms of MMC, Arnold sits as a Board Director of the Magsaysay Multipurpose Cooperative, one of the largest cooperatives in the Philippine maritime industry. He is also one of the Trustees of the Filipino Shipowners Association in the Philippines.

 

Tom Jenkins, Deputy Director Investigations Department, Bahamas Maritime Authority

Tom Jenkins has over 20 years of experience in the maritime sector, both at sea and ashore. As Head of Casualty and Investigations for The Bahamas Maritime Authority, he has led many investigations, a number of which have driven change within the industry to reduce reoccurrence and improve safety. Prior to his current role, Tom represented The Bahamas at the IMO, championing maritime safety and environmental protection, developing technical policies and maritime legislation. He was at sea with the Royal Navy for 14 years, leading and managing specialist teams in challenging operational environments across the globe. He represented UK defence engagement working with UN, EU and NATO allies in operations in the Middle East and Africa to strengthen maritime trade, security, aid and safety within the region. While in the Royal Navy he had command as Master of two Royal Navy warships.

 

 

Capt. Konstantinos G. Karavasilis, Senior Loss Prevention Executive, UK P&I Club

Kostas is a Greek Master Mariner with significant seagoing experience on-board Bulk Carriers and Cruise Ships. Prior to joining Thomas Miller’s Hellas office in December, 2019 he worked as Claims Manager for a local hull insurer, garnering more than 10 years of experience within the marine insurance industry. Kostas is certified by Lloyds Register of Shipping as an ISM and ISPS Internal Auditor. He deals with Loss Prevention related matters and operational enquiries for local Members, and he also conducts crew seminars.

 

Mrs. Emmanolia Kolias, Sales Director Marketplace, Mintra

Development & Sales Professional with demonstrated success in Sales Management and New Business Acquisition. Proven track record in saving money, increasing profits and improving operational efficiency. Native English Speaker and Fluent in Greek. Key skills include Operational improvement, Leadership and Sales Leadership.

 

 

Johanna Kull, Loss Prevention Executive, Alandia

Johanna Kull holds a MSc in Psychology and BSc in Social and Behavioural Science. She joined Alandia in 2019 as Loss Prevention Executive with specialty in Human Factors. Alandia is a Nordic marine insurance company, which is expanding internationally. Johanna’s work experience is broad; she has had her own company in health business and worked as a counsellor and project manager for youth groups. She is also a member of the Alandica Shipping Academy (ASA) reference group. Recently Johanna has been part of a team developing a Mental Health package for Crew.

 

Chrysanthi Laimou, Diaplous Maritime College Manager

Chrysanthi Laimou has been a security professional for the past ten years, focusing mostly on designing & implementing supply chain security solutions for the High Value Theft Targeted markets. Nowadays, she leads the internal and external vocational and academic capability building and skills development programs of Diaplous. She has also supported companies in setting up their internal management system regarding supply chain security as well as designed and implemented their internal supply chain security and loss prevention awareness promotion programs. Her academic background consists of undergraduate studies in Mechanical Engineering and postgraduate studies in Forensic Engineering & Science. She has also been a Transported Asset Protection Association EMEA Trainer on the FSR & TSR Supply Chain Security Standards since 2015.

 

Katie Lea, Senior Crew Management Partner, V.Group

Katie is a CIPD qualified HR and Crewing professional with 20 years’ experience in crewing strategy development and leading global crewing operations across various sectors in the maritime industry.   Spending more than 10 years based in the Middle East, Katie has worked for organisations such as Northern Marine Management and Topaz Energy and Marine and has held pivotal roles in driving operational excellence initiatives and delivering complex manning and training projects. Katie joined V.Group in January 2021 as Senior Crew Management Partner with V.Ships UK, based in Glasgow.  With a background in strategic workforce management and talent development, Katie has a keen interest in digital transformation and how data and technology can be leveraged to enhance crew management processes and welfare initiatives.

 

Capt. Sudhir Malhotra, Senior Surveyor of Loss Prevention, Standard Club

Sudhir is a Master Mariner and a maritime professional with over 25 years of experience in the shipping and marine industry. He sailed for 14 years on a variety of ship types (bulkers, containers, tankers, & cruise ships) in all ranks including master. He came ashore in 2008 as a Marine Superintendent with Mitsui OSK Lines after which he joined a leading marine and offshore consultancy based in London where he worked as a Senior Associate. His focus as a consultant was marine casualty investigation, providing expert opinion, salvage and wreck removal, and marine warranty surveys for the offshore energy and renewables market. Sudhir has acted as an expert witness and given evidence in London High Court for large maritime casualties. He has notably attended the wreck removal and refloat of the cruise ship “COSTA CONCORDIA” at Giglio, Italy as a Special Representative, and has attended and investigated the capsize of the car carrier “MODERN EXPRESS”. Sudhir joined the Loss Prevention division of The Standard Club in February 2019 and brings with him a wealth of technical and marine risk experience

 

George Margetis, CEO, Margetis Maritime Consulting

 

 

Nikos D. Marmatsouris, Group Senior Marketing Manager, GAC Shipping SA

Nikos Marmatsouris joined GAC in 1991 and is currently the Group’s Senior Marketing Manager, covering the East Mediterranean, North Africa, Balkan & Black Sea countries as well as Russia and FSU countries. His shipping career began in London in 1983, working for the Sales department of Liner company FOSS Shipping. In 1984, he moved to Athens to complete his military obligations with the Hellenic Navy, where he served two years at the bridge of a Ro-Ro Landing vessel. Before joining GAC, he worked as Marketing Manager for Contship Container Lines Piraeus’ agency Seascope Hellas, and Alfa Shipping. Mr. Marmatsouris has studied Business Administration at London’s Metropolitan University and is a Fellow of Institute of Chartered Shipbrokers, London where he also chairs the International Vetting Committee. In parallel is the Vice Chairman of I.C.S. Greek Branch.. He is an active member at various shipping associations, including Hellenic Shipbroker Association and the Nautical Club and has served as Governor at Propeller Club of the United States, port of Piraeus. He participates and speaks at many international conferences, also lectures I.C.S.students as well as Maritime University students and MBA graduates in Greece, UK and Hong Kong. Mr Marmatsouris is a father of Four Children.

 

Ross Millar, Loss Prevention Associate, Steamship Insurance Management Services Limited
Ross is a Master Mariner having over 16 years industry experience, and held senior positions as a Master and Marine Pilot. He has served on RoPax, Offshore and Cruise vessels. Prior to joining the Club, he was employed by a leading city law firm dealing with marine casualty investigation and contentious litigation. He also holds an Honours Degree in Mechanical Engineering with Aeronautics from the University of Glasgow

 

 

Dr. William Moore, Global Loss Prevention Director, American Club

Dr. Moore is the Global Loss Prevention Director at Shipowners Claims Bureau, Inc., managers of the American Club. In that capacity, he brings 23 years of experience to the development and implementation of the Club’s loss prevention initiatives to assist shipowners in the reduction of maritime risks and incidents. He formerly worked at ABS in New York and Gard Services in Norway. He acquired his doctorate degree at the University of California at Berkeley in Naval Architecture & Offshore Engineering and is also a graduate of Ocean Systems Management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dr. Moore is also formerly the Chairman of the IMO’s Joint Maritime Safety Committee & Marine Environmental Protection Committee’s working group on the Human Element

 

Capt. Panagiotis Nikiteas, HSQE Manager / DPA / CSO, Maran Dry Management Inc.

Captain Panagiotis Nikiteas is maritime professional with 32 years’ experience span in various sectors of the maritime industry including management, marine, vetting, operations, crewing, safety, quality, environmental, energy, security, health, surveying, incident investigation and training. He had been stationed and worked abroad in Manila, Dubai and Singapore and appreciated the benefits of multi-cultural working environment. He is holding Master’s Degree in Adult Education, Master’s degree in International Shipping with distinction, Post Graduate Diploma in International Shipping and Transport Management and is a graduate form Hydra Merchant Marine Academy with distinction. Panagiotis is the HSQE Manager / DPA / CSO of Maran Dry Management Inc.

 

Dimitris Orfanos, HSQE Manager DPA / CSO, M/Maritime

Dimitris is an ex seagoing officer with more than 15 years experience in shore ship management, mostly in the HSQE area. He has led HSQE teams that have won customer awards and has extensive experience in management systems, regulatory and industry standards, vetting, auditing, training and development of practical policies and procedures. He currently leads the HSQE Department of M/Maritime having completed a major project to internally develop a new management system that would be more streamlined, better aligned with the current developments in the management of dry bulk vessels (RightShip/Intercargo Dry-BMS etc), and managed only electronically, increasing efficiency and reducing administration while strengthening key processes like preparation for external vessel inspections, meaningful investigations, Management Review/KPIs and the daily practicing of the continuous improvement cycle. He holds an MSc in International Shipping from University of Plymouth and he is a Member of the Institute of Chartered Shipbrokers.

 

John Panorios, Deputy COO, Latsco Marine Management Inc.

Mr. John Panorios has held the following position in LATSCO Marine Management Inc. (ex-Consolidated Marine Management Inc.) :

  • Deputy Chief Operating Officer (2021 – Now)
  • Operations Manager (2016 – Now)
  • Deputy Operations Manager (2014 – 2016)
  • Operations Officer (2009 – 2014)

 

Capt. VS Parani, HSSEQ Manager, Tufton Asset Management Ltd

Captain VS Parani, FNI, FICS, CMarTech-IMarEST is responsible for quality-assurance and risk-management at Tufton Asset Management Ltd. He values his experience of twenty-eight years in the shipping industry – from Deck Cadet to Master, and then in various corporate roles, leading departments responsible for the safety, crewing and training for large shipping fleets. He is also the Author of the bestselling book Golden Stripes- Leadership on the High Seas, the Producer-Host of the GoldenStripes Podcast. He believes in continuous learning; along with his Master-Mariner’s license, he also holds Master degrees in law (LLM) and in business (MBA).

 

 

Dr. Konstantinos Poulis, General Manager, Epsilon Hellas

Dr Poulis is the General Manager of Epsilon Hellas, one of the world’s leading providers of crew management and maritime training services. He is also the Director of the MBA in Shipping & Logistics jointly offered by Middlesex University, London and Lloyd’s Maritime Academy and has been the latest Chairman of the Recruitment & Training Committee and member of the Executive Committee at the International Maritime Employers’ Council. He has written extensively in Financial Times 50 journals, in internationally acclaimed outlets and in the maritime trade press on topics ranging from institutional developments in shipping and unmanned vessels up to the strategic organization of multinational enterprises. He has studied and/or worked in Greece, Ireland, Belgium, and the UK and holds a PhD from the University of Manchester, Manchester Business School.

 

 

John Prosilias, Deputy Technical Manager, IRI/The Marshall Islands Registry

John Prosilias is a maritime professional with more than 10 years of professional experience in various companies with specialty in ship structures and maritime regulatory compliance. He held various technical positions dealing with major conversions and repairs along with Class and statutory surveys, among others. Prior to joining IRI, Mr. Prosilias was employed by Korean Register of Shipping (KR) with main responsibility on existing ship class and statutory surveys, quality assurance and marine equipment certification. He earned his Bachelor of Science in Naval Architecture from the University of Applied Sciences and his Master’s degree in International Shipping Finance and Management from the Athens University of Economics and Business

 

David Savage, Director, Oceanfile Marine Ltd

David Savage has been associated with tankers for all of his working life. He served on tankers from apprentice to master, then worked ashore for Mobil Shipping Company in the United Kingdom, Indonesia and USA in a variety of operational and commercial management positions. He joined OCIMF as Manager of the Ship Inspection Report (SIRE) Programme in 1994 immediately after its introduction and led the development of the Uniform Vessel Inspection Questionnaire (VIQ), the SIRE Ship Inspection Report format, and introduction of the Vessel Particulars Questionnaire (VPQ) enhancement, along with all the radical enhancements to SIRE. He was responsible for the development and introduction, in 2000, of the SIRE Inspector Accreditation Programme. Inspectors who inspect for SIRE must be accredited and during his tenure, more than 600 inspectors attended courses, sat examinations and underwent periodic on-board audits and classroom refresher training under his leadership. He has a passionate interest in seafarers’ welfare and was a member for ten years the board of trustees at the Stella Maris (UK). He is actively involved with fundraising activities for this and other seafarers’ charities. In 2010, (The Year of the Seafarer) he cycled around the UK coast to raise awareness of the plight of seafarers and support for AOS. After he left OCIMF he was engaged by LR and for eight years provided training courses relating to SIRE Vetting inspections, and Navigation Audits. He has delivered many of these at the LR Piraeus and other LR offices. This association with many tanker operators and seagoing officers provided insights as to the effort and vast workload associated with SIRE. In May 2012, with David Sanderson, who for 20 years was the IT guru behind SIRE, he set about creating tools that would ease the Operators’ Administration burden and push against a count of SIRE Observations to deliver a true Risk Assessment tool. This led to the development of Oceanfile that was launched in 2012. Oceanfile continues to operate successfully and provides detailed operational and personnel performance and risk assessment to tanker operators. See www.oceanfile.com

 

Christos Sialakoumas, Crew Manager, Dorian LPG

Christos Sialakoumas has been working with seafarers for the past nineteen years, expanding his knowledge and gaining experience from various positions in the shipping industry. Whilst working for “Inchcape Shipping Services Agency” he has been responsible for vessel’s operational matters along with seafarers’ crew changes, whereas simultaneously he obtained his Master’s degree in “Shipping Business with Shipping Management”. Afterwards, he transitioned to “EasyCruise” for two years holding the position of Marine Operations Coordinator and in 2010 he started working for “TMS Tankers LTD” as a Tanker Crew Operator, handling a fleet of tanker vessels responsible of all crew related matters. In 2012, he joined Dorian Hellas SA, as a Deputy Crew Manager and remained working under the same principal during the transition to “Dorian LPG Management Corp” as a Crew Manager, responsible now for a fleet composed of twenty two vessels.

 

Capt. Martti Simojoki, Senior Loss Prevention Manager, Alandia

Capt. Martti Simojoki has a long background as Captain and in addition holds an Executive MBA in Shipping and Logistics. Since 2019 he has been responsible for Alandia’s Loss Prevention, specialising in digitalisation and how Human Factors should be adopted in operational realities. In addition to his responsibilities at Alandia, Capt. Simojoki is a member of the Cefor Technical Forum and active in several cross-industry joint ventures to obtain and enhance new solutions for the maritime safety. Alandia is a Nordic marine insurance company with more than 80 years in business and is currently expanding internationally.

 

John Southam, Loss Prevention Executive, North P&I Club

John joined North in December 2016. He is a Master Mariner and joined from a survey and marine consultancy company. Previous to this, John was engaged in shipyard operations conducting new build DP vessel projects in Asia as an owners project representative. He also worked at sea for 16 years, initially on Container Vessels with P&O Nedlloyd, and then on board offshore vessels including a range of DP vessels, AHTS, PSVs, drilling units, and offshore wind farm construction lift boats.

 

Captain John Taylor, Loss Prevention Manager, Steamship Insurance Management Services Limited

A former Master Mariner John joined Steamship in January 2016 after 37 years with BP. Having sailed on oil and gas tankers for 19 years he came ashore in 1997 and then spent time operating and managing oil and gas terminals. Assigned to the Americas Syndicate John supports all the teams with their hydrocarbon, tanker and terminal related claims and challenges.

 

 

Capt. Nicolo Terrei, Owner Representative, Augustea Ship Manning Philippines Inc

Capt. Nicolo Terrei is a licensed and experienced Mariner and has sailed for over 24 years onboard various dry and liquid cargo vessel types. His first encounter with Filipino seafarers was on 1994 when he was assigned as Superintendent for COECLERICI Group assisting all vessels for certification under the International Safety Management (ISM) Code. In 1998, he was designated as Director for COECLERICI (CC) Group Manning Agency in Manila, Philippines responsible for the monitoring and control of performance of crew onboard. During the same assignment, he spearheaded the surveillance of construction and start-up of transhipper for dry cargo dedicated for lightering in Persian Gulf. He has since developed his dedication and passion in the promotion of Filipino seafarers onboard international sea-going vessels. He established Elburg Shipmanagement in 2005, that is among the 20 leading recruitment agencies in the Philippines at present. In his vision to bring the Filipinos in the forefront of the global seafaring industry, he led the conceptualization and establishment of the Italian Maritime Academy in the Philippines in 2007 together with the Registro Italiano Navale (RINA) and CONFITARMA which is the Italian Shipowner’s Association and has since became a counterpart of the Italian Shipwoners, Philippine government and of the Union in the development of Programs dedicated to the career and competence development of Filipinos. He is also the owner representative of Augustea Ship Manning Philippines Inc. handling 80 Bulk Carriers from 2014 up to present.

 

Thanasis Theodorou, DPA/CSO, S&Q Manager, Capital Ship Management Corp.

Thanasis Thedorou started his career as a deck officer on bulk carriers and container carriers. In 2008 he started working as a marine superintendent / S&Q Manager for several Greek Shipping Companies. Between 2008 – 2020 he was employed at Lloyds Register, Piraeus office as senior marine management system auditor for ISM_ISPS_MLC and all ISO standards. He also served as lead trainer at the LR Piraeus training academy. At September 2020 he joined Capital Ship Management as Safety & Quality Manager / DPA-CSO.

 

Bill Truelove, Managing Director, CSMART Training Center

RAdm Bill Truelove, born in Liverpool, Nova Scotia, enrolled in the Canadian Armed Forces in 1981. He attended Royal Roads Military College, graduating in 1985 with a Bachelor’s Degree in Military and Strategic Studies. After graduation, he completed his initial naval officer training in HMC Ship’s CHALEUR, FUNDY, SASKATCHEWAN and QU’APPELLE. In 1986, he was assigned to HMCS ATHABASKAN where he served as a Bridge Watchkeeper, Navigation Officer and Above Water Warfare Officer. This was followed in 1990 by a two-year assignment at the Canadian Forces Officer Candidate School in Chilliwack, BC where he led leadership training and evaluation. Bill culminated his 37 year military career as Commander, Canadian Defence Liaison Staff (Washington) and Defence Attaché to the United States from July 2015 – July 2018. He was then globally selected to be the Managing Director of Carnival Corporations prestigious CSMART Academy (https://www.csmartalmere.com/ ) in Almere, The Netherlands where he is responsible for the delivery of world class Bridge, Engineering and Leadership training to the Corporation’s Bridge and Engineering Officers.

 

Dr. Periclis Tzardis, Chief Medical Officer, ShipMedCare

Pericles Tzardis, MD, is Founder and Chief Medical Officer of Shipmedcare Ltd a company which offers pre-employment screening of seafarers’ medical exams and on board medical tele-counselling for commercial vessel crews. Prior to joining the Shipping sector through the establishment of Shipmedcare Ltd, Dr.Tzardis worked as Consultant and Senior Consultant General Surgeon in the Red Cross Hospital in Athens. He contributed to patient care in the areas of minimally invasive surgery and benign and malignant gastrointestinal diseases. In 2013 he became the Director of the 1st Surgical Department of Red Cross Hospital. A native Greek, he received his Medical Degree from the Medical School of Athens University (1980). In 1983 he joined the 1st Surgical Clinic of the Athens University Hippokration Hospital, where he completed his residency in general surgery and obtained his PhD (1988). He concluded a fellowship in Transplant Surgery in the University of Minneapolis, USA, after earning a Postgraduate Scholarship in 1988. Dr. Tzardis monitors latest medical developments as well as broadens his horizons attending seminars concerning management and entrepreneurship.

 

Capt. Yves Vandenborn, Director of Loss Prevention, The Standard P&I Club

Yves Vandenborn is a master mariner and sailed with Exmar Nv. Belgium on chemical/product, LNG and LPG tankers. Since coming ashore in 2003, Yves has worked as a marine superintendent with a Singapore/Indonesian shipowner. He set up the ISM system and assisted the company in obtaining TMSA level 2 rating and Oil Major approval for the fleet. Yves worked as an independent marine surveyor from 2006 until 2010 undertaking numerous P&I condition surveys, oil major SIRE pre-vettings, TMSA audits, pre-purchase surveys, bulk carrier hatch cover ultra-sonic tests, etc. Yves joined Charles Taylor in February 2010 as an in-house marine surveyor for the Singapore office of The Standard Club. In July 2013 he took over as Director of Loss Prevention for The Standard Club. As the director he is responsible for the risk assessment programme for the club’s membership worldwide. He is further responsible for the loss prevention initiatives, the club’s loss prevention publications and technical advice to the membership, as well as to the underwriting and claims departments. In line with his beliefs of giving back to the industry, Yves is currently closely engaged in maritime discourse topics such as seafarer wellbeing (physical, mental, and social), misdeclared container cargoes, vehicle car carrier fires and navigation related incidents. Yves became the Hon President of the Nautical Institute Singapore branch in 2020. In this capacity, Yves works closely with the local maritime industry for the improvement of seafarer standards, safety and wellbeing.

 

Anna Wulcher, Clinical Psychologist, Mental Health Support Solutions

Born in 1991 in Namibia, Anna completed her basic psychological training in South Africa before continuing her postgraduate studies in Clinical Psychology in Wales as well as specializing further into Clinical Neuropsychology in the Netherlands. Her experience working in neurological and orthopaedic rehabilitative clinics in Northern Germany have provided her some insight into the significant consequences that physical as well as mental health can have on the quality of life. Throughout her life, Anna has followed a love for traveling to different countries and truly experiencing the culture and practices tied to the people residing there. She is driven by helping people realize their own potential in creating their own personal happiness while feeling capable and empowered in reaching this. Her mission is to alleviate the stigma still attached to mental illness and create a safe and respectful conversation about the topics which touch us all at some point in our lives. She is passionate about making people feel seen and heard, regardless of their cultural backgrounds.

Lead Sponsors

Elvictor Group 

Elvictor Group Crew Management & Training (“Elvictor”) was established in 1977. It is a family owned company and its core services include crewing and Crew Management, whereas Elvictor’s clientele consists of sophisticated and respectable shipping houses. The headquarters manage contractual arrangements with clients while controlling and coordinating activities of the branch offices. Elvictor has been active across various value-adding activities of the shipping sector such as ship management, technical management, ship agency, crewing and crew management. Mr. Galanakis, over the past few decades, has managed c.35 vessels being a major shareholder in most of them. The strategic intent of Elvictor has gradually been consolidated towards specific activities revolving around the field of crew management, thus creating a dedicated crew management company which keeps shaping the crew-related agenda. The Company has an established network scattered across seafarers’ supplying countries.

www.elvictorgroup.com/

 

Epsilon Hellas

Epsilon is a dedicated provider of quality crewing and training solutions to the most discerning Principals. Today, Epsilon is privileged to be the crew and training provider of choice for an elite group of the most demanding shipping companies, as well as being a long-serving member of key maritime organizations. We manage crewing affairs for more than 500 vessels, we deploy approximately 5,900 seafarers at any point in time, and we train more than 1,000 seafarers on a monthly basis. This collective competence is confidently built upon an extended value network that includes the most reputable shipping houses, our fully-controlled offices across nine countries, key institutional affiliations, and the most trustworthy partners. The net result is an unparalleled relational capital and an embedded know-how that are deployed for a sole purpose: to offer customized services and trouble-free solutions and benefits to our clients. We do so in ways that unconditionally meet our ethical standards, respect the well-being of our seafarers and employees and maintain the sustainability and future development of our operations.

https://epsilonhellas.com/

 

MacGregor

MacGregor is a family of innovators. By offering engineering solutions and services for handling marine cargoes and offshore loads we make the sea more accessible, safe and reliable for those whose livelihood depends on the changing conditions of the sea. To enable that we have a variety of strong product brands and committed experts with a passion for solving challenges – and the power of the sea is sure to provide those.

www.macgregor.com

 

SQEMARINE

SQE Marine is a leading provider of Safety, Quality and Environmental Solutions providing Consulting, Training and Information products in these areas. We have been successfully providing a product and service range to more than 1,200 clients (based in 75+ countries) over the last 20 years, operating a DNVGL Certified Training Center and a LR ISO 9001 certified management system. Strong enough to provide immediate response and feedback to all client queries and needs, we provide a range of competitively priced services and timeliness for product / service delivery; we provide foolproof products and services to ensure full after sales support for as long as necessary. Last but not least, technical competence is the core of our management system & operations. Our vision is to be a leading world class corporation that provides reliable maritime solutions in the areas of Quality, Health, Safety, Environmental, Crisis, Security, and Risk Management. Our mission, therefore, is to provide real life, effective and efficient maritime solutions range including Consulting, Training and Information provision in order to maximize client benefit and minimize risk.

www.sqemarine.com

 

Sponsors

ABB

ABB is a leading global technology company that energizes the transformation of society and industry to achieve a more productive, sustainable future. By connecting software to its electrification, robotics, automation and motion portfolio, ABB pushes the boundaries of technology to drive performance to new levels. With a history of excellence stretching back more than 130 years, ABB’s success is driven by about 105,000 talented employees in over 100 countries

 

www.global.abb/

 

Alandia

At Alandia, our mission is to make a difference by managing risk, protecting value and creating opportunity. As an insurance company with focus on Marine, Cargo and Leisure boat insurance and with over 80 years of experience, Alandia provides superior marine insurance expertise and claims service to its customers by creating long-term relationships in a committed and accountable way. Headquartered in Aland islands and with offices in Helsinki, Stockholm and Gothenburg Alandia employs approximately 115 professionals. In 2019, Alandia had a total insured hull value of €11,9 billion. Alandia is a public limited insurance company with the rating A-.

www.alandia.com

 

American Club

American Steamship Owners Mutual Protection and Indemnity Association, Inc. (the American Club) was established in New York in 1917. It is the only mutual Protection and Indemnity Club domiciled in the United States – indeed, in the entire Americas. The Club is a member of the International Group of P&I Clubs, a collective of thirteen mutuals which together provide Protection and Indemnity insurance for some 90% of all world shipping. Protection and Indemnity insurance (commonly referred to as “P&I”) provides cover to shipowners and charterers against third-party liabilities encountered in their commercial operations. Responsibility for damage to cargo, for pollution, for the death, injury or illness of passengers or crew and for damage to docks and other installations are examples of typical exposures. Running in parallel with a ship’s hull and machinery cover, traditional P&I such as that offered by the American Club distinguishes itself from ordinary forms of marine insurance by being based on the not-for-profit principle of mutuality where Members of the Club are both the insurers and the assureds.

www.american-club.com

 

ARCADIA SHIPMANAGEMENT CO. LTD

Arcadia Shipmanagement Co. LTD was established in Athens in 1998 with a clear strategic goal – “the safe transportation of cargoes worldwide with respect to the environment”. Initially the Company assumed the management of two different types of vessels (dry and wet) but at a later stage ARCADIA, realizing the increased demands and responsibilities of the current times, focused its activities on tanker management. Following the Company’s establishment in 1998, an ambitious investment program began with the construction of high specification aframax and suezmax tankers, in South Korean Yards, on behalf of Companies that had entrusted the management of their vessels to ARCADIA.

www.arcadiasm.gr/

 

Augustea Ship Manning Philippines Inc

Augustea Ship Manning Philippines Inc. was established in April 2014 and it is duly registered with the Philippine Overseas and Employment Administration (POEA-066-SB-110415-R-MLC). Our major principal is the Augustea Group, where the company name has been derived. ASMPI is headed by its General Manager, Captain Nicolo Terrei who has 40 years of experience in the recruitment industry and has a wide range of experience in the field of shipping sector. Our company is ISO 9001:2015 Certified and recognized as ILO/MLC 2006 Compliant. Last November 2016, the company has been certified with Competence Management System (CMS) which is one of the highest standards nowadays in the Shipping Industry. Thru this system, the competency of our seafarers is being achieved by a modern assessment tools and training system done in coordination with the RINA ACADEMY PHILS. INC. – our affiliated training center. We are committed to ensure compliance with the statutory and regulatory requirements of both National and International Standards for the provision of Service on Recruitment and Placement of Seafarers on board ships.

 www.augustea.com.ph/

 

Blue Planet Shipping Ltd

Blue Planet Shipping Ltd (BPS) was established and based at Piraeus since 1996, to manage 8 Dry Bulk Carriers. In 1998, BPS split into two separate companies.  BPS retained its root name and Third Millenium Shipping Ltd (TMS) was set up to manage vessels for different owners. BPS managed 7 out of the 8 vessels; (AKMI – ARIS – EVMAR – COSMAR – ALMAVITA – AFROS & ALKIMOS) and the management of the ASTROMAR was undertaken by TMS. In 2002, clients of the company placed an order for 6 New Building Supramax vessels in China, of which 5 were delivered in 2003 and 1 in 2004. The new vessels (APOLLON – APEX – AKMI – EVNIA – NICOLAOS A and AVRA) were registered under Cyprus and Greek Flags. With the company by then managing a total of 14 vessels, it began recruiting different nationalities to man the ships, focusing mainly on Greek, Ukrainian, Burmese and Moroccan crews.

www.blueplanetshipping.gr

 

Bureau Veritas

We reduce risks and improve our clients’ performance, in terms of quality, health, safety, environmental protection and social responsibility. We provide a broad portfolio of services through our highly skilled, dedicated employees who deliver completely impartial advice and solutions. We assist our clients throughout the lifetime of their assets, products, and infrastructure and in the continuous improvement of their processes. By outsourcing risk to a single specialist partner with the resources and reputation to accommodate and meet every operational challenge, our clients are assuring quality, reducing costs, increasing productivity and fostering a more responsible, sustainable culture.

www.bureauveritas.gr/

 

Capital-Executive Ship Management Corp.

Capital-Executive Ship Management Corp. (‘Capital-Executive’) currently operates a fleet of 23 vessels including 5 modern bulk carriers and 18 container carriers with a total dwt of  tons approx. The fleet under management includes vessels of Nasdaq-listed Capital Product Partners L.P. The Capital-Executive team has extensive experience in managing various vessel types and sizes. The Company offers comprehensive services in every aspect of ship management including: safety and technical management, claims & insurance, bunkering, risk assessment, newbuilding design and supervision, IT services, accounting, financial management and other administrative functions, as well as in-house human resources management, such as crewing and personnel training with state-of-the-art technology.

www.capital-executive.gr

 

Capital Gas Ship Management Corp.

Capital Gas Ship Management Corp. is a ship management service provider, currently operating a fleet of 7 modern LNG Carriers with a total carrying capacity of approximately 1.2 million cubic meters. Our team consists of highly skilled personnel with extensive experience in the LNG Sector with experience, Mariners / Naval Architects (50 years cumulative experience in LNG) from initial design and newbuilding supervision to LNGCs operations and technical management. The Company offers comprehensive services in every aspect of ship management including: safety and technical management, claims & insurance, bunkering, vetting preparation and attendance, risk assessment, newbuilding design and supervision, IT services, accounting, financial management and other administrative functions, as well as in-house human resources management, such as crewing and personnel training with state-of-the-art technology.

www.capitalgas.gr/

 

Capital Shipmanagement

Capital Ship Management Corp. (‘Capital’) is a distinguished oceangoing vessel operator, offering comprehensive services in every aspect of ship management, currently operating a fleet of 55 vessels including 41 tankers (6 VLCCs, 5 Suezmaxes, 2 Aframax, 27 MR/Handy product tankers and 1 small tanker), 4 modern Capesize bulk carriers and 10 container carriers with a total dwt of 5.70 million tons approx. Capital is a a subsidiary of Capital Maritime & Trading Corp. The fleet under management includes the vessels of Nasdaq-listed Capital Product Partners L.P.

www.capitalship.gr

 

CR Ocean Engineering

For over sixty years, CR engineers have provided solutions for those who face the challenge of efficient resource utilization and the responsibility for meeting the most stringent emission standards.  While current and proposed regulations call for swift compliance, the imperative of efficient resource utilization has become standard operating procedure throughout the world.  Regardless of the pollutant or the industrial source, our team has demonstrated the engineering knowhow and applications experience to design and manufacture systems to meet the most demanding performance requirements. CR Ocean Engineering LLC is an enterprise formed for the specific purpose of bringing those resources to bear on the challenge of exhaust gas emission control at sea. CR Ocean EngineeringLLC offers its proven exhaust gas scrubbing technology as an economic alternative to the high priced low sulfur fuel. Our systems provide the necessary reliability and the assurance of meeting the 0.1% Sulfur fuel equivalency when burning high-sulfur lower cost fuels. CR Ocean Engineering exhaust gas scrubbing technology is ideal for cruise ships, ferries, bulk carriers, containerships, RoRo and others.

www.croceanx.com

 

Diaplous Group

Diaplous has built a world-wide reputation as one of the most compliant, widely approved and certified PMSCs in the world. With a security force of over 700, Diaplous is active in all high-risk areas: the Indian Ocean, the West African seas and other piracy areas. Meanwhile, we maintain a presence in regions that are valuable for business entrepreneurship, but still under political or social unrest. The skills of our operatives are not the sole driving force behind our security services: we have a deep site-specific knowledge on each region, as well as local contacts (agents, armories and government officials) that can deliver upon any situation.

www.diaplous-ms.com/

 

Dorian LPG

Dorian LPG is a pure-play LPG shipping company and a leading owner and operator of modern VLGCs. Dorian LPG currently has four modern VLGCs and one pressurized LPG vessel on the water. Dorian LPG has 18 ECO VLGC newbuildings due for delivery in 2014, 2015 and 2016 from HHI and Daewoo Shipping and Marine Engineering Ltd., including the 13 that it acquired from Scorpio Tankers. Dorian LPG has offices in Connecticut, London, and Piraeus.Dorian LPG is incorporated in the Republic of The Marshall Islands.

www.dorianlpg.com

 

Eastern Mediterranean Maritime Limited (EASTMED) 

EASTMED is a ships management company with head offices in Glyfada (Athens), Greece. Presently the company has under management 78 vessels, employs 200 shore based personnel and a further 3000 seagoing staff. The fleet comprises of 29 tankers, 39 dry bulk carriers and 10 container ships, adding up to a total DWT capacity of 7.2 million tons. Principally both the tankers and the dry cargo vessels are employed on the spot market and occasionally will enter into short period charter agreements on a number of ships of the fleet.

The following overseas companies are employed as exclusive agents of EASTMED:

  • Intermar Chartering (UK) Ltd. in London, U.K.: Covers the London chartering market.
  • Eastern Mediterranean Manning Agency in Manila, Philippines: Directly selects, trains, and employs Filipino Masters, Officers, and Crew exclusively for the vessels under EASTMED’s management.

EASTMED was granted by Lloyd’s the ISO 9001, ISO 14001 and OHSAS 18001 certification in December 2010 and is in the process of being certified with ISO 50001 within 2016. EASTMED is presently a member of BIMCO, INTERTANKO and INTERCARGO, thus joining forces for improved standards in the industry. EASTMED voluntarily participates to AMVER reporting system, operated by the US Coast Guard for promoting safety of life and property at sea. Managed vessels are honored with AMVER awards on an annual basis.

www.eastmed.gr

 

ERMA FIRST

ERMA FIRST, a reliable partner for shipyards and ship-owners over the years, is investing in continuous R&D to manufacture new products according to the future needs of the market. We are committed to carry on delivering on time, commissioning on time, maintain our 100% successful commissioning and providing 24/7 technical support and troubleshooting. Our goal is to keep the same level of consistency by keeping our promised results and always strive to exceed our clients’ expectations.

www.ermafirst.com

 

EURONAV

Euronav is an independent tanker company engaged in the ocean transportation and storage of crude oil. The Company is headquartered in Antwerp, Belgium, and has offices throughout Europe and Asia. Euronav is listed on Euronext Brussels and on the NYSE under the symbol EURN. Euronav employs its fleet both on the spot and period market. Sustainability is a core value at Euronav as it ensures the long-term health and success of our people, our business, and the environment we work in. It involves a commitment to safety and environmental practices, as well as an innovative approach to the use of technology and information.

www.euronav.com/

 

Green Jakobsen

Green-Jakobsen A/S is a maritime consultancy offering ship owners, operators, ship management companies and maritime entities a unique combination of skillsets that encompasses all aspects of managing the human factor in shipping. Our approach is to analyse, diagnose and then improve the safety mindset, leadership and human resource performance of people on shore and at sea. Our combined decades of experience with proven, custom-made programs is the foundation of our work. By balancing industry knowhow with out-of-box thinking, we transform strategy into daily work by using tangible tools which we implement alongside our customers on board and in the office. We are a group of people who combine our academic, seafaring and business experience and we are based in Copenhagen, Manila, Athens and Mumbai, with some 30 employees in total.

Our areas of expertise are:

· Maritime safety performance – reducing LTIF, providing strong tools and methods to support the safety initiatives and focus on behaviour and actions

·  Maritime leadership – training leaders to fulfil the performance driving role, providing knowledge and tools to act as competent leaders on board and ashore

· HR performance and management – linking the management and development of people and their competencies with leadership skills and safety performance

· Soft skills courses – offering a wide range of subjects for company specific courses and seminars

·  Measure and develop safety performance – strengthening a proactive safety culture in an ongoing cycle in a plug-and-play solution including on board training and development

www.green-jakobsen.com 

www.safety-delta.com

 

I.M.A. ASSESSMENT AND TRAINING CENTER, INC.

I.M.A. ASSESSMENT AND TRAINING CENTER, INC. (formerly RINA Academy Philippines Inc.) is established in 2007 in response to a need of the maritime industry for available, licensed, skilled, and competent Deck and Engine Officers and Ratings prepared to man ships to the best interests of ship owners, charterers, ship managers and ship operators. IMA shall assess, train and verifies in accordance with the requirements of the Ship Owners and the International Standards. Based in Makati City, Philippines, IMA has been certified under ISO 9001 Standards, Rules for Certification of Training, Competency Management System and of local government institutions. Recently, IMA has been certified as Maritime Training Provider. IMA adopts the policies of ISO 9001 Standards, ISO Quality Management Guidelines for Training, RINA Services Rules for Training and Competency Management Systems (TCMS); ClassNK for Certification of Competence Management Systems and Rules for Certification of Maritime Training Providers.

www.rinaacademy.com.ph

 

Latsco Marine Management Inc.

Latsco Marine Management Inc. a subsidiary company of Latsco Shipping Ltd.,  has been established 1st January 2019 and is currently located at Kifisia.  Latsco’s history begins over half a century ago as part of Latsis Companies’ Group. Latsco provides operational, technical, financial and ship building services, focusing on fundamental principles of quality, integrity, safety, health, environmental protection and energy efficiency, with established programmes for performance excellence, profitability and growth of management of clean energy transportation vessels. Latsco pursues all entrepreneurial ventures with ethics, integrity, consistency to incident-free operations and ultimate aspiration of providing excellent services through long-lasting customer relationships. Currently, LMM Inc. manages a fleet of  27 vessels (MRs, LR2, VLGCs), while another 2 vessels shall be delivered up to 2020.

www.latsco.com

 

MarineTraffic

MarineTraffic is the world’s leading provider of ship tracking and maritime intelligence. We are dedicated to making actionable information easily accessible. Monitoring vessel movements is at the core of what we do. Building on a base of data gathered from our network of coastal AIS-receiving stations, supplemented by satellite receivers, we apply algorithms and integrate complementary data sources to provide the shipping, trade and logistics industries with actionable insights into shipping activity. With our main offices in the UK, Greece and Singapore, we continue to grow our presence in some of the world’s leading maritime hubs, granting us direct access to the markets we serve. Our reach is truly global, enabling us to support the millions that use our service. Our mission to bring about transparency and meaningful change to the maritime world is underlined by partnerships with bodies such as the International Maritime Organisation, and The UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD). We also work closely with the world’s leading ports, maritime companies and oil majors, on projects dedicated to improving efficiency and reducing environmental impact. Our culture of innovation, combined with our desire to consistently exceed expectations, is what drives our diverse, dynamic and entrepreneurial workforce. We set bold goals and are committed to making MarineTraffic a hub where the maritime industry connects and collaborates to create a more transparent and robust shipping ecosystem, and a greener, cleaner world.

www.marinetraffic.com

 

Metropolitan College

Since 1982 and until today, Metropolitan College has focused on a strong vision of the intellectual and academic progress of its students. We support the sector of higher academic education with consistency, and we have been established among our students as well as among parents, as the leading choice of high quality university education in our country. Metropolitan College’s main priority is the continuous development of critical thinking, academic progress and academic research spirit for each of our students. With 37 years experience in Greek education, Metropolitan College collaborates with distinguished educational institutions abroad in order to offer academic courses that lead to contemporary technical and scientific knowledge and respond to the current demands of the national and international employment market. Metropolitan College’s academic structure, the Academic Board, the know-how, expertise and on-going development of our academic staff, the infrastructure, the fully-equipped library of thousands of titles and the technological support of the educational procedures, ensure the excellence in the quality of the educational services provided by the college. At Metropolitan College we believe that it is our responsibility to maintain and enhance the quality of student life and experience, through both academic and non-academic provisions

mitropolitiko.edu.gr/en/

 

MINTRA

Mintra is a leading provider of digital learning and human capital management systems for safety-critical industries worldwide. Mintra develops and deploys software solutions that enable its clients to develop and deploy their people, readily demonstrate compliance and maximise operational efficiency.

 

www.mintra.com/

 

North of England P&I Club

North is a leading global marine insurer with over 160 years of history in the industry. Our purpose today remains as it was on our inception in 1860; to enable our Members to trade with confidence. Over the years our service offering and our global office network has grown but our business has remained grounded where it all began; the North East of England. With a global service built around you and your business, expect a warm and friendly welcome whenever or wherever you deal with us, from people who genuinely care about your business. Founded and headquartered in in Newcastle, our reach stretches around the world. We have regional offices in Greece, China (Shanghai and Hong Kong), Japan, Singapore, Ireland and the USA. You’ll also see us playing a leading role in the International Group; an association of 13 principal underwriting clubs insuring around 90% of the world’s ocean-going tonnage. The experience of our staff is unrivalled in the industry. From our global team of 90+ claims specialists to the largest team of specialist in-house FD&D lawyers within the International Group, your needs can be dealt with by us and not a third party. Our loss prevention team put themselves in your shoes, providing you with the information, support and guidance to help you avoid having to make a claim. Focussing on safety culture, we provide technical and operational expertise from our master mariners and engineers with many years of seagoing experience.

www.nepia.com/

 

OCEANKING

OCEANKING is a leading marine engineering and commercial group serving the Greek and International maritime community as well as the Greek public and industrial sector. OCEANKING was founded in 1989 and operates in Piraeus – Greece as well as in Cyprus. OCEANKING employs qualified naval architects and marine engineers and is managed by Costas Hassiotis and Panos Yannoulis with a permanent staff presently consisting of 20 persons. Our experience covers the areas of ship design, ship construction and operation, shipbuilding methods and management, marine engineering systems, materials supply and management as well as logistic support. Our company follows strict quality procedures and is certified according to ISO 9001:2015 by Lloyds.

www.oceanking.gr

 

Palau International Ship Registry

Palau International Ship Registry (PISR) is one of the fastest growing registries in the world. By investing in advanced technology, highly experienced staff and building on a foundation of a fully electronic registry, PISR continues to provide the highest standards of administrative, legal, technical and support functions to ship-owners and managers. Having a set of unique SMART.Registry® tools and a dedicated Deficiency Prevention System – SMART.DPS® with greater operational and cost-effective flexibility for ship owners, PISR is redefining the Ship Registration service and proves that the world’s oceans are big enough for a smart superior Flag of confidence that ship owners can trust and believe in. Our goal is clear and we are aiming to be one of the leading ship registries in the global shipping industry.  Through our SMART.Registry® we offer every ship owner regardless of their ship size a range of services through our online service applications and full Electronic Certification allowing us to provide smooth, faster, efficient and cost effective services.

www.palaureg.com/

 

RINA

With 160 years of experience across a wide range of industries, RINA is a multinational company that helps clients build strong, successful businesses. Through a global network of 4.000 talented professionals operating out of 200 offices in 70 countries, we support market operators across the entire lifecycle of their projects, whilst assisting them in renewing their products, technologies and services. Entrusting a project to us means being sure that everything will be taken care of, and our mindset allows us to apply a simple approach to complex situations. Ship classification has been at the core of our business since its inception and today it makes us one of the top-ranking marine classification societies in the world. Over time, we’ve progressively extended our services and expanded our range of operational sectors. The experience offered, combined with a policy of continuous development and training of our team, mean we work with the utmost professionalism and competence. We promote a green approach to the Marine industry with a strong commitment to energy saving, emissions reductions and optimisation of fuel consumption. We help support the sustainable growth of Energy operators throughout the world to meet growing market demands in oil and gas, power generation (conventional, renewables and power grids) including environmental protection. Our third-party Certification services provide an independent guarantee of compliance with associated regulatory standards, in order to support enterprises across all aspects of projects, operations, logistics and legislation.

www.rina.org/en/

 

RISK4SEA

RISK4SEA is an online platform to provide PSC performance transparency to the market by analysing PSC Data providing KPI, Demographics, Detentions Analytics, reports, Benchmarks and Insights for 23 fleet segments in an advanced analysis of the last 5 years to assist stakeholders to:

  • PREPARE for forthcoming PSC inspections
  • ANALYSE PSC performance to identify strengths & weaknesses
  • BENCHMARK fleets against competition and the industry

www.risk4sea.com

 

SHIP MED CARE

The protection and enhancement of the physical and mental health of seafarers ensures healthy and happy crews and instills into their thinking, that their employer is taking care of them and has consideration of their well-being very high on his agenda. In order to achieve the above goals we implement a combination of testing, diagnosis, dietary guidance, sanitation guidelines, medical and psychological monitoring and support in real time and worldwide. We are a team of physicians of different specialties based in Greece and supported by a web of specialists and medical centers in Greece and globally, mainly concentrated in main shipping hubs with regional cover.

www.shipmedcare.com/

 

Standard Club

The Standard Club is a mutual insurance association and member of the International Group of P&I clubs, owned by its shipowner members and controlled by a board of directors drawn from the membership. The club has been insuring shipowners, operators and charterers for their liabilities to third parties for over 100 years and insures about 10% of the world fleet. The Standard Club prides itself on quality of service to members, and sets great store in responsiveness and support at all times, especially in times of crisis. Claims are managed from one of our 6 international offices, and our global reach is expanded by our correspondent network. We also put an emphasis on financial strength and stability, which has resulted in an S&P A rating and no unbudgeted supplementary calls for over 20 years. The Loss Prevention department works to minimise losses through ship surveys, member risk reviews and a programme of educational events and publications. The loss prevention team is continuously developing its tools and training its personnel to enable it to provide expert technical and loss prevention advice to members round the clock. The Safety and Loss Advisory Committees are key to the club’s loss prevention initiatives and meet twice yearly to discuss claim trends and industry issues. Various initiatives have come as a result of the committee meetings, such as the member risk review programme, introduced in 1993 and unique to all International Group clubs

www.standard-club.com

 

Steamship Mutual

Steamship Mutual’s aim is to provide a comprehensive high quality P&I service backed by sound underwriting and strong reserves. The Managers, led by Stephen Martin, are determined to ensure that these objectives continue to be met. Steamship Mutual is one of the largest and most diverse P&I Clubs in the world, and a member of the International Group of P&I Clubs participating in the International Group Pool. Our Members remain the centre of our business and we strive to offer them the best advice and support wherever they are around the world. We firmly believe the service we provide our Members will help define our future success.

www.steamshipmutual.com

 

Sun Enterprises Ltd

SUN has been established in Piraeus since 1968, however the company date back to 1878.
SUN is currently managing a modern fleet of 17 Tankers and 4 Bulk carriers with deadweight capacity of just under 2.0 million tons and is constantly looking for expanding opportunities. Our primary objective is the preservation of onboard Safety and the protection of Life and wellbeing of our seafarers which we take pride for since the 90% of our Masters and Chief Engineers started their career in SUN. “An uncompromising pursuit of Quality” has been the company’s moto that reflects our passion for Safety and Excellence.

www.sunenterprises.gr/

 

The Swedish Club

The Swedish Club is a leading marine mutual insurer, headquartered in Gothenburg, Sweden, and with offices in some of the world’s strategic shipping centres. Established in 1872, it is owned and self-managed and under the direct control of its members. All strategic decisions are taken by a Board of Directors drawn from the members. Our members make up an international community of front rank shipowners, who believe that quality comes first. Every member has met our demanding conditions of entry. These standards cannot be met without total commitment to quality. In return we provide insurance services of the highest quality; our members’ premiums do not subsidise owners operating at lesser standards.Mutuality means that the Club’s interests are identical to the interests of the members. Our mutual aims include the safe and pollution-free operation of vessels. Naturally, given the nature of shipping, it is impossible to eradicate all accidents. That is why we place such emphasis on service excellence in casualty situations. Our priority is to help the member solve the problem at hand as quickly as possible, so ensuring the vessel’s swift return to trade. Our guiding principle in all things is a guarantee of fair and equitable treatment. This extends from the assessment of risk to the fixing of premiums and the settling of claims. The membership of The Swedish Club is a real community, actively engaged in sharing operational experience in the crucial areas of safety and loss prevention. In these and other areas, the Club acts as a facilitator, co-ordinating initiatives that benefit all members.

www.swedishclub.co

 

Synergy Group

The Synergy Group, with over a decade of experience as a leading shipmanager, offers end-to-end maritime solutions and services tailored to the specific requirements of clients. In-depth technical expertise and a diverse product portfolio enable Synergy to generate efficiency and productivity gains to enhance the customer experience for all clients. Headquartered in the globally connected city-state of Singapore, Synergy’s hallmark is its through-life approach to asset management and maritime solutions custom-designed to client requirements. Now with 13 offices in six key maritime centres and over 270 vessels under management, Synergy supervises a diverse fleet which includes LPG tankers, chemical tankers, oil tankers (VLCC, Suezmax, Aframax, LR2, LR1 and MR), container vessels in the 1,800 TEU-20,000+ TEU range and every size of bulk carrier. Synergy’s holistic approach to seafarer wellness was recognised this year when it won the prestigious 2019 Seatrade Award for Investment in People. Synergy was also named ‘Shipmanager of the Year’ at the 2018 Lloyd’s List Asia Pacific Awards.

www.synergymarinegroup.com

 

THOME GROUP

Your Fully Integrated Maritime Partner: Safety | Compliance | Efficiency | Innovation

With its roots in the Scandinavian shipping tradition, the Thome Group of Companies (Thome Group) prides itself upon offering innovative ship management services globally from its headquarters in Singapore. For over 50 years the company has been at the forefront of the ship management industry and today offers clients all over the world integrated services; from ship management, crewing and training to offshore structure management, Thome offers a complete range of products and services essential in managing a wide range of marine assets worldwide. The Thome Group also provides a number of ancillary services to its clients including newbuilding and conversion project management; marine consultancy and marine services. Building on Singapore’s dynamic growth as an international maritime center, the Thome Group is now recognized as one of the world’s leading independent ship managers with more than 300 vessels under its management, serviced by over 800 shore staff and more than 12,000 crew members operating worldwide.

www.thome.com

 

Tsakos Group of Companies

The Tsakos Group traces its origins deep in the passage of time, well beyond its almost half a century continuous activity and growth. It’s roots can be found at the heart of the maritime tradition of Greece, in the metropolis of Greek shipping, the Aegean archipelago island of Chios.  For Captain Panagiotis Tsakos, the founder of the Group, going to sea was a natural course, a matter of destiny. Following a generations’ long tradition in shipping, he advanced through the ranks of deck officer until he became a shipmaster and eventually a shipping executive. It was equally natural for him to lead a small group of investors on to the acquisition of  his first ship. Joined by his family and friends and prompted by his life time companion and wife Dr Irene Saroglou-Tsakos, he led that little company to its current size and diversity. With the active encouragement and support of colleagues and the active involvement of his children Nikolas and Maria, the company was fast expanded sustaining a steady growth through the  troughs highs and lows, of the industry . Tsakos Shipping and Trading S.A. was the first of the companies to comprise what now is known as the “Tsakos Group of Companies”. Over the ensuing years, the Group established a number of affiliated and associated companies around the globe significantly expanding its shipping activities and world-wide operational capability while building a reputation of solid performance in reliable maritime transport services, thereby acquiring a strong reputation within the shipping industry as the preferred partner of choice for a wide range of entrepreneurs.

www.tsakoshellas.gr/

 

UK Club

The UK P&I Club is one of the oldest P&I clubs in the world. It provides Protection and Indemnity insurance in respect of third party liabilities and expenses arising from owning ships or operating ships as principals. One of the largest mutual marine protection and indemnity organisations it insures over 200 million tonnes of owned and chartered ships from more than fifty countries across the globe.

www.ukpandi.com

 

WALLEM

The Wallem Group is a leading provider of technology driven maritime solutions, offering services supporting the complete lifecycle of a vessel from newbuilding supervision to end-of-life recycling guidance. Wallem’s extensive portfolio includes asset management, crewing, training, ship management, safety and compliance management and agency services. As one of the largest and most experienced solutions providers globally, Wallem offers world-class support to shipowners by bringing its customer-centric and transparent approach to all aspects of fleet operation. Wallem combines technology and forward-thinking to deliver on safety, technical, and commercial performance without compromise. Wallem believes in collaboration to foster innovation in meeting future needs. Wallem operates globally with a shore-based team of 1000 and more than 7,000 highly qualified seafarers, serving nearly all vessel segments.

www.wallem.com

 

World Link Communications

World-Link Communications Inc. delivers cutting-edge connectivity solutions to the maritime industry. We provide satellite based mobile communication services that enhance the competitive edge of our customers.  With 30 years of experience the Company maintains long term partnerships with ship owners and ship managers.  Our largest customer, a fleet manager of 650 vessels, is a partnership of more than 20 years. We innovate, develop, and support smarter software, cost effective hardware and network based connectivity solutions to deliver the latest in Maritime Cyber-security, Vessel connectivity & Satellite bandwidth optimization, and Crew welfare. Our technical support team attends to vessels’ needs around the clock and around the world. Our certified engineers support a fleet of more than 1800 global trading vessels. We serve vessels in the merchant fleet, research, and oil & gas support sectors. We are an independent mobile satellite service provider, maintaining strong vendor relations with satellite operators and hardware manufacturers including Inmarsat, Intellian, and CISCO, among others. Our satellite connectivity solutions use bandwidth from Inmarsat, Iridium, and Global Eagle among others to deliver the most effective solution to our customers. We work with our customers to harden their fleet cyber-security posture, optimize satellite communications onboard their vessels, and enhance their crew welfare services to improve their competitive edge.

www.wlnet.com

 

The 2021 SAFETY4SEA Forum is taking place virtually from 19 to 21 of October 2021, focusing on key safety issues and latest updates of the regulatory agenda for the maritime industry which is currently facing challenging times due to the pandemic.

The event is organized by SAFETY4SEA having as lead sponsors the following organizations: Elvictor Group, Epsilon Hellas, MacGregor and SQEMARINE.

Other sponsors are: ABB, Alandia, American Club, ARCADIA SHIPMANAGEMENT CO. LTD, Augustea Ship Manning Philippines Inc, Blue Planet Shipping Ltd, Bureau Veritas, Capital-Executive Ship Management Corp., Capital Gas Ship Management Corp., Capital Shipmanagement, CR Ocean Engineering, Diaplous Group, Dorian LPG, Eastern Mediterranean Maritime Limited (EASTMED), ERMA FIRST, EURONAV, Green Jakobsen, I.M.A. ASSESSMENT AND TRAINING CENTER, INC., Latsco Marine Management Inc., MarineTraffic, Metropolitan College, MINTRA, North of England P&I Club, OCEANKING, Palau International Ship Registry, RINA, RISK4SEA, SHIP MED CARE, Standard Club, Steamship Mutual, Sun Enterprises Ltd, The Swedish Club, Synergy Group, THOME GROUP, Tsakos Group of Companies, UK Club, WALLEM, World Link Communications.

 

CLOSED
Day 01 - Tuesday October 19

Panel #1 – Crew Welfare

Crew Welfare is on the top of the agenda of several industry stakeholders with calls from the industry by the Neptune Declaration on “Seafarer Wellbeing and Crew Change”. It is now high time that we focused on the vital role that seafarers play for safer and sustainable shipping as well as the whole trade and economy; highlighting ways to improve crew welfare taking into account that the pandemic has added new challenges in the work and daily life onboard.

Experts of Panel 1 - Mr. Simon Frank, Thome Group, Chief Human Resources Officer; Mr. Tom Jenkins, Bahamas Maritime Authority, Deputy Director (Investigations Department); Mrs. Johanna Kull, Alandia, Loss Prevention Executive; Dr. William Moore, American Club, Senior Vice President;  Dr. Periclis Tzardis, ShipMedCare, Chief Medical Officer and; Mrs. Anna Wucher, Mental Health Support Solutions, Clinical Psychologist – referred to the key challenges of this pandemic crisis for the shipping industry as well as the opportunities raised for crew welfare.

With COVID-19, all industry stakeholders became aware of mental health issues, experts said. More attention is now given on seafarers’ stress factors and as an industry, it is firstly important to understand what it means to work onboard and evaluate strategies that can support seafarers successfully. Certainly, we have a long way to go back to normal operations again, but it is positive that many initiatives have appeared to raise awareness over mental health issues. Overall, it goes without saying that during these months, the key challenge for ship operators is to keep seafarers health, both physically and mentally, and keep functioning at the same time. However, the focus should be on seafarers’ situational awareness and working environment.

As such, maritime stakeholders can take this crisis as an opportunity and drive the industry forward to embrace means of communication, medication, medical facilities and technologies onboard to improve welfare but also try to include mental health practices, standard proactive procedures, erase the stigma of mental health and gain knowledge of all factors that affect seafarer’s mental health. As key takeaway, experts agreed that industry is lacking of significant data to measure and monitor mental health while it is time for real action. Seafarers are resilient and it is our responsibility to implement changes and improve their wellbeing.

 

Mrs. Emmanolia Kolias, Mintra, Sales Director Marketplace, presented how Covid-19 is driving digitalization in training, highlighting that online training does not replace physical but it is a supplement, offering many benefits such as enhanced safety, support on the onboard welfare, more time with family onshore and re-skilling. However, there is still a long work to do, considering that only 10% of crews have internet access and there is stigma in maritime around e-learning.

Mr. Erik Green, Green-Jakobsen A/S, CEO/Partner, highlighted that by directing attention to important things, we can have enhanced situational awareness onboard. As such, he explained how ‘Delta Method’ works and manages to evaluate where seafarers may direct their attention. Delta Method evaluates 9 key areas, developing a shared situational understanding to help uncover private and social understandings with the aim to improve performance onboard.

 

Panel #2 – Future Skills

What used to be considered the “future of work” has already arrived! With COVID-19 accelerating automation, it is expected to displace 85 million jobs by 2025, according to the World Economic Forum. At the same time, BIMCO and ICS warn that the industry must significantly increase training and recruitment levels, in order to avoid a serious shortage in the total supply of officers by 2026.

Experts of Panel 2 - Mr. Kjetil Flood, Mintra, Chief Commercial Officer; Mr. Erik Green, Green-Jakobsen A/S, CEO/Partner; Dr. Konstantinos Poulis, Epsilon Hellas, General Manager;  Capt. Nicolo Terrei, Augustea Ship Manning Phils. Inc., Owner Representative and; Mr. Bill Truelove, CSMART Training Centre, Managing Director – discussed about the potential crew shortage, ways to invest in future skills and reduce the competency gas as well as get people more involved in training combining new technologies.

This pandemic revealed that shipping industry should not be accused of conservatism anymore as it proved its ability and willingness to adapt quickly to new reality and remain innovative, experts noted. The 4th industrial revolution is taking place and shipping industry can follow it as we are witnessing many new technological developments. However, we need to take advantage of this technology acceleration and shed our focus on training and skills development to drive performance. Considering that crew shortage is projected for the coming years, the maritime industry needs to be prepared since this shortage has not only to do with a decrease in the number of crews but also with a lack of skills. In that regard, focus on competence and up skilling should be a priority; to achieve these, significant changes should take place.

Additional skills are necessary to face the competency gap and industry stakeholders have a joint responsibility towards. We need to ensure that people onboard are being provided with news ways of training and systems. In order to move faster and accelerate our position in the learning curve, we need to use modern tools and constructive feedback to develop and grow crew skills. The industry wants to invest in its people and organizations need to find better ways towards.

 

Dr. Periclis Tzardis, ShipMedCare, Chief Medical Officer, answered to questions related to COVID-19 vaccination and highlighted its benefits. Vaccination not only prevents anyone for getting COVID-19, but also prevents the spread of the disease. Although many still worry about the COVID-19 vaccines, it is important to remember that the advantages greatly outweigh all disadvantages.

Mr. Nikos Marmatsouris, GAC Shipping SA, Group Senior Marketing Manager, provided an overview of the crew change situation referring why issues still remain. Although more flights are now available and country borders are open, there are still many limitations due to bureaucracy which brings additional time losses and costs to operators. Many countries, especially those in the Far East, are still restricting crew changes.

 

Panel #3 – Crew Change/Vaccination

200,000 seafarers are affected by restrictions which do not allow them from leaving their ships. According to the latest GMF data, after a significant deterioration of the situation since May, the Neptune Declaration - Crew Change Indicator since August pointed a stabilization and beginning alleviation of the situation. Given the availability of COVID-19 vaccines and rapid testing, more practical solutions are needed to resolve the crew change crisis.

Experts of Panel 3 - Mr. Konstantinos Galanakis, Elvictor Group, CEO; Mr. Michael Hughes, Standard Club, Claims Executive; Mr. Arnold Javier, Magsaysay Maritime Corporation, President; Mrs. Katie Lea, V.Group, Senior Crew Management Partner; Mr. John Panorios, Latsco Marine Management Inc, Deputy COO and; Mr. Christos Sialakoumas, Dorian LPG Management Corp., Crew Manager – focused on industry’s actions from now on to resolve crew change crisis.

Ship operators provided an overview of their fleet situation and vaccination progress and expressed restrained optimism about the current situation, forecasting that it will take more than a year for the operations to come back to normal; certainly, many new things came to stay and we will see many changes in future travels. However, as per latest Neptune Declaration Crew Change Indicator, the situation shows improvement; now operators can plan crew changes in many ports but still the different requirements and restrictions make it very challenging. Overall, the word is splitted into two tiers; navigating through China and Australia for example is still a nightmare.

In particular, several ports create huge problems with crew change planning and thus more flexible procedures are necessary. The biggest challenge for the operators is to find the more convenient port while the worst case scenario is to have a COVID-19 case onboard. New and amended regulations and the emerging protocols also create barriers and disruptions to global trade which will continue unless uniformity exists. However, all these are lessons learned for a next crisis.

 

Mr. Konstantinos Galanakis, Elvictor Group, CEO, assessed the COVID-19 impact on shipping industry and highlighted that response strategy plan and proactiveness should be every operator’s key priorities featuring key communication and welfare principles and considering all potential associated risks.

Mr.Ross Millar, Steamship Insurance Management Services, explained the ‘Airline Dynamic’ to compare how shipping and airline sectors function and collaborate, finding similarities and differences to highlight lessons learned.

Day 02 - Wednesday October 20

Panel #4 – Maritime Security & Anti Piracy

In first half of 2021, IMB reported a decline in piracy incidents while from September, the geographic boundaries of the ‘High Risk Area’ for piracy in the Indian Ocean have been reduced. Nonetheless, maritime piracy today remains a complex challenge to international law, world trade and needless to say, the safety and security of seafarers (especially in West Africa).

Experts of Panel 4 - Mr. Munro Anderson, Dryad Global, Founding Partner; Mr. Chirag Bahri, ISWAN, Director of Regions; Capt. Kostas Bourliaskos, Latsco Marine Management Inc, CSO; Lt. CDR. Diego Cánovas-Cánovas, European Union Naval Force Operation Atalanta, Interagency and Shipping Advisor, Coordinator and; Mr. Nikos Georgopoulos, Diaplous Group, Chief Business Development Officer expressed their concerns over the new emerging maritime security trends.

Experts referred to the key challenges with regards to maritime security; the industry is suffering and the pandemic has made us realize that we need to adapt to a new environment. The same applies to maritime security, since the threat in Indian ocean has been evolved to terrorism. Thus, in order to face this, industry needs to support a global perspective around maritime security, new architecture and development of sharing information network. In particular, a new maritime security architecture is important to support all different geopolitical areas and reassure that there is enhanced maritime security.

Furthermore, pirates are becoming more active; now the crew has to face not only the pandemic but also the threat of pirates. In that regard, emotional support for seafarers and their families is vital as well as guidance and company policies to get prepared and handle attacks. In addition to seafarers’ wellbeing issues, we need to create trust among agencies and reporting structures in order to ensure that seafarers report all incidents. However, experts highlighted that as a key priority we need to define the new threat and consider the emerging risk areas and provide better protection; however in many countries, provision of protection is challenging due to legislation restrictions. Experts also shared their perspectives on how piracy activity may evolve within the different areas, noting that they don’t expect change in the Indian Ocean while Nigeria and Gulf of Guinea remain hot spots. Also, they discussed whether there is a need for regulatory update, noting that it is important to consider national and international laws as well as ISPS Code implementation.

 

Capt. John Dolan, Standard Club, Deputy Director, Loss Prevention, shared P&I perspective on navigational claims under pilotage, mentioning that over 20 years, 1,064 incidents under pilotage have been reported in excess of $US1.85bn. Although training and technology have advanced, such incidents continue and thus, engagement of both pilotage bodies and port authorities is critical.

Capt. Mark Bull, Trafalgar Navigation Limited, Director gave a presentation entitled ‘Safety in the rear-view mirror’ to highlight the reasons why accidents at sea continue, making an assessment of ISM Code implementation. He stressed that we need a new approach for enhanced maritime safety and suggested to focus on critical control points and challenge the existing safety protocols.

 

Panel #5 – Navigational Safety & BTM (Bridge Team Management)

In recent years, there have been many casualties resulting from poor navigation. This trend is surprising, given the advances that have been made in deck officer training in the past years along with the greater use of advanced navigation systems, and the implementation of safety management systems and regulation.

Experts of Panel 5 - Capt. Mark Bull, Trafalgar Navigation Limited, Director; Capt. Konstantinos G. Karavasilis, UK P&I Club, Senior Loss Prevention Executive; Capt. Sudhir Malhotra, Standard Club, Senior Surveyor, Loss Prevention; Capt. VS Parani, Tufton Asset Management Ltd, HSSEQ Manager and; Mr. John Southam, North P&I Club, Loss Prevention Executive discussed about the key challenges with regards to navigational safety and and ways to move forward.

Experts highlighted the need for emphasizing more on navigation, since related incidents continue, revealing a lack of focus and strategies around. Namely, the introduction of TMSA recognized the importance of navigational audits but given that the last 25 years many incidents have occurred, it is about time to point our direction towards navigation and consider it as a critical topic in our discussions. Outlining the challenges of navigational safety, experts agreed that ship bridge themselves are so complex and have so many complicated systems that look like an airplane cockpit. Therefore, technology at bridge is an issue that needs to be addressed since the different alarms and buttons can affect the focus and situational awareness of officers. For enhanced navigational safety, two things are important to focus on: firstly, ensuring increased situational awareness and secondly effective communication and support by the bridge team. In this context, we should shed our attention to the bridge team, the bridge ergonomics, crew recruiting and retaining to pass out their experience and develop key soft skills for experience exchange.

What is more, experts agreed that ECDIS is a key milestone that helped the industry to move forward with navigational safety, but comes with challenges. In particular, they mentioned alarming trends from the ECDIS use; for example there are several different types, featuring many applications for which the end user may not be aware of. Thus, ECDIS has become a complex system, however, this technology need to become more human centered and take into consideration the end user. Overall, as an industry, we need to provide crew with proper training as well as the best tools and solutions that will minimize the risk of navigation errors and ensure enhanced safety.

 

Mr. Julian Hines, Standard Club, Loss Prevention Manager, shared lessons learned from accidents in the offshore sector. He, firstly, identified the key difference between shipping and offshore operations to highlight that hazards remain same but risks are different due to the different operating environment, operating procedures regulations, automation and digital technology and structural & mechanical.

 

Panel #6 – Lessons learned from Major Accidents & Crisis Communications

We have become witnesses to major accidents that have made headlines to media and the start for regulatory change for enhanced safety. Years have gone by and accidents still happen, the MV Wakashio and MV Ever Given being some of the most recent ones. All these accidents not only result to considerable reputation and financial losses to stakeholders but also have a negative impact on industry’s profile.

Experts of Panel 6 - Dr. Nippin Anand, Novellus Solutions, Founder & CEO; Mr. William R. Bennett III, Blank Rome LLP, Partner; Mr. George Margetis, Margetis Maritime Consulting, CEO and; Capt. Yves Vandenborn, Standard Club, Director of Loss Prevention attempted to explain why maritime accidents still happen.

It seems that we have not learned from previous accidents, experts noted. Accidents will continue to happen but we can limit their consequences. Although, there is expertise, at the same time there is an unwillingness from the industry to make a radical change. Not enough has been made; regulations are available, but are not being implemented effectively. What is more, commercial pressure, experienced crew work in unfamiliar environment, mechanical failure, over reliance on computers/ technology and unexpected weather conditions are among the key risks which are getting higher with the increased size of ships. In essence, nowadays, there is a reduction in number of accidents but casualties are more severe with devastating consequences due to big sizes of the ships and increased exposure to media.

Experts also noted that there is a need to focus more on accident investigations and question what new we can learn from previous disasters and observe any patterns. Sadly, all the advancements in safety are due to major accidents that have made headlines. But let’s be more proactive and try to collaborate effectivily to resolve the problems. Also, a fresh look on the design of ships and regulation is important. Experts also thought what can we learn from other industries such as aviation and nuclear and commented how recent accidents, such as EverGiven, have impacted industry’s image and what should we do to change any negative perceptions and handle future crises.

 

Day 03 - Thursday October 21

Panel #7 – Ship Safety – Dry Bulk

Bulk cargoes can shift, liquefy, catch fire and even explode as a consequence of poor loading procedures; ships can capsize, lose stability or sustain severe structural damage. Such happenings enhance the risks involved and lead to injury, death, insurance claims, operational delay and considerable expense. Compliance with the mandatory requirements and adherence to procedures are vital components of an enhanced safety performance.

Experts of Panel 7 - Capt. Akshat Arora, Standard Club, Senior Surveyor, Loss Prevention; Capt. Panagiotis Nikiteas, Maran Dry Management Inc., HSQE Manager / DPA / CSO; Mr. Dimitris Orfanos, M-MARITIME, HSQE Manager / DPA / CSO and; Mr. John Prosilias, IRI/The Marshall Islands Registry, Deputy Technical Manager suggested best practices to develop enhanced safety culture onboard dry bulk carriers.

Experts talked about the key challenges that dry bulk sector is currently facing, mentioning that there are weak drivers for safety as long as stakeholders comply only to available regulation. A strong safety culture can be built beyond regulatory compliance while there are many issues that need to be addressed such as fatigue onboard, incident investigation, the safe carriage of cargoes, liquefaction, quality standards and enclosed space casualties which is a concerning trend. Although there are many issues to resolve, experts appeared optimistic for the future, highlighting the need for collaboration to enhance safety awareness and provide continuous training. Things can improve, but industry needs to take into consideration that there is a lot of commercial pressure, in particular due to COVID-19 restrictions, and that dry bulk sector is very fragmented. In that regard, we need to realize the dynamics of crew, work and ports, to identify the persistent compliance problems as well as to consider any additional issues i.e. welfare.

Furthermore, experts suggested ways to fight the ‘safety paradox’; in essence, we tend to identify risks by adding more paperwork but in the end, this approach doesn’t improve safety. Therefore, it is important to focus on the quality of the process and involve actually with maritime safety, regulatory and quality matters and incident investigation. We also need to change our mindset since young generation onboard has different vision; so it is important to be open and discover new paths to bridge gaps and embrace technology. But above all, we need to communicate with crew onboard dry bulk ships; ship operators should listen to them, show trust, collect constructive feedback and share best practices in order industry to view real improvement.

Capt. Konstantinos G. Karavasilis, UK P&I Club, Senior Loss Prevention Executive, provided an overview of the current loss prevention challenges. He presented the most common causes of P&I accidents noting that human error prevails; in that regard, he stressed, we need to find ways to assist crew onboard and personnel ashore to mitigate risks.

Capt. Martti Simojoki, Alandia, Senior Loss Prevention Manager, presented digital solutions for loss prevention: APP, API, Realtime Loss Preventer, Real Time two way communication and data collection, noting that these tools aim to create and share safety observations for a safer and more predictable future.

 

Panel #8 – Ship Safety – Tankers

Considering the hazardous nature of the cargo tankers carry, seafarers need to always be alert and thoroughly trained to endure the safe operations of the vessel. Namely, in certain circumstances even a single spark may cause a disaster or another minor event; Hence, there are many issues that should be taken into account when thinking about tanker safety.

In this context, experts of Panel 8 – Capt. Steve Blair, Epic Marine Services Ltd, Managing Director; Mr. Alexandros Glykas, DYNAMARINe, Director; Mr. David Savage, Oceanfile Marine Ltd, Director; Capt. John Taylor, Steamship Insurance Management Services Limited, Loss Prevention Manager and; Mr. Thanasis Theodorou, Capital Ship Management Corp., DPA/CSO, S&Q Manager - suggested ways to move forward and improve the safety record.

Experts expressed their concerns for the tanker sector, considering that the pandemic has made situation onboard quite challenging, putting additional stress to crew. Therefore, operators are responsible to focus on crew welfare while keeping the safety standards to the highest level as possible. Unfortunately, there are many cargo related claims and incidents taking place; albeit lessons learned and procedures in place, industry continues to see the same incidents. Another key concern is how to utilize SIRE 2.0 and TMSA. Namely, TMSA has been a key driver to assist industry in building safety culture, experts agreed and discussed where industry should focus on. Key areas are: technology, situational awareness, minimize bureaucracy, improving communication channels, emphasize on best practices

Above all, this panel highlighted the need to resolve the ‘safety paradox’ within the tanker sector by building trust with the crew and investing in training, communication and an inclusive culture in which crew have voice to share constructive feedback. Safety culture should be well communicated across all personnel with the aim to motivate crew on how to implement the procedures for their own safety. In that regard, operators should promote a positive attitude to give encouragement and make seafarers feel respected and valuable. Also, thinking how to simplify procedures and more effective implementation of the existing regulation and focus on competence are vital.

 

Mrs. Joanna Eugenia Bakouni, Epsilon Hellas, Group Training Manager, suggested ways to keep balance between automation and people to help maritime training adapt to new requirements. Active learning, complex problem solving, creativity, resilience and flexibility are among the key skills for the future; the catalysts to drive human performance and enhance safety, she said, highlighting to place people at the center of digital transformation.

Dr. Stefanos Chatzinikolaou, RINA, Consultant, shared lessons learned from the pandemic, emphasizing how connectivity helped to function and how training has been transformed. Online training is now the new normal, helping shore and onboard personnel and maritime professional to acquire knowledge and develop their skills without restrictions.

Mrs. Chrysanthi Laimou, Diaplous Group, Maritime College Manager, focused on the human factor and suggested ways for a more human-centered approach featuring learning initiatives for training and development.

Mr. John Southam, North P&I Club, Loss Prevention Executive gave a presentation entitled ‘ Charting the Future’ to highlight the importance of training for navigational safety, questioning whether training is keeping up or lagging behind technlogy considering that paper charts are still the predominant tool for navigation but many people onboard use ECDIS than ENC.

Who Should Attend

This is a must attend event for all companies and individuals interested in Ship Technology and Sustainable Shipping, including:

  • Ship owners
  • Ship Manager Company Staff (Technical, Marine, Operations, Safety & Quality)
  • Maritime professionals
  • Regulatory & government authorities
  • Flag state representatives
  • Classification societies representatives
  • Marine Insurers & P&I Executives
  • Experts on information technologies (IT) onboard
  • Other relevant with smart technologies Industry Organizations/ Executives/ Experts

Delegate Helpdesk

General Information

Who can I contact for more information on the event?
Please contact the organizers directly at e-mail: info [at] safety4sea [dot] com

Registration

How do I register?
To register you should fill in the online registration form and follow the instructions contained in the Registration Form.

Is the event free to attend for the delegates?
Attendance to the event is FREE subject to online registration. In case you are interested, please complete the online registration form and confirm with the organizers.

What happens if I am unable to attend despite being registered?
Appreciate if you could inform the organizers by e-mail as soon as possible before the event.

After the event

How may I evaluate and comment on the event?
You may comment with the organizers at any time, during or after the event. Furthermore an event evaluation form will be available online after the event to complete anonymously any comments you may have.

How can I order Speaker Presentations, Conference DVD or Certificates of Attendance?
Speaker Presentations and Certificates of attendance will be available through the organizers after the event, at no additional cost, ONLY to SAFETY4SEA subscribers. Conference DVD may be available at additional cost to those interested.

Please contact the organizers directly at e-mail: info [at] safety4sea [dot] com


We look forward to welcoming you at this event!

Organizer

Lead Sponsors

Sponsors