BY JOHN HOUANIHAU

The Solomon Islands Maritime Authority (SIMA) has implemented reforms to improve safety management in vessels.

SIMA Director Thierry Nervale said this aims to improve safety management for vessels, crews and passengers.

“One that is very important to us is what we call here safety management,” he said.

Nervale explained that this is the way the shipping company and the crew on board manage safety.

“Which is typically to understand it easily. Having procedures when you embark the passengers, during the voyage, and how you take care of the passengers, the cargo. How you manage the navigation and where the vessel is going, how you manage the weather, and so all of this to be in a system, written system, where you have procedures,” he said.

Nervale added that this is to be implemented by the company, the crew, and the ship master.

“So, it’s something that we have been working on,” he said.

Nervale mentioned that they have also started delivering training for the crew, developing their management system on board and implementing it.

“Then the next phase will be to conduct some audits on how they implement the system,” he said.

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