Seaways Focus - October 2025
Building for the future
by Captain John Lloyd FNI, Chief Executive of The Nautical Institute
London and Lisbon provided two wonderful locations for The Nautical Institute to highlight its contribution to the maritime sector across a range of activities during September. London International Shipping Week (LISW) once again brought the industry together for a showcase event to discuss the key issues, challenges and opportunities ahead. For The Nautical Institute the week provided the ideal launch opportunity for our new publication ‘Bridge Resource Management’. With a hundred guests from the UK and overseas we were able to discuss the book and its importance in helping share best practice in bridge operations. This volume will be the key reference for the industry and we are grateful to all the authors and reviewers – while looking forward to Volume II next year.
Technology, connectivity and crew support
Over LISW, it was wonderful to learn from some of the technology companies how better data analysis and evaluation can support decision making and efficiency. Many participants felt the maritime sector lags behind aviation in use and management of data, and the nature of our competitive environment perhaps makes that inevitable. Nevertheless, it would be nice to see that capability used to assess the real work-load on the crews of vessels, not just how quickly we can turn ships round in port. Technology should be there to support all users in their decision-making and time management.
The work of our charitable sector was strongly highlighted during events hosted by The Seafarers’ Charity and others. These sessions delivered superb insights into the support services that are available to our mariners and their families and help provide a focus for lobbying for important considerations of seafarer welfare. Shore leave can still be a real problem and many ports fail in their obligations to provide reasonable access. Combine this with intense work patterns and short in-port periods and we have a conundrum that is hard to resolve.
Communications with home are so important under these circumstances, so it was great to learn from some employers who allow un-metered access to the internet for their staff. Sadly others do not provide internet access to seafaring colleagues. I wonder how their own families would respond to having their in-house wi-fi router taken away for a day, a week, a month?
Discussions around decarbonisation continued, of course. It seems progress has been slow and investment insufficient to allow good progress in this area as investors struggle with uncertainty around availability, cost and local regulation. There is an increasing level of discussion around the potential for nuclear-powered solution of the future, though the understanding of costs and skills required clearly needs further work.
OCEAN project sign-off
Senior colleagues were also in Lisbon leading the end of project seminars and presentations for the OCEAN project. This has been a great success and shows what can be achieved through collaboration of experts and a concentrated effort to produce meaningful and effective outcomes.
Showing how safe operations help us understand how to do things well all of the time has been an underpinning theme of the OCEAN project. The Nautical Institute has been the lead organisation in developing resources such as the OCEAN video series of good practice to help us understand and embed safe operations. I wish to extend my thanks and congratulations to all involved with the project and to applaud the great outcomes.