Guidelines for Collecting Maritime Evidence Vol 2 - 2nd Edition

Contributors and peer reviewers

Simon Daniels PhD AFNI
After qualifying as a solicitor, Simon specialised in criminal and maritime litigation before bringing his professional background to the academic field at Solent University, where he managed the law and business parts of the MCA-accredited Merchant Vessel Operations programme at Warsash Maritime Academy. In August 2019, Simon left Solent and established a new career in legal consultancy, in which he was involved in the analysis of evidence in a number of cases worldwide. He has also designed and delivered online courses for The Nautical Institute, most notably on criminalisation. In 2012, he was awarded a PhD for his thesis: The Criminalisation of the Ship’s Master: A new approach for the new millennium. In April 2022, he completed the world’s first major textbook on  the criminalisation of the ship’s Master, Responsibility and Accountability in Maritime Law (Routledge), since then he has produced a number of books on maritime law and practice.

Tom Ainsley
Tom is director of Asia-Pacific at Brookes Bell, specialising in marine casualty investigation and litigation support. Tom’s surveying and consultancy experience includes main and auxiliary engine-failure investigations, hull-damage surveys, crane damage, bunker disputes and fire investigation. Tom has provided technical advice on numerous engineering matters and has given expert witness evidence at arbitration. Before joining Brookes Bell, Tom was at sea for 10 years, working on large ro-ro and ro-pax vessels and on oil-recovery and platform supply vessels in the North Sea.

Sir Andrew Baker
Sir Andrew Baker was called to the Bar in 1988 after a state school  education in Scotland and higher education at Merton College, Oxford (Mathematics), the City University, London (Law) and the Inns of Court  School of Law (Bar Finals). He practised as a barrister from 1989 to 2016, with shipping and international trade a major focus. He took silk in 2006 and became a Recorder of the Crown Court in 2012. On 1 November 2016, he was appointed to the High Court Bench (as The Honourable Mr Justice Andrew Baker). He has been the Admiralty Judge since 1 August 2020. Sir Andrew has been a co-author of Time Charters in the Lloyd’s Shipping Law Library for the 6th, 7th and 8th editions, and was a series editor of that library between 2009 and 2016.

Roger Bancroft BSc PhD PGCE
Roger is a forensic plant pathologist and expert witness specialising in fresh produce, legumes, grains and their products. He taught post-harvest biology and managed research and development projects in the Caribbean, Africa and the UK for 15 years before becoming a  freelance consultant in 2001. His commissions include investigations into the causes of defective ripening, deterioration, spoilage and mycotoxin production. He also analyses weaknesses in supply chains, evaluates post-harvest technologies and  handling practices, and quantifies biological and economic losses.

Sanjay Bhasin
Sanjay is a director of Octant Marine in London. He has sailed as Master on bulk, reefer and forest-products carriers. After coming ashore, he worked in South Africa with P&I correspondents and a leading cargo insurer, investigating a variety of accidents and implementing loss-prevention programmes. He moved to London in 2007 and was a director with two marine consultancies before founding Octant Marine. He has wide experience of collecting evidence and investigating marine incidents and casualties and  has given evidence as an expert witness.  

Mark Dawson
Mark served in the merchant navy as a deck officer on a variety of vessel types, including product tankers, container ships, general cargo, reefer, ro-ro and seismic survey ships. Mark has nearly 30 years’ experience in P&I, joining Thomas Miller in 2014 and serving as their senior claims director. He has also worked for a London law firm as an Admiralty Manager where he was involved in attending and investigating casualties, including salvage, fires, cargo explosions, collisions, property-damage claims, groundings, unsafe ports, damage to submarine cables, cargo liquefaction and piracy.  

Christopher Foster BSc PhD CChem MRIC FIFireE MEI
Chris carries out scientific investigations of fires, explosions and chemical incidents worldwide. His marine investigations have involved all types of vessels and cargoes, including crude oil and other petroleum products, LPG, chemicals, bulk cargoes, pesticides and IMDG containerised cargoes. He was a member of the UK P&I Club’s Carefully to Carry Committee and the UK’s Arson Prevention Forum while they were active. Chris regularly lectures on university courses concerned with the scientific investigation of fires and explosions in both the land and marine environments. 

Jeroen de Haas BSc MNI
Jeroen is a consultant and casualty investigator with more than 40 years’ experience, specialising in containership casualties, particularly stow collapses, static and dynamic stability issues and ship fires. Jeroen holds a degree in maritime sciences, is a certified court expert in civil, administrative and criminal court matters and is a qualified maritime officer, deck officer and marine engineer. Jeroen has attended more than 500 major containership casualties and written expert reports and given evidence in the UK, Netherlands, USA, Spain, Germany and China. He has published manuals and articles in trade magazines on the risks associated with operating large container vessels. He is also the co-author of a study highlighting the risks associated by parametric roll by low wave heights. 

Jack Hatcher AFNI 
Jack is a lawyer and a partner at Shoreside Law. He has a practice in marine, trade and energy, with an emphasis on the investigation and handling of maritime casualties and related contractual and third-party disputes. Before joining Shoreside Law, he served at sea as a deck officer in the merchant navy and spent five years at an International Group P&I club. He has particular expertise in shipboard electronic evidence. 

Captain Zarir Iràni MBA FICS Hon.FIIMS FNI ACII AAA 
Zarir is a founder and chairman of marine surveyors Constellation Marine Services. He has been a certified marine surveyor since 2004 and is former global president of the International Institute of Marine Surveying (IIMS) and a current board member. He is a Master mariner and expert witness, being nominated as an Ambassador of the Baltic Exchange Expert Witness Association. In 2026, he was elected as The Nautical Institute’s vice president and chairs the UAE branch. He has been responsible for registering ships under the Antigua and Barbuda Maritime Registry exclusively for UAE and Singapore. 

Jeff Lock
As well as being a qualified solicitor, Jeff has 18 years’ seagoing experience on a wide range of ship types, predominantly oil and petrochemical tankers. Jeff represents the UK Club on International Group sub-committees for salvage and wreck removal and pilotage. Jeff was global technical claims director for Thomas Miller, which he joined in 2011 after 11 years working as a solicitor with a major London maritime law firm. He retired from Thomas Miller in 2021 and now takes maritime arbitration appointments.

Mark Lynskey
Mark joined the average adjusting profession in 1993 with Richards Hogg Lindley and worked out of their offices in Liverpool, Glasgow and Rotterdam. In 2013, he joined ARB International, a Lloyd’s insurance broker, as marine claims manager, becoming associate director in 2015. Mark joined Mediterranean Average Adjusting Co, London, in 2017 as a senior average adjuster until he retired in 2022. He is an associate of the Association of Average Adjusters and has extensive experience of marine insurance claims, predominantly in general and particular average on ship and cargo, salvage, collision and recoveries, loss of hire and sue-and-labour claims. 

Paris Mangriotis 
Paris is a highly experienced naval architect and engineering director for ABL Group in the maritime department. He is a chartered naval architect and member of the Royal Institution of Naval Architects (RINA), with more than 20 years’ experience in consulting and ship classification. He has worked as a senior surveyor and technical investigations specialist at Lloyd’s Register before becoming a consultant. Paris has provided expert advice in various disputes to courts in the UK, USA and Greece and appeared in London arbitration as an expert witness. He specialises in ship structural and surveying matters and has an in-depth knowledge of applying computational analysis to problems such as lack of stability, structural strength, cargo loss, mooring and berthing, anchoring and collision simulation. 

Paul Miller
Paul Miller spent 21 years at sea on a variety of vessels operating worldwide, including passenger, platform supply and anchor handlers, culminating in six years in command. For the past 10 years, he has been a Senior Master mariner at a large international law firm (HFW), investigating a wide range of marine casualties for insurers and owners. Paul deals with marine casualties, including collisions, fires, groundings, cargo claims, unsafe port claims, piracy and salvage. Before joining HFW, Paul spent six years working in the offshore sector, conducting rig moves and offshore supply roles, with areas of operation, including North Sea, Africa, Brazil and Asia Pacific. 

Tristan Miller ACII 
Tristan started his insurance career with Brit Insurance in 2001 and qualified as an Associate of the Chartered Insurance Institute in 2006 before commencing training as an average adjuster in 2009 for Harvey Ashby: Average Adjusters and Claims Consultants. Tristan qualified as a fellow of the Association of Average Adjusters in May 2014 and has served on the Committee of Management as Treasurer of the Association of Average Adjusters since 2015. Tristan is also a member of Association Mondiale de Dispacheurs and was a speaker at the International Marine Claims Conference in 2013, 2014 and 2016. Tristan joined Willis in 2020 as an average adjuster with experience of adjusting general average and all varieties of marine insurance claims, including hull & machinery, cargo and loss of earnings.

Ludovic Nicon 
Ludovic Nicon graduated as an engineer from L’École Centrale de Nantes in France. After a six-month internship at Aktis Hydraulics in the Netherlands, he was hired as a junior naval architect. He is involved in hydrodynamic studies ranging from mooring studies to forensic investigations as well as in metocean data analysis and wave studies. For large motions of ships and evaluation of roll resonance, he has co-developed the METIS Time-Domain model to simulate large, non-linear responses of ships in waves. He models ships of various classes used for mooring studies as well as manoeuvring studies. Ludovic’s modelling abilities include the use of the following hydrodynamic models: Metis TD, Aktis DMA, Ship-Moorings, Ship-Navigator, AQWA and Orcawave. In addition, he uses Matlab, AutoCAD (progeCAD) and SolidWorks. 

Richard North
Richard North is an experienced technical leader with more than 25 years in the maritime and accident investigation domains. Since joining UK’s MAIB in 2007, he has progressed to become Head of Technical Support, overseeing the preservation, recovery and analysis of electronic evidence from marine accidents. He leads a specialist technical department recognised internationally for its expertise while managing critical projects, including the development of the Marine Accident Data Analysis Suite MADAS and the delivery of MAIB’s Microsoft Dynamics based case-management system, COMPASS. Richard is a subject matter expert in VDRs and has supported major international investigations, contributing advanced forensic and analytical capability. His earlier career includes global VDR installations with AMI Marine and military service as a navigator in the British Army.

Melis Otmar 
Melis Otmar is a marine insurance professional with more than two decades of experience in claims management. She serves as executive director and head of marine claims in London at Howden, where she leads the marine claims division and champions women’s leadership and development initiatives. Previously, Melis spent 15 years at BMS Group as marine claims director. Melis holds an MSc in shipping, trade and finance from Cass Business School. She has completed executive education programmes at MIT Sloan School of Management and Yale School of Management, focusing on AI strategy and women’s leadership. Melis is a frequent speaker at global marine insurance conferences and serves as chair of the LIIBA Marine Claims Sub Committee. She is also a Freeman of the City of London and a Liveryman of the Worshipful Company of Shipwrights. 

Marius Schønberg MSc 
After graduating from the Royal Norwegian Naval Academy, Marius served at different naval sites in Norway. He holds a deck officer certificate and has experience as a commanding officer on naval high[1]speed crafts. He graduated from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, from where he earned a master’s degree (MSc) in nautical science. Having experience from the Royal Norwegian Navigation Centre, Marius joined the Loss Prevention team at Gard as a nautical expert. At Gard, he heads the Loss Prevention department. The department’s key activities are delivering loss prevention products to members and clients to reduce and prevent losses and to monitor, identify and assess potential risks in support of underwriters’ decisions. 

Nick Shaw 
Nick was appointed CEO of the International Group of P&I Clubs in July 2019. Nick is responsible for co-ordinating the collective activities of the member clubs, including co-ordinating the formulation and development of policies, the operation of large claims pooling and reinsurance arrangements and representation of the group at industry, government and inter-governmental levels. Nick has practised marine insurance law since 1990 and has extensive knowledge and experience of the shipping industry and the P&I world coupled. He gained considerable high-level management experience as shipping group practice leader at the former Richards Butler from 2003–7 and, following its merger with Reed Smith, as global shipping industry group leader from 2007–19. 

Captain Jeremy Smart BSc (Hons) 
Jeremy was head of the MCA’s Enforcement Unit from 2000 until his retirement in 2018. After joining the British Antarctic Survey as a second mate, he moved into the North Sea, working on a variety of oil-industry-related vessels. He has served in all ranks up to and including Master. In 1990 he joined the Surveyor General’s organisation as a nautical surveyor and was involved in its transformation into the present Maritime and Coastguard Agency. 

Anna Snowdon BSc MSc DIC PhD
Anna is a post-harvest pathologist and did her doctoral research on the problems involved in shipping carrots from Cyprus to the UK. She has more than 40 years’ experience diagnosing the nature of deterioration in fruit and vegetable cargoes and investigating the causes. As an independent consultant and expert witness, she has carried out claims investigations for P&I clubs, cargo underwriters, importers and exporters. In recent years, she was particularly involved in banana claims. 

Alan Speed 
Alan was senior claims director with Thomas Miller and is a qualified solicitor. He was 20 years at an international law firm specialising in shipping. He has a degree in maritime business and law and 14 years’ experience at sea up to the rank of chief officer working on a wide variety of ship types. 

Annie Stow 
Annie joined the International Group Secretariat in 2023. Prior to joining the group, Annie was a professional development director at NorthStandard P&I Club for a period of four years, following a successful seven-year tenure as a claims handler. Annie is a qualified lawyer who focuses on the group’s Education Committee. Annie is responsible for the P&IQ as well as enhancing and expanding the group’s education outreach programme. 

Sir Nigel Teare
Sir Nigel Teare was the Lloyd’s Appeal Arbitrator in salvage disputes from 2000 to 2006. He was made a Justice of the High Court (Queen’s Bench Division) in 2006 and was nominated a judge of the Commercial and Admiralty Courts in 2007. He was nominated Admiralty Judge in 2011 and in 2013 was appointed one of the Presiding Judges on the Western Circuit. In October 2018 he was nominated as Judge in Charge of the Commercial Court. Sir Nigel retired from the bench in 2020 and became an arbitrator. In January 2026, he was appointed as an international judge to the Supreme Court of Singapore. 

Mike Travis 
Mike Travis started his professional career as an engineer in the merchant navy, sailing as chief engineer before joining UK’s MAIB as an inspector. During his 25 years with MAIB, he established the Technical Department, now recognised as a global leader in data recovery and analysis for marine accident investigations. He was also the primary author of the current IMO VDR performance standard and led the team responsible for the first VDR recovered from a sunken vessel at depth (al Salaam Boccaccio ’98). He led MAIB’s policy and procedure development, completed a full review of MAIB’s inspector accreditation system and led major investigations. He left MAIB in 2025 to form Deep Blue Safety, a marine safety consultancy. 

Phil Thompson CEng PhD Fellow (IoD)
Phil is managing director of BMT, a global maritime consultancy and marine survey business. Before joining BMT, Phil worked in underwater acoustics at BAE Systems and as a professor at the Department of Aerospace and Ocean Engineering at Virginia Tech, USA. Phil has led developments in advanced monitoring and simulation, autonomy, machine vision, AI and digital reconstruction forensics. Many of these are now used in the shipping, maritime defence and offshore oil and gas sectors.

Brian Williamson FNI FEI FRMetS FRIN
Brian Williamson is a Master mariner and an independent maritime arbitrator who has been engaged in marine dispute resolution since 1976. He served at sea in the merchant navy for 13 years and began his legal career as a trainee solicitor before practising as a specialist maritime solicitor for 25 years. He was a full member of the London Maritime Arbitrators Association (LMAA) from 1987 to 1990 and has been so continuously since 2003. He has published more than 600 arbitration awards, many concerning collision, performance and causation disputes. He is the author of the Reasonable Grounds Model (RGM), now in its second iteration, a structured framework for analysing evidential thresholds in maritime performance claims.