Jarle Gimmestad News

More than 250 top-level delegates attended trade association Interferry’s 38th annual conference in Malta to debate the major factors affecting ferry operations around the world. Under a new format mixing presentations with panel discussions and audience input, the event underlined the diversity of political, technical, operational and commercial issues challenging the industry. Among several sessions focused on safety, a former airline pilot confirmed the alarming certainty of human error…

A ferry operator’s experience of ‘the fastest ship in the world’ will feature among the cutting-edge initiatives being aired at Interferry’s 38th annual conference in Malta from October 5-9. The trade association event gives South American operator Buquebus a first opportunity to showcase the commercial and technical benefits of its revolutionary newbuild Francisco. Delivered in August from Australian builder Incat Tasmania, the catamaran is the world’s first high speed dual fuel ro-ro to use LNG as its primary fuel. Incat made the “fastest ship” claim after sea trials in June.

The trade association event takes place in Malta from October 5-9 with an agenda dominated by safety issues. Insights on how the aviation industry builds and maintains safety culture will come from special guest speaker Jarle Gimmestad of Norway-based operational safety consultancy Gimmestad AS. He was previously with Scandinavian airline SAS as a captain and then as human factors and crew resource manager, which included working with the accident investigation group. Pointing to the continuously improving safety record of air travel, he noted, “There is a significant tendency - while undesired events used to be caused by technical insufficiency, we now realize that most are contributed by human error. We have left the myth of perfection. Human error is a natural part of human behavior.