The Swedish Club Academy News

The life of seafarers is never straightforward, and as a new report from the Swedish Club shows, the hazards and job complexities they face are very much dependent on the type of vessel they find themselves crewing. In P&I Claims Analysis, published this week, the Club has studied thousands of incidents in the last ten years, across a range of vessel segments and claims types, and made some interesting discoveries. Seafarers on containerships needs to watch their step, as almost 60% of all slips and falls occur on container vessels – almost certainly due to the amount of debris on board and the number of people involved in cargo operations.

The Swedish Club Academy is celebrating 20 years of Maritime Resource Management (MRM), a spin off from the Bridge Resource Management (BRM), which aims to reduce accidents at sea caused by human error. In 1993, The Swedish Club, together with seven other organizations, developed the latter to serve as the first ever resource management training course for the shipping industry. The further development of the MRM program was taken over by The Swedish Club Academy from The Swedish Club in 2010. “Today, MRM is available in 35 countries worldwide, with over 100 licensed training providers. We are looking forward to increasing our training providers in the coming years,” says Martin Hernqvist, managing director of The Swedish Club Academy.

The Swedish Club has underlined its commitment to improving the safety culture in the maritime industry by allowing all member companies, whether lead hull or P&I, to sign up to its Maritime Resource Management (MRM) course free for a period of two years. The move, which will take effect from January 1, 2014, is part of the club’s keenness to give all member companies the opportunity to have the right training procedures in place to help in the fight to prevent the unpredictable casualties that are so often related to human and organizational errors.

Several years ago, when the IMO declared that resource management training would be given high priority in the revision of the STCW, The Swedish Club Academy was hopeful that a worldwide mandatory application of resource management would be the key factor in significantly reducing the frequency of maritime incidents and accidents. “We have been involved in resource management training for 20 years as a response to the large number of accidents caused by human and organizational errors and shortcomings,” said Martin Hernqvist, The Swedish Club Academy’s Managing Director.

The Swedish Club Academy focuses on China during a five-day Maritime Resource Management road show at the end of March. MRM training aims at establishing safe operational cultures where teamwork and effective communication are key components, even to the extent of encouraging crew members to ‘challenge’ decisions made by their masters and superiors. “People with high rank can make mistakes too, and when they do the team members who detect it must be assertive enough to voice their concerns,” says Martin Hernqvist, Managing Director of The Swedish Club Academy.

Transas Hellas supplied a desktop bridge simulator to The Swedish Club Piraeus Training Centre to support the new version of the Maritime Resource Management (MRM) course including Bridge Team Management. An instructor station and a debriefing facility provide instructor with all necessary tools for efficient preparation, editing, conducting, monitoring, playback and assessing the exercise. The Swedish Club Academy is committed to the resource management training and has developed the first ever resource management training course for the shipping industry - Maritime Resource Management (MRM).

Emirates International Maritime Academy (EIMA) has announced that it has expanded its maritime training resources by becoming a Maritime Resource Management (MRM) provider in the Middle East after recently signing a licensing agreement with the Swedish Club Academy, a company associated with the Swedish Club, a lmarine mutual insurer from Sweden. The agreement was signed by Captain Jaafar bin Sidin, Director of EIMA, and Martin Hernqvist, Managing Director at the Swedish Club Academy.