BC Ferries’ SailSafe saves US$2M

BC Ferries’ SailSafe project has saved the company US$2M a year, it was revealed at last week’s annual Interferry conference in Croatia.

WrightWay managing director John Wright illustrated how the SailSafe project at Canada’s BC Ferries was currently saving the company US$2M a year on hull and machinery insurance after a 50% reduction in premiums over eight years – a 3:1 return on investment – as well as halving employee insurance premiums. “Safety and efficiency are two sides of the same coin,” he asserted. “Managements need to harness the enormous power of the workforce and achieve operational excellence through personal safety behaviour. That requires a change from ‘I speak, you listen’ to asking the troops how we can help and support them.”

In 2007, British Columbia Ferry Services Inc and the BC Ferry and Marine Workers' Union decided to use the expertise and experience of WrightWay in conjunction with Force Technology of Denmark to create a world-class safety management system.

Elsewhere at the Interferry conference, European Maritime Safety Agency executive director Markku Mylly described initiatives including the Firesafe roro project. Research during the first phase – focused on electrical fire risks and extinguishing failures – showed that 30% of fires originate on roro decks and 90% of these stemmed from vehicles. “More and more we have to look at the cargo,” he warned, adding that the second phase, due to end next year, would focus on detection and containment and include a cost benefit assessment.

Members of Interferry’s new Domestic Ferry Safety Committee, formed to support developing nations, said their first task was to identify drivers for change and undertake a risk assessment. This would be followed by an action plan to link with collaborators and funding partners. The initiative has been launched in light of statistics showing that 93% of fatalities occur on domestic routes, creating ‘an almost certainly under-estimated’ death toll of 60,000 in the past 50 years. Seven countries accounted for 66% of known fatalities, headed by the Philippines, Bangladesh and Indonesia.