UK Club has, together with TT Club, recently agreed to sponsor CHIRP Maritime, whose primary aim is to contribute to the enhancement of safety worldwide, through the provision of an independent, confidential incident reporting system for all individuals employed in or associated with the shipping and maritime industries.

The online central hub collates and investigates near miss information on a global scale, with a view to share such details with the wider maritime community. CHIRP Maritime's quarterly newsletters disseminates safety lessons learned, with a readership of 200,000 across 47 countries. Furthermore, the CHIRP Maritime website contains a data base of historic cases, which can be interrogated to support gathering guidance in relation to specific issues.

There is recognition that the more simple and accessible such a system is the more likely it is to be used. CHIRP Maritime have developed an encrypted online submission form which is both intuitive and incredibly simple to submit a report. Appreciating the importance of anonymity, an individual's details are systematically deleted once the issue has been confidentially investigated.

Using desensitized information only, CHIRP Maritime has investigated over 1,000 near miss incidents and conclude that around 37% had the potential for 1-3 fatalities or permanent disabilities. One in five reports have been found to have a potential financial exposure of between US $100,000.00 and US $1 million, with a further estimated 17% having a potential exposure between US $1 million and US $10 million.

The CHIRP Maritime platform provides an opportunity to improve the safety of people across the maritime industry. The issues considered are frequently of a global nature and the system seeks to provide transparency where risk exposures exist affording all stakeholders the opportunity to gain an insight into best practice.

Sponsorship of CHIRP Maritime continues UK Club's campaign to promote maritime safety and in particular information on the 'human element' in incidents. This was recently highlighted in a Marine Guidance Note issued by the UK Maritime & Coastguard Agency entitled 'The Deadly Dozen - 12 Significant People Factors in Maritime Safety'. While this focuses on 'maritime' almost all the issues raised are transferable to other parts of the supply chain. Any management team - for risks afloat or ashore - would benefit from working through the Deadly Dozen question matrix.