The Container Ship Safety Forum (CSSF) has welcomed five new members: Asiatic Lloyd & Atlantic Lloyd, Arkas Shipping & Transport, Lomar Shipping, V-Ships and Reederei Nord joined the business-to-business network in 2019 so far. Its 24 members now represent about 40% of the TEU capacity of the global container ship fleet. The network has recently been officially incorporated as a registered association in Hamburg.

Based on real life cases and the concern for the carriage of International Maritime Dangerous Goods (IMDG) and the declaration and packing of same by shippers, the members intensely discussed firefighting on containerships during the last member meeting in Singapore in May 2019. Different CSSF member companies are presently testing new firefighting equipment and will share their experience with the forum in Copenhagen, where the next CSSF meeting will take place on November 19-20, 2019.

At the May meeting, the members also adopted the CSSF Performance Report of 2018. The CSSF’s Lost Time Injury Frequency (LTIF, as per OCIMF definitions) improved to 1.00 compared to 1.16 in 2017. CSSF performance is measured using key performance indicators (KPIs) related to health, safety, environmental protection, and navigational safety. The performance report also includes data for the members’ performance during Port State Control (PSC) Inspections. The average number of CSSF member vessels’ deficiencies per PSC Inspection increased to 0.99 in 2018 (0.83 in 2017).

The opening address of the member meeting was kindly given by Quah Ley Hoon, chief executive of the Maritime and Port Authority (MPA) of Singapore. Valuable insights about behaviour-based safety on board were presented by Green-Jakobsen A/S.