Cruise & Ferry Review - Spring/Summer 2021

1 2 4 INTERV IEW Sustaining high safety standards Joep Bollerman explains to Jon Ingleton how Lloyd’s Register is helping cruise operators to adapt to new health safety standards H ealth safety protocols have been in place for years to prevent viruses spreading onboard passenger ships. However, when the Covid-19 pandemic emerged in 2020, it quickly became clear that they needed to be strengthened and improved to help facilitate the safest possible return to normal operations when current travel restrictions are lifted. “The health safety measures ship operators had in place to prevent viruses spreading provided a good starting point for tackling this new coronavirus,” says Joep Bollerman, global manager of Lloyd’s Register’s Passenger Ship Support Centre. “Now, they must find new ways to enhance these measures and make ships even safer for passengers and crew.” Bollerman believes that, just as the 9/11 terrorist attack at the World Trade Center in New York transformed the way the world approached security, the Covid-19 pandemic will have a lasting legacy on the way people view health safety procedures and result in a greater level of protection against any future viruses. “After 9/11 everyone was much more conscious about potential security breaches and all passenger ship operators upgraded their protocols and these are still in place today,” he says. “After this pandemic, everyone will continue to expect higher health safety standards than ever before. There will be a lot more eyes watching what cruise lines, passenger vessels and other hospitality providers are doing, which will impact many operational procedures. For example, operators may have to reimagine their traditional process of calling 1,000 people into a theatre for a muster drill. Compliance with health safety requirements will be a minimum expectation, but the cruise industry has always gone beyond expectations.” Bollerman adds: “Historically, whenever we’ve experienced a state of emergency (like Legionnaires’ disease or norovirus) we’ve thrown everything that we can at the problem until the immediate threat dissipates. Afterwards we reflect and our approach is continuously reviewed, but we always maintain the most effective protocols to prevent a recurrence of the problem. We obviously can’t just go back to what we did before because the impact of the pandemic has been so severe.” This is where industry-wide regulations, such as the International Safety Management (ISM) Code, can help. When it was first introduced in 1998 the code was largely considered an unnecessary burden but nowadays shipowners and shipboard staff embrace it. “For many it’s all they’ve ever known,” says Bollerman. “Likewise, audits were traditionally perceived negatively, but this has changed a lot over the past 10 to 15 years. Today, an audit is seen as an opportunity to improve standards and recognise achievements.” Just as the industry adapted to the ISM Code and audits, it will acclimatise to new regulations and protocols for mitigating the spread of Covid-19 and other viruses, taking a flexible approach to the way in which they are enforced. “A ferry operating a schedule of three-hour crossings will have a different approach to a cruise line running a seven-day itinerary, for example,” notes Bollerman. “A variety of options will be available to meet the required criteria – some operators might opt to install an ultraviolet light system to kill airborne viruses, whereas others might use a fresh-air system. Regardless of which solution they choose, every operator must ensure it is well maintained and audited to verify it meets the requirements.” Regularly training crew members and implementing good operational practices will also be paramount. “Incorrect familiarisation and implementation of protocols will lead to these measures being less reliable,” says Bollerman. “We need to make sure crew members are aware of actions to be taken if an abnormality is identified and that equipment that is operated, maintained and calibrated as needed.” To help with this, Lloyd’s Register has designed the SHIELD descriptive notation, a voluntary set of new “ Hopefully the cruise industry will be applauded for its proactive and innovative response to the pandemic”