In accordance with the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), all flag states must take measures with regard to the seaworthiness of ships, and observe and accept international regulations to ensure maritime safety of their own ship...
In accordance with the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), all flag states must take measures with regard to the seaworthiness of ships, and observe and accept international regulations to ensure maritime safety of their own ships. As such, regular ship surveys should be carried out by qualified ship surveyors. In this regard, the government has implemented various policies to improve domestic maritime safety; however, domestic marine accidents have been on the rise since 2014. Especially, according to the analysis of the proportion of marine accidents by ship type, small fishing vessels account for the highest proportion and are gradually increasing; therefore, effective countermeasures are urgently needed.
The purpose of the ship inspection system is to prevent marine accidents by guaranteeing minimum safety against many risk factors that ships face at sea.
In order to effectively reduce marine accidents experienced by small fishing vessels, it is necessary to draw up a plan to improve the ship inspection system, which is a part of the marine accident prevention measures.
Accordingly, in this study, the paradigm shift of the international ship inspection system was analyzed first, and a recent international trend was considered.
A representative example of the paradigm shift in ship inspection system is the change in the perception of the seaworthiness of ships. The seaworthiness of ships has generally been limited to hardware elements for securing physical safety, such as stability, loading capacity, and crew. However, owing to the recent occurrence of large-scale marine accidents, and changes in social and cultural conditions, environmental protection such as the prevention of marine and air pollution, including aspects such as software elements for the establishment and maintenance of the shipping company’s (or ship owner’s) own safety management system is imperative.
Recently, the International Maritime Organization (IMO) and each flag state have promoted various changes in the paradigm of ship inspection systems. In particular, the recent introduction and implementation of the International Safety Management (ISM) Code and the Recognized Organization (RO) Code promote international standardization of the ship inspection system and demands owners’ and operators’ active participation in safety management.
The major international trends in the paradigm shift of the latest ship inspection system can be summarized as follows:
·International standardization is being sought to resolve the possibility of mutual disputes by avoiding nationalistic exclusivity in the safety of the sea as a common domain.
·All interested parties related to maritime safety should decide their roles and make efforts for mutual coexistence.
Based on this, the ‘PDCA Cycle-based Self Inspection Approval System (SIAS)’ was proposed as a paradigm shift in the domestic ship inspection system. This is a new type of ship inspection system that establishes the roles of interested parties in the ship inspection system based on the basic philosophy of the ISO 9000 series to improve the effectiveness of maritime safety. By having ship owners conduct ship inspections directly, they cultivate maritime safety awareness, and RO evaluates/reviews/approves self inspections based on professional technology, and guarantees improved effectiveness through continuous improvement of the system.
Subsequently, in this study, the ‘SIAS Mobile Application for Small Fishing Vessels’ was developed and applied to the demonstration/experiment of the PDCA Cycle-based Self Inspection Approval System.
The SIAS for small fishing vessels analyzed the cases of domestic and overseas self inspection system for small fishing vessels to ensure realistic acceptance and reflected the results.
All small fishing boats in Korea were inspected by the Korea Maritime Transportation Safety Authority (KOMSA). In the case of overseas self inspection system for small fishing vessels, Canada's Small Vessel Compliance Program (SVCP) and the UK's Annual Self-Inspection (ASI) were confirmed.
Based on the analysis results of the domestic and overseas self inspection system for small fishing vessels, it was developed as a mobile application-based non-face-to-face ship inspection system by combining the social environmental change factors of COVID-19 and ICT (Information and Communications Technologies)-based rapid development. The developed SIAS Mobile Application for small fishing vessels was distributed to incumbent inspectors and fishing vessel owners and its effectiveness was verified based on the expert group’s review.
The claims to be verified through application development and application in this study are as follows:
· (Effectiveness) It is necessary to introduce an SIAS for small fishing vessels to raise the owners' safety awareness through their direct participation.
· (Sociability) It is necessary to introduce a mobile application-based non-face-to-face ship inspection system by reflecting the environmental factors of the times.
The claim of this study was proved in the fact that expert opinions sought on the use of ‘SIAS Mobile Application for Small Fishing Vessels', were highly positive.
The application developed through this study is expected to be used as a prototype for the government's new ship inspection system, and through this, it is expected that the principal objective of reducing marine accidents of small fishing vessels will be achieved.