32 FOGHORN In my experience, one of the greatest obstacles to improve- ment is not technology, regulation, or even cost. It is resis- tance to change—the familiar mindset of, “This is the way we have always done it.” That philosophy may be comfort- able, but comfort is not the same as safety. I learned that lesson early in my involvement with formal safety management. As far back as 1995, the tanker com- pany I worked for was International Safety Management (ISM) compliant, certified under ISO 9001 and ISO 14001, and operating under the oversight of the American Bureau of Shipping and Det Norske Veritas classification societies. I can still picture the shelves in my office bowing under the weight of three-ring binders filled with policies, procedures, checklists, manuals, and supporting documentation. At the time, managing those requirements could feel overwhelm- ing, particularly when they had to be balanced against the daily responsibility of running a ship and ensuring, among many other things, that oil did not go over the side. At first glance, a formal safety management system can appear cumbersome. There is documentation to maintain, procedures to follow, deficiencies to report, audits to com- plete, drills to conduct, equipment to inspect, and records to retain. But after years of working within that frame- work, I came to understand that the real value of safety management is not found in the binders themselves. It is found in the discipline behind them. The ISM Code and the principles of safety management remained a significant part of my maritime career, and they have been difficult—in a good way—to shake off. What ini- tially seemed burdensome eventually became foundational to the way I viewed shipboard operations. Today, those same principles remain central to the work I perform as a marine consultant. That experience is one reason I believe safety management systems deserve serious consideration within the small passenger vessel industry. “The goal of an SMS is to provide safe working practices for ship operation; continuously assess and identify risks to the vessel, personnel and the environ- ment; and establish appropriate safeguards to those risks. Regardless of the size of the company, an SMS ensures standardized and unambiguous procedures for each crewmember during both routine and emer- gency operations—an SMS accounts for a vessel’s characteristics, operations, and nature of service.”1 A safety management system, or SMS, is a documented framework of policies, procedures, and instructions intended to support safe operations, environmental protection, and the reduction of human error. It provides a structure for risk management, emergency response, equipment maintenance, and routine vessel operations. The system is based on the principles of the International Safety Management Code. For small passenger vessel operators, however, the value of an SMS should not be reduced to the question of whether the ISM Code itself is mandatory. The ISM Code estab- lishes international safety-management standards, but small domestic passenger vessels are not required simply by virtue of being small passenger vessels to comply with that international code. An SMS can nevertheless support compliance with applicable federal, state, and local require- ments while creating safer working conditions for passen- gers and crew. That distinction matters. “Flagship is a safety management system (SMS) based program created by the Passenger Vessel Association (PVA) specifically for their members. A safety man- agement system is a structured and documented An SMS is not intended to be a generic manual created simply to satisfy an auditor or occupy space on an office shelf. It should function as a safety guide built around the vessel, its operation, its crew, and the hazards associated with the work being performed. FOGHORN FOCUS
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