Safety culture has and always will be at the forefront of IOTC’s dedication to its clients. On February 3, 2023, IOTC management decided to host it’s 11th Fleet Officers meeting to reinvigorate this commitment to safety with the theme being “Hand in Hand Moving Forward to Intensify Safety Culture”. This whole-day event would bring together 45 of IOTC’s crew to have a close dialogue with members of IOTC, Hachiuma and NYK Management. After some breakfast with the crew, the Fleet Officers Meeting was officially opened by CM Winnieleo Regio, IOTC’s Sr. Vice President for the Crew Manning Group.
The first speaker would be Hachiuma Director General Manager Capt. Kiyokazu Kato who would discuss the repeated findings during inspections, to be followed by Capt. Daniel Capiral of the NYK Dry Bulk division who shared some initiatives of NYK in improving its fleet and the performance of its crew. The morning session was closed by a small reminder from Ms. Kaori Ogata on the health and nutrition of the crew onboard and then a short presentation from MarcoPay. MarcoPay and IOTC recently entered into an agreement with MarcoPay being one of IOTC’s instruments in some of the financial needs of its crew moving forward.
The afternoon session was taken over by both IOTC management and Eastgate Maritime Training Center, Inc. (EMTCI). After a lively discussion from Capt. Gideon Avengoza about some possible sources of difficulties experienced by the crew, Capt. Dennis Sumaylo of EMTCI discussed one of the more pressing issues in IOTC recently, which was Ballast water Management. This was before Capt. Avengoza once again went onstage to discuss Heavy Weather difficulties for IOTC crew.
Informally adopted as an unofficial motto throughout the event, “Zenshin Suru” or “keep moving forward” was shouted several times by the participants. This was echoed by Mr. Hiroshi Kawaguchi, the General Manager for the Dry Bulk Marine Quality Control Group, who thanked everyone for their participation during the meeting.
Other participants during the meeting were Capt. Kenji Hongan, CE Kojiro Hagita, Mr. Shogo Toyoda and Ms. Midori Ishitake.