• A total of 42 participants attended the 12th CINS Members Meeting in London at the end of June – the largest attendance so far at a CINS Event.
  • The Meeting was generously hosted by The Standard Club, who provided the Conference Facilities, lunch and refreshments throughout the day.
  • Thanks also to the TT Club, who sponsored the “Welcome Reception” on the previous evening, a chance for informal “pre-conference” networking.

Morning presentations covering CINS activities, projects, data-inputting and cargo guidelines

  • CINS Chairman Uffe Ernst-Frederiksen (Maersk Line) – who moderated the sessions throughout the day – opened the Conference with a review of CINS Progress – covering the work undertaken since the last meeting in December. He presented details of the projects and activities agreed at the previous day’s Board Meeting and reported on CINS plans for the second half of 2019.

Uffe Ernst-Frederiksen opens the CINS Meeting

  • Ian Lennard, President, National Cargo Bureau, gave a status report on the Container Inspection Programme which NCB has been undertaking and indicated next steps.

Ian Lennard – President, National Cargo Bureau

  • Colin Rubery, Technical Secretary, gave an analysis of the Incident Reporting over recent months, giving details of the average number of incidents per month, the number of CINS members who are reporting and their level of participation. He covered leakage by packing type and issues relating to the reporting of mis-declaration.
  • He also introduced the proposed simplified method of reporting incidents, which Exis Technologies is currently testing.
  • Participants were also updated with developments of the COA Flexitank Quality Management List (FQML) which provides information about those flexitank companies which are compliant with the Container Owners Association’s Flexitank Code of Practice.

Presentation: Risk-based Dangerous Goods Stowage – Safety Considerations

  • Over the past 9 months, CINS has been working on the development of “Safety Considerations for Ship Operators for Risk-Based Dangerous Goods Stowage on Containerships”.
  • The project has been managed by ABS – and Zeke Davis updated Conference Participants on the status.
  • The document is currently being finalised and will be published shortly.

External presentations made at the CINS Meeting

  • After lunch, there were three external presentations at the CINS Meeting.
  • Lars Lange, Secretary General, International Union of Marine Insurance, looked at the issue of fires on board container vessels, reviewing such issues as: cargo mis-declaration, regulations to improve detection and to improve fire-fighting capabilities on-board, as well as methods of segregating a  fire on-board using fire compartments

Lars Lange, Secretary-General, IUMI

  • There were two presentations from CINS Associate Member Brookes Bell. Adrian Scales gave details of issues relating to the discharge of fire-damaged containers from containerships. This was followed by a presentation by Penelope Cooke, who spoke about the problem of mis-declared cargoes – and possible ways of identifying them.

Adrian Scales, Brookes Bell

  • Finally, Nigel James of the WAVES Group, a new Member of CINS, gave an overview of the company’s container-related work