Strengthening skills for a safer South African fishing fleet

The partnership project aims to address a critical shortage of naval architects across that region in a bid to address the safety challenges of the local fishing industry. The shortage puts pressure on vessel inspection and certification processes, creating a bottleneck and putting fisher safety at risk.

Champions of fisher safety say it’s vital to make sure that those going out to fish do so in safe vessels. It was first raised at the 2024 Fishing Industry Safety and Health (FISH) Platform meeting in Cape Town, South Africa. Now a new project designed to provide training is looking to make that happen.

The two-year project 'Upskilling maritime professionals in South Africa towards a safer fishing fleet' brings together the University of Southampton’s Wolfson Unit with The Seafarers' Charity and the Northeast Centre for Occupational Health and Safety (NEC). It has been funded by Lloyd’s Register Foundation as part of its 'Engineering a Safer World' funding opportunity.

Its delivery will be supported by the Cape Town-based SSTG Maritime Training Academy which specialises in compliance audit services for the South African commercial fishing fleet. They will host the pilot course.

Work will be carried out to design and pilot a new, accredited course for developing expertise for local maritime professionals through abbreviated naval architecture training. Classroom-based activities, simulations and mock inspections will enable the trainees to undertake basic stability appraisals of fishing vessels, thus supporting fishing vessel inspection and certification processes.

While the initial project specifically targets South Africa, a feasibility study will investigate whether it could be expanded to more countries in the southern Africa sub-region.