Hong Kong-based third-party ship management company Fleet Management Limited (Fleet) sees that upskilled seafarers using environment-friendly ships will command growth gearing towards the next two decades.

With the global shipping fleet all marching in the same direction of decarbonization, digitalization, and automation, the company is making sure that it can compete and supply the future requirements of the industry.

According to FLEET Managing Director Dr. Kishore Rajvanshy, the company will continue to invest in enhancing the skills of their seafarers — including their close to 4,000 Filipino seafarers onboard their managed ships — to keep up with the evolving industry requirements.

He added that FLEET provides comprehensive training to their seafarers that includes training necessary to support the industry decarbonization journey.

"We invest in providing training in international standards for our people, which include our network of seafarers as well as our onshore employees," Rajvanshy said.

"We ensure our crew is well-versed in handling alternative fuels as we provide them a variety of training programs both in-house and through collaboration with other educational and training institutions," Rajvanshy stressed.

"We now have 600 seafarers trained in dual-fuel ships, and expect this to double by the end of 2023," Rajvanshy explained.

For the past seven years, FLEET has been exploring the use of methanol as a fuel for their managed vessels, which has led to them having a large pool of seafarers experienced in handling methanol, as well as onshore staff trained in this fuel type.

They are also continuously collaborating with other institutions in various countries which specialize in providing training on the different aspects of the use of methanol. In addition, they have a bunkering simulator on liquefied natural gas (LNG) as well as providing LNG engine operation training to all their onboard seafarers and onshore staff to further improve their knowledge in managing ships of this kind.

As the world's second largest ship management company, Dr. Rajvanshy said they must continue to stay at the forefront of new technologies and provide innovative solutions to their clients, including continuous investment in their seafarers to upskill through continual training and development, to ensure that they are future-fit to maximize all future opportunities within their careers.

"The shipping industry is vital for the world's economy, with around 90 percent of the world's goods being transported by sea. Therefore, shipping as an industry is here to stay and will continue to provide strong employment opportunities for us all," Rajvanshy stressed.

"However, we need to recognize that ships will continue to evolve, and will become increasingly modern, more automated, and digitalized, including dual-fuel engines, thus, the role of seafarers will also continue to evolve and develop, where seafarers will utilize and operate more technologies onboard," Rajvanshy said.

"In my mind, this presents exciting and significant opportunities for all of us as we continue to evolve our careers and positions within this industry. We need to train our seafarers to stay up-to-date and in step with these developments. The future is bright, and we all need to make efforts to continue to learn and develop our skills," Rajvanshy explained As of the moment, shipowners look to their ship managers to provide advice on many areas of their business. At FLEET, one of their main roles is to provide technical expertise and digital capabilities to help shipowners run their ships more efficiently as well as help build vessels for the future.

FLEET is also actively working in supporting shipowners to reduce carbon emissions from their ships with a large part of their efforts focusing on implementing measures to conserve engine power and improve energy efficiency that includes improvement in consumption monitoring and data collection processes to be more comprehensive and accurate, thus, providing better decisions in managing each vessel.

Currently, FLEET is using an in-house developed NOVA platform that captures and analyses data from their ships including the smoothness of the hull, sea conditions, and other factors, wherein crew and shipowners can see the ship's carbon intensity index.

NOVA also helps see early indications of concerns such as hull fouling and propeller cleaning on time resulting in reduced resistance and fuel consumption.

"We're also very keen on supporting shipowners in testing new technologies. Currently, we are testing wind-assisted ship propulsion by installing aerofoils on one of our client's ships. This should result in annualized fuel savings of around 12 percent," Rajvanshy said.

"We continue to focus on responsible shipping and broader sustainability considerations, to help shipowners in navigating emerging regulations and requirements," Rajvanshy added.

Meanwhile, FLEET has ramped up the number of Filipino seafarers onboard their managed vessels as shipowners increasingly seek Filipinos to work on their ships. This is in step with the global shipping industry rebounding from the effects of the Covid-19 global pandemic that crippled the industry for about two years.

The positive development wherein the Philippines finally gain recognition from the European Community as well as possibly the International Maritime Organization (IMO) 'whitelist' can further boost the stock of Filipino seafarers to gain employment from onboard international going vessels.

Capt Abhishek Sinha, Owners' Representative, and Training Director at FLEET, pointed out that the EMSA audit aimed to ensure that the Philippines met the requirements to maintain its status as a recognized provider of seafarers to the global shipping industry and strengthened the company's resolve to involve more Filipinos in their plans.

"It was expected and welcome news that the Philippines passed the audit," Capt Sinha said and added, " We have been operating in the Philippines for more than 25 years, and have always valued and maintained trust in the Filipino regulatory system and Filipino seafarers." FLEET operates on a global scale having 27 offices in 12 countries with a client base spanning over 100 world-class ship owners, including Fortune 500 companies from China, Greece, India, Japan, Korea, Netherlands, Norway, Turkey and with the USA, among others.

At the moment, FLEET manages more than 650 vessels —representing around 2 percent of the world's bulk, tanker and container ships — and has a network of more than 27,000 seafarers. It also employs over 1,000 onshore professionals around the world.

Vessels managed include bulk carriers, containers, car carriers, oil tankers, gas carriers and chemical tankers from 600 to 320,000 DWT in size.