Maritime experts from across the Red Ensign Group are gathering online on 16 and 17 June in what is expected to be the last meeting before it receives its mandatory audit. The Red Ensign Group Technical Forum will meet to discuss technical regulation and how it affects the work of the British Shipping Registers.
Representatives from Anguilla, Bermuda, British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Falkland Islands, Gibraltar, Guernsey, Isle of Man, Jersey and the United Kingdom are attending the event.
With the International Maritime Organization’s Member State mandatory audit of the REG members expected before the end of this year, much of the event will focus on the work being done by the REG to be ready for it and to ensure that the result of the audit shows the REG’s continued leadership on maritime matters.
Other items up for discussion include seafarer safety and standards, the REG Yacht Code and working practices during COVID-19.
The event will be co-chaired by Greg Evans of the Maritime Authority of the Cayman Islands and Richard Pellew from the Maritime and Coastguard Agency.
Greg Evans said: “We are undoubtedly going to be very focussed on the IMO audit and what will be required of us. There’s been an awful lot of work done, some of it quite challenging but as a result we believe the REG will be even better than it was before.”
Richard Pellew said: “We’ve all lived and breathed the IMO audit work for many months and it’s helped us all to take a good long hard look at ourselves in the process. Technical Forum will be discussing much of this work but it will also focus on other regulatory matters that won’t just benefit ourselves in the REG but across the wider industry.”
