Eyesea/EVI Container Overboard AI Detection System Enters Sea Trials Under New IMO Rules

Eyesea, in partnership with EVI Safety Technologies, has brought its AI-powered container overboard detection system to sea trials — timed precisely to the entry into force of IMO's new mandatory container loss reporting requirements in January 2026. The system uses standard bridge and deck cameras already installed on vessels rather than requiring dedicated hardware, applying machine learning to identify containers departing the vessel either during stowage incidents or as a result of severe weather, and immediately generating geo-tagged imagery and structured incident data for transmission to relevant maritime authorities and nearby vessels. The compliance context is significant: IMO's mandatory reporting rules, which came into force in January 2026, require vessels to formally report container losses in a structured, documented format — yet most ships currently have no automated capability to detect, timestamp, and geo-tag a loss event as it happens. Crew members may not observe a container going over the side during night operations or in severe weather, and post-incident reconstruction from AIS data alone produces only approximate loss positions. Eyesea's system addresses this specific gap, providing the evidentiary record that the new reporting framework assumes exists but currently does not for most vessels. The environmental and safety dimension extends beyond compliance: Floating containers represent a serious collision hazard for smaller vessels, and the geo-tagged alert broadcast to nearby traffic gives other operators actionable position data rather than the approximate last-known-position estimates currently available. As container loss rates attract increasing environmental scrutiny — particularly on Pacific and North Atlantic trades where severe weather events are driving higher casualty rates — automated detection that both satisfies regulatory requirements and actively reduces secondary hazards represents a genuinely useful capability rather than a compliance checkbox. [Seatrade Maritime]

This story is part of the Maritime AI Digest of 1 March 2026.