A Camera Maker Publishes a Customer's Numbers. Now Ask What They Count.

Prime Tanker Management has put ShipIn's FleetVision cameras across its managed fleet. ShipIn, the company that makes the cameras, has published what changed over a 60-day comparison period.

The numbers. Breaches of safety gear rules down 76%. Bridge-related breaches down 51%. Technical breaches down 69%. Crew taking part in drills, toolbox talks and briefings up 3.4 times. The company's score on ShipIn's own scale went from 82 to 94. Masters use the footage with crews in safety meetings, and the office uses it to compare ships and to show oil majors how procedures are followed on board.

First, credit where it is due. These are figures from a named manager with a stated period, even if the camera maker is the one putting them out. For weeks we have asked camera companies and their customers to do that. Last week one manager published a number from a single ship. This is a fleet. The direction is right.

Now the question we asked on 30 August, when a serving master mariner raised it in print. Who counted, and how? The release comes from the company that sells the cameras. It does not explain how a breach was counted or what the earlier period was. As far as we can tell, the count comes from the camera system itself. And when people know a camera is on, they put the helmet on. That is a real change in behaviour, and it may well save an injury. But it is not the same as a safer ship. A crew can learn what the camera looks for much faster than a company can change its safety culture.

What would settle it. Numbers the camera does not produce: injuries, near misses reported by the crew themselves, port State control findings, oil major inspection results, insurance claims. If those move the same way over a year, the case is made. Neither company has published them, and the fleet size is not given either.

A fair word on repetition. This is the fifth time since August that ShipIn appears in this newsletter. We run it because it brings new numbers from a customer, not because it is a new launch. We will not run a sixth without an outcome that somebody other than the camera has counted.

For managers who already have cameras: ask your own safety department one thing. Since the cameras went in, have crew-reported near misses gone up or down? If they went down, find out whether the ship got safer or the crew got quieter. [Smart Maritime Network · ShipIn release · AiatSea, 30 August · AiatSea, 4 October]

This story is part of the Maritime AI Digest of 11 October 2026.