Shipowners: Territorial waters are safe; IMO plans to adapt courses for seafarers
The shipowners' association says insurance has not become more expensive, but a maritime lawyer disagrees. The IMO plans to adapt training to drone attacks.
Symbolic image · Photo: Alexey Komarov / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0 (cropped and resized)
The chairman of the Bulgarian Shipowners' Association, Capt. Alexander Kalchev, sought in the BNT studio to ease concerns about the impact of the drone attacks on Bulgarian shipping. Insurance has not become more expensive, he said. Bulgaria's territorial waters, extending about 12 miles from the coast, are safe. Ships bound for Varna and Constanța can practically sail within territorial waters, in which case additional war risk insurance, usually 1% to 2%, is not strictly necessary.
The insurers' Joint War Committee declared the Black Sea a war risk area on Sept. 16, excluding the territorial waters of Bulgaria, Romania, Turkey and Georgia. Kalchev said he knew of no ship that had been hit while heading to Bulgarian or Romanian ports. He warned, however, that reputable shipowners are increasingly avoiding the area, so that older ships are sailing without complying with the Maritime Labour Convention. Maritime lawyer Hristo Raev, by contrast, told BNT that premiums would become "huge" because of the attacks.
The International Maritime Organization (IMO) plans to adapt survival courses for seafarers to new threats such as drone attacks, BNT reported. The current standard dates from around 2010, said Dimitar Vasilev of the Nikola Vaptsarov Naval Academy in Varna. Changes require the approval of all 160 member states. Shipping manager Adriyan Evtimov warned that the world will be short of more than 39,000 qualified ship officers by 2030.