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FERRY DISASTER FALLOUT
- But Symi's Great Record

Great Greek Seamanship - A giant ferry maneuvers into Symi Harbour ( Photograph by Sotiris )

One can only agree with the Greek Merchant Marine Minister Christos Papoutsis when he labelled as 'unfair' the decision taken by the United States to warn its citizens about travelling on Greek ferries and  his statement that it is 'unacceptable for such isolated incidents to lead to such generalisations'.

This is not to belittle the tragic nature of the Express Samina incident which does seem to have been caused by human error.  As every occupational safety officer knows, the causes of accidents in statistical terms are 2% absolutely unavoidable, 'unexpected acts of God', 15%

unsafe conditions (mechanical failure and the like) and the balance, the vast majority, human error.

We can do much about the unsafe conditions but we can have only limited control over human fallibility. The best we can do is create a culture of competence, responsibility and professionalism among those who handle any potentially life-threatening equipment.

Resorting once again to statistics, the fact that the Greek Merchant Marine carries 10 million people on Greek ferries every year, years passing without a fatality, would seem to

indicate that as regards the human factor they are in most cases getting it right.

Anyone who has critically observed the ship handling of Greek commercial ferries cannot fail but to be impressed.  Day after day, year after year, little vessels such as the Symi I, Symi II and Kalymnons dock and get under weigh without fuss.

  Larger ferries, without the assistance of tugs, come stern to without bother on various quays on various islands with quite different
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