Hello all. This forum has just been brought to my attention and it's good to see the issue of unmarked fishing gear and CHIRP's role being discussed.

CHIRP reacts to incidents/near-misses, rather than accidents and in that sense a CHIRP report is part of a proactive process. CHIRP uses the information it receives to try and prevent the escalation from incident to accident and has achieved significant success in both its aviation and maritime programmes.

CHIRP became involved in the unmarked fishing gear issue at the request of the RYA who felt that incidents were widespread, but not collected consistently and independently. There were also some concerns that reports were not being submitted because of possible hostility from fishermen.

CHIRP accepts reports:

When you are concerned to protect your identity

When you wish others to benefit from an important "lesson learned"

When other reporting procedures are not appropriate or not available.

When you have tried other reporting procedures without the issue having been adequately addressed.

Reporting to CHIRP is relatively easy; we provide a form (clearly not universally popular!), but also accept reports over our web-site, by post, e-mail and by telephone (preferably followed up in writing). The form only asks for the relevant sections to be filled in, please feel free to ignore the others.

Despite the relatively few reports received there are signs that the profile of this issue has been raised significantly and progress is being made.

You have a number of voluntary reporting options including the MCA, MAIB, RYA, CHIRP and forums such as this one. The important thing is that they are reported and brought to the attention of someone who can do something about it. I would encourage all of you to continue to report and not to retaliate and risk becoming law breakers yourselves.

I look forward to participating in this forum again in the future and if anyone wants to know more about CHIRP and what we're up to, just get in touch.

All the best

Mike Powell
Director (Maritime) CHIRP