Safety Management Systems (SMS) are implemented to assist a Company and their emplyees to safely operate, manage and direct staff, masters & crews and to help prevent pollution. 

The requirement for a company to implement an SMS may be regulatory, to comply with: 

International Safety Management Code (ISM)  

Domestic Safety Management 

Workboat Code 3

Sport or Pleasure Code

Large Yacht Code

Thames Freight standard

RYA Training Centres (Recognition)

Or by requirement and best practice such as:

Port and marine facility safety code

Code vessels 

Best practice on inaland waters with Class vessels

or just because of simple and plain good practice. 

In fact even when a documented safety management system is not identified by a code requirement, the key safety elements are required by all commercial vessels under The Merchant Shipping and Fishing Vessels (Health and Safety at Work) Regulations 1997 or Health and Safety at Work Act 1974. 

It’s essential that the system is suitable, sufficient and reflects your operation. It should comply to the relevant regulations for the company, its employees, its operations and vessels. The key to all systems is to ensure that it is written in a way so that all can implement the system and that staff can easily follow the procedures put in place.

We produce safety management systems that reflect your operation so they can be more straightforward to implement. Our systems are built around the operations of your company and vessel(s). We can also work with your masters, crews and shoreside staff to ensure the SMS is understood, fit for purpose and can develop and grow as the company’s aims change and develop over time.

The Safety Management System (SMS) is a live document. It will change as procedures and systems within the company change. SeaComply either supply your system and let you get on with implementation or work with your organisation to help maintain and develop the SMS with regular SMS audits, organising and collating Masters reviews, onboard fleet-wide audits, advice and consultancy on a retainer service.

We can also design Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) and Emergency Operating Procedures (EOPs) to suit the vessel and its equipment, these can be included in the SMS along with reporting systems and maintenance schedules.

All systems can be produced and supplied in both paper and digital formats.

Risk assessments are the essential starting point to keeping the Company, seafarers, operations and vessels safe. They are also a requirement under the law. Our team can work with you and your workforce so that Risk assessments and controls are put in place to ensure suitable and sufficient assessment of risks and establish control measures and procedures where necessary. It is important we work with you rather than just deliver the completed risk assessments, as it is vital for the workers, crew, and staff to be involved in the process. 

We match any control measure and operating system to industry best practices or legal requirements where we can.

Checklists are an essential and handy way to ensure certain tasks are carried out to the correct level and at the right intervals. We can provide chacklists in either paper or electronic versions. 

The checklists can be supplied as a standard template for you to adapt or we can work with you to construct checklists to ensure that the task complies with law and best practice. The checklists can be daily, weekly, monthly checks or Emergency procedures to ensure that emergency taks have a procedure that can be followed by all involved. All of these can be linked so that they can be recorded locally or online.

In 2016 the Port Marine Safety Codes application was widened to include marine facilities. This was not widely picked up on by industry so in 2025 the MCA changed the codes title to better include and highlight 'marine facilities'. 

Ports and marine facilities include: 

Statutory Harbour Authorities (SHAs);

• Competent Harbour Authorities (CHAs);

• Municipal Port or Harbour Authorities;

• Trust Port or Harbour Authorities;

• Private Port or Harbour Authorities;

• State-owned Port or Harbour Authorities;

• Ministry of Defence dockyards and marine facilities;

• Non-statutory port and harbour facilities; and

• All other marine berths, marinas, terminals, piers and jetties even if

they are located within, or adjacent to, an SHA. 

We have a lot of experience in working with ports and marine facilities such as docks, wharves, marinas, sailing clubs to assist in this field.  Often this is for advising and assisting in risk assessing sites next to or near the water or helping ensure that the facility has robust systems in place.

We also wrote and run specific PMSC awareness courses for British Marine. This assists with ensuring 'key personel', 'duty holders' and 'designated persons have the knowldge to carry out their tasks. 

This is an ever-evolving area and new to safety management systems. We can offer advice on the current thinking and how cyber systems can be maintained, protected and backed up for compliance, security
and safety. 

The required extent of cyber security measures shall be commensurate with the size, complexity and type of operation of the vessel, and shall be determined by the vessel owner/operator and shall be to the satisfaction of the Certifying Authority.Cyber security measures shall include at a minimum the following113, 114:

1. the systems, assets, data and capabilities which would impact vessel operations if disrupted;

2. roles and responsibilities of those managing cyber-risks. This shall be documented and made available to the Certifying Authority on request;

3. measures to minimise risks and defend against cyber-attacks;
   means to successfully detect a cyber-attack in a timely manner;

4. resilient means to restore key systems;

5. means to ensure critical back-up systems maintain functionality during a cyber-attack;

6. measures to successfully back-up and restore critical systems following a cyber-attack.