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Riviera Maritime Media recently interviewed Capt. Daniel Alcantara, Head of HSSE and Solutions Delivery to share more of his thought leadership insights. Here is an excerpt of the article.
A smart watch developed by Singapore start-up SOL-X looks to monitor the health of crew on a ship to alert them to the dangers of heat stress, lack of situational awareness, the onset of fatigue and the risk of heart attacks.
But until recently, engineers and others in hazardous jobs on board had no near real-time information that would alert them to the dangers of heat stress, lack of situational awareness, the onset of fatigue and the risk of heart attacks among other frequent occurrences on board a ship.
“We are working to solve one of the biggest problems facing the maritime industry,” explains Captain Daniel Alcantara of Singapore-headquartered start-up SOL-X, a company that is embedding sometimes life-saving data into seafarers’ daily activities. “Why do the same accidents and incidents constantly recur even though they involve experienced crew members who have performed these actions many, many times?”
A former Master Mariner on oil tankers where the idea originated, Capt. Alcantara is behind the development of SmartWatch, a wearable for seafarers that aims to prevent the many mishaps that not only cost lives at sea but incur huge costs, up to US$29 billion a year in insurance claims.
There is no dispute about the importance of keeping your crew safe and well. According to the European Maritime Safety Agency’s 2019 annual overview of maritime casualties and incidents study, as much as 66% of incidents are caused by human factors, with crew fatigue and lack of situational awareness among some of the major contributing causes.
And the cost of mishaps is considerable. Even before the Covid-19 pandemic, statistics indicated that a vessel is diverted once in five years due to crew illness, with the cost per diversion running to US$180,000.
SOL-X’s mission is to change that – and it has got off to a good start. SmartWatch so impressed the judges on Hong Kong’s Captain’s Table Innovation Challenge, a competition for outstanding start-ups, that it made it to the global finals.
Unveiled in early 2021 after three years in development, the SOL-X product is attracting a lot of attention within the shipping industry and beyond. “The insurance industry, progressive shipping companies and even flag states are talking to us,” Capt. Alcantara explains. “Oil majors have also expressed an interest in using SmartWatch in refineries.”
Read up further to find out more. We are now featured in the online Singapore Solutions Magazine – our advertisement is on page 31 and editorial feature is on pages 62 and 63. Hardcopies would be distributed at major events like Asia Pacific Maritime etc. by Riviera Maritime Media
To know more about our SOL-X SmartWatch features and benefits, you may refer to this page