Pilot ladders have been in use for over two centuries, although their safety hazard is quite imminent, there were no stringent actions to improve upon the design to mitigate the risk. Pilots started accepting things as they were, and the accidents kept on happening on a large scale.

It is often said that, ‘a small beacon of light can dispel the darkness around.’ For the pilots, Capt Gajanan Karanjikar was the beacon when he founded the All India Maritime Pilots Association (AIMPA). AIMPA caters not only to the emergency needs of the pilots but act as a conduit between ministry and them. It is an association that the pilots can call their ‘home’, ‘which is of the pilots, for the pilots, by the pilots’.

Though the organisation flourished but Capt Karanjikar felt that this wasn’t enough. There was a need to widely spread awareness about this harrowing safety hazard, and thus came the idea of sensitising the future of maritime industry, i.e cadets. With an ambition in mind, and a well thought out plan, he approached the Vice Chancellor of Indian Maritime University, Ms Malini Shankar; who herself was aware of the pilot ladder safety hazard, and wanted to focus on a more institutionalised approach towards mitigating this risk. She immediately gave her permission, a team of 9 cadets across all Indian Maritime Universities, were formed. These cadets formed the core committee, and under the guidance of Capt Karanjikar designed and structured an all India research paper competition, based on mitigating the pilot ladder safety risk, and thus ‘Safe And Modern Ideas For Pilot Transfer Arrangement (SAMIPTA)’ was born.

Cap: Ms Malini Shankar (VC, IMU) and Capt Gajanan Karanjikar along with the SAMIPTA Core Committee

SAMIPTA started off with laying out the blueprint of the competition such as the format, no of cadets per team, mode of competition, judges etc. After deliberations for over 1 month, the letter for invitation to participate was sent to all MTIs across India. Whilst the registrations were going on, a number of awareness seminars were conducted to make people aware of the pilot ladder safety hazard.

SAMIPTA received the registration of over 120 teams, 300+ participants eager to bring their out of the box solution to practicality. The deadline for submission of papers was set at 5th July. Over 110 papers from 15 MTIs all across India were received; making it the ‘single largest research paper competition in India.’ The ideas were varied, and the methods to approach those were diverse.

For evaluation, SAMIPTA took special care in presenting all the papers equally, without any bias. Hence papers were clubbed into different categories based on their disciplines (ex- B.tech, Marine engineering, B.Sc nautical sc. etc) all of them were assigned a unique color code and were dispatched to 11 distinguished judges, all across the world. The judges had years of experience both as a seafarer, and as pilot and brought in the raw authentic account and gave the best judgement selecting the top 10.

SAMIPTA as a research paper competition received widespread accolades. The entire event was sponsored by Foreign Owners Representatives and Ship Managers Association (FOSMA), The Maritime Association of Shipowners Shipmanagers and Agents (MASSA) and Hindustan Institute of Maritime Training (HIMT) Chennai. The prize money was set at Rs 18,000 for the winner; Rs 12,000 for the runners up, and special cash prize for out of box Industry 4.0 solution was fixed.

The judges had a tough time evaluating over 110+ papers, consisting of over 1000 pages. But the sheer love and dedication for the maritime pilot community brought in the best in them. Finally on 7th August the top 10 papers were announced.

Cap: Top 10 selected papers along with the college name and the team members

The results were announced via live programme on instagram wherein Capt Karanjikar along with 3 core committee members declared the winning teams. Thereafter the confirmation result and video of the same were mailed to all the MTIs.

The finale of SAMIPTA will be held soon. But as it’s often said, ‘it is never about the destination, it’s all about the journey’, and surely what SAMIPTA did was a small step for man, a giant leap for the maritime world’.

Marex Media