A HILF (High Impact Low Frequency) Event is a term that I learnt recently whilst on a Bridge Resource Management (BRM) Course in Australia. It relates to incidents that occur rarely but whose impact is catastrophic – Costa Concordia, Herald of Free Enterprise, Exxon Valdez and of course the Titanic are just some examples in the Maritime Industry. These catastrophic events result in loss of life, pollution etc… and in these days of social media and the press – overwhelming media attention tends to be mostly negative, speculative and/or generally incorrect with blame being appointed by the general public before any official report is released.

 Fortunately, such events have, to date, been rare (or very well “managed”) in the superyacht industry. With the ever-increasing numbers of large yachts, especially those over 100m carrying high-profile UBOs and charter guests, should such an incident occur, even if it does not result in loss of life or serious damage, it will still be a High Impact event just from the media attention alone – especially with the recent, mostly negative, media attention on the industry from the sanctions on certain Russian UBO’s and their yachts.

The courses included reviewing HILF incidents and most causes were down to the human factor – poor communication, lack of knowledge of the systems, poor decision…