Day 1 -Geopolitics, Criminalisation, Accountability & the Dark Fleet - SGT (Singapore Time, GMT+08:00)
The conference opens with live audience polling to establish what this room believes are the three most urgent geopolitical threats facing seafarers in 2026. Results restructure the first panel accordingly. The 2025 Seafarers Happiness Index revealed that crews now voice fears about being caught in geopolitical storms — sanctions, dark fleet exposure and hybrid maritime warfare — as a distinct and growing psychological burden. Seafarers are, in effect, carrying the stress of international politics on their shoulders while trying to do a technical job. The keynote addresses frame the regulatory and human rights context for the three days, with a particular focus on how the IMO and member states are responding to the acceleration of seafarer criminalisation driven by geopolitical tensions and substandard shipping.
▸ FORMAT : Live Polling with Consequences
Audience votes not just to register opinion — but to restructure what happens next. Delegates have genuine agency and the outcome reflects what the room needed, not what was scripted.
BIMCO and ICS projections of a shortfall of nearly 90,000 officers by 2026 are now materialising into real operational pressure. Diminishing attractiveness of a career at sea, coupled with rising man-berth ratios and continued fleet growth will lead to the highest shortfall of officers to crew the world’s merchant fleet in over a decade by 2026, with important implications for both hiring and future manning cost inflation, according to the latest Manning Annual Review and Forecast report published by global shipping consultancy Drewry. Three industry reactors respond to the data with operational reality from different parts of the market.
▸ FORMAT 3: The Murder Board
A company or organisation presents a strategy and a panel of "adversaries" is explicitly tasked with finding every flaw, blind spot and unintended consequence in real time. Borrowed from military planning.
Two operators present in sequence — one that diversified its crew sourcing successfully, one that encountered serious problems. No institutional presentations; structured candour on what actually happened, what it cost, and what they would do differently. Myanmar, West Africa and emerging South Asian corridors are examined. A structured Q&A format allows the audience to probe what is usually kept behind closed doors.
▸ FORMAT 6: The Witness Stand
Case study operators in the hot seat on stage. The moderator plays structured counsel; the rest of the panel can only respond — not redirect or explain away.
2026 has been identified as the year AI moves from isolated tools into enterprise-wide systems embedded in onboard workflows, compliance reporting, procurement, and commercial decision-making. AI-powered rostering now analyses fatigue and performance data; ML models flag payroll anomalies; predictive maintenance is becoming operational standard. But as these systems embed into decision chains, the governance and liability questions have become critical: when an AI-generated recommendation contributes to an incident, injury or regulatory breach, who is accountable? A shipping company presents its enterprise-wide AI deployment roadmap. A panel of adversaries is explicitly tasked with finding every flaw, blind spot and unintended consequence in real time.
▸ FORMAT 3: The Murder Board — AI strategy under full adversarial scrutiny
A company or organisation presents a strategy and a panel of "adversaries" is explicitly tasked with finding every flaw, blind spot and unintended consequence in real time. Borrowed from military planning.
InterManager is now formally tracking cases of seafarer criminalisation — incidents have directly accelerated as geopolitical tensions and the dark fleet surge have exposed crews to legal jeopardy they cannot see or control. Ship abandonments more than doubled in 2024. The IMO Secretary-General has warned of a disturbing rise in criminalisation driven by substandard shipping practices linked to the dark fleet. This fishbowl debate places three specialists in the inner circle to address what structural changes flag states; operators and the IMO must make — while the empty chair is open to any delegate. Cases linked to dark fleet operations; sanctions compliance failures and abandonment are examined with a focus on geopolitical drivers.
▸ FORMAT 1: The Fishbowl — empty chair open to any delegate
Inner circle of 3–4 speakers debates while the audience observes. One chair always empty — any delegate can occupy it briefly. Creates genuine spontaneity and breaks the fourth wall.