Across the maritime industry, a significant and growing number of personnel transfers take place each year. While some of these transfers—such as wind turbine access and pilot boarding—are governed by established procedures, regulations, and incident reporting frameworks, many offshore transfers fall outside the scope of oversight by regulatory bodies like G+, IMCA, and IMO.

This regulatory gap results in a lack of standardized procedures and systematic monitoring, potentially increasing the risk of incidents. It raises critical questions: How many incidents occur within this 'grey area' and remain unreported or unnoticed? And more importantly, what measures can be taken to improve the safety of personnel involved in these transfers?

Offshore wind construction and maintenance

• A wind park owner reports around 66,000 crew transfers per year during the construction phase alone.
• The G+ incident report recorded 29 global incidents in 2024 related to vessel transfers, mostly involving Crew Transfer Vessels (CTVs).
• Both transfer volumes and incident numbers have been rising since 2021, indicating growing safety concerns.

Pilot boarding operations

• In the Netherlands, there are approximately 180,000 pilot transfers annually (Nederlands Loodswezen).
• Globally, pilot boarding leads to 2–3 fatalities per year (International Maritime Pilot Association), despite established procedures.

Other types of personnel transfers

• A dredging contractor reports about 200,000 transfers per year, involving personnel with diverse roles.
• Transfers include CTV, SOV, pilot ladder, gangway, and others.
• There is no clear data on incident rates for these types of transfers.

Expertise and experience

MARIN is taking the initiative to investigate this together with the industry. MARIN has initiated and participated in several Joint Industry Projects related to offshore maintenance and crew transfer, for example:SPOWT