Digital sailmate: enhancing safety through low-cost stability monitoring in artisanal fishing

Abstract

Despite overall mortality decreasing, offshore fishing remains one of the riskiest work-based activities worldwide. For example, fishing communities in East Africa have a 43-fold higher rate of drowning than the general population. A lack of safety culture and knowledge around vessel stability contributes to this issue. Formal safety measures can be difficult to enforce, especially in small scale and subsistence fishing activities dominated by small artisanal boats. Digital technologies hold potential to effectively improve fishing safety. A digital safety device based on commonly held and relatively low-cost consumer products such as smartphones can provide increasing information to fishers enabling more informed safety decisions to be taken during vessel use. This paper proposes the algorithms for a prototype device to monitor stability of fishing vessels, with focus on the capabilities of low-fidelity data in stability assessment. The findings of experimental results at model and full scale are presented. The research indicates that an inclining test can be carried out with minimal training or knowledge base to allow an adequate stability assessment of a vessel before departure on a fishing trip. This baseline measure can then be used to track stability whilst underway as vessel motion is recorded and processed continually updating the stability assessment.