Overloading is a serious problem in the maritime industry here and abroad.

Determining the vessel’s

capacity and cargo is an important step in planning and carrying out a safe voyage. The maximum
capacity or weight for a vessel refers to the weight including people that can be carried safely. This may
vary depending on the type of ship. Overloading a vessel makes it difficult to handle and this is
aggravated in bad weather conditions and emergencies. Overloaded vessels are also more prone to
capsize because it lowers the freeboard of the vessel and limits the range of its stability.

In the Philippines, we still use manual counting double checked by the ship’s manifesto. Overloading,
however, is a common issue here which is always discovered only after an incident has already occurred
and lives have already been lost. Take for example the incident in Jolo, Sulu where at least 56 people
were killed when a ferry bound for tawi-tawi sank off last April 14, 2000. Nine crew members and 11
passengers were counted when they cleared the vessel before sailing. While sailing, it was hard to
manifest the passengers entering. A chief of the Natl. Disaster Coordinating Council said that there
estimate was between 150 and 200

The same with the incident in ___________________________.

We therefore attempted to address this problem by coming up with our CIAREET which stands for
Commuter Inventory for Accountable Record on Entry and Exit Trace. The main objectives in
constructing this device is:

1) to verify the counting of passengers by the ship’s manifesto by

2)

We used __________________________________.

We tested the device by __________________________________.

Here are the results _________________________.

The crusade for safer seas is ongoing, and science must lead the charge. Thank you and good afternoon.