Commercial fishing is one of the riskiest occupations in the UK, with a consistently high fatality and injury rate. The aim of this Trinity House funded project (conducted by Dr Irwin and Dr Tone) is to explore the critical non-technical skills needed to maintain safety and effective performance whilst fishing, and develop a tailored behavioural marker system for fishers. The research has thus far encompassed:

• An incident analysis using MAIB UK fishing incident reports.
• An interview study with UK fishers.
• A series of discussion groups with fishing stakeholders.

As a result of this research a commercial fishing behavioural marker system has been developed – named FiNS (FIsher Non-technical Skills).