Are you responsible for people and assets that move on the waters?

Are you content you have made the right provision for their safety and security?

Or is the wet, blue stuff beyond the jetty edge, a bit of a mystery?

A maritime security service that will help you - 

• Safeguard your people and assets ashore and afloat
• Improve your operational and commercial effectiveness;
• Answer honestly the tiresome question of how much safety and security provision is enough.

IMSA:

IMSA Associates are certificated ISPS Code instructors and surveyors, ship & small craft operators and drivers, project managers and security operatives. All possess a wide range of associated commercial maritime/ military qualifications and skills.

IMSA – The Company

IMSA Ltd is a high end specialist maritime security company with three areas of business: consultancy, operations and training.

Although IMSA’s people without exception, had many years of maritime security experience as individuals, the company cut its teeth providing consultancy advice for ports in the run-up to ISPS Code vesting day in 2004. The advice took the form of security audits and surveys of existing infrastructure and practices, assistance with writing port facility plans and implementation of new procedures to ensure compliance with the new Code. This advice was given to port authorities and governments, and the underlying added benefit was the improvement in efficiency that accompanied improved security procedures. Subsequently the company has provided security consultancy on a range of projects from new build LNG production plants to specialised offshore operations in high risk areas, to the provision of interdiction craft to protect afloat assets.

IMSA Operations

IMSA’s people provide survey, preparation, hardening, training, mentoring and security to ships operating in piracy-prone areas. Our belief is that this can normally be achieved without resorting to arming our people. When there is no alternative but to arm however, we provide not only people with a lifetime experience of weapons at sea, but also re-qualify them on ranges as part of mobilisation, certificating them accordingly for clients’ peace of mind. IMSA has also put much thought into the difficult question of responsibility when weapons have to be used in anger on board a civilian manned ship. The company’s solution has resulted in an innovative approach to Rules for the Use of Force which goes a long way to removing the headache of “Who’s in charge?”

IMSA’s training department teaches ISPS Code MCA approved Ship, Company and TRANSEC accredited Port Facility Officer Security Courses.

Major security providers frequently boast a maritime capability they simply do not have. IMSA’s Associates are former Royal Marines or Royal Navy people with maritime backgrounds, who have also had extensive experience in commercial maritime security. Their combined experience is unsurpassed, and coupled with their breadth of technical knowledge and contacts within the international shipping industry, IMSA is able to offer unparalleled advice, training and security provision which is widely regarded as industry best practice.

IMSA is based in Poole.  Whilst it has the necessary critical mass to tackle projects of almost any scale, is still small enough to be able to react personally and swiftly to a client’s needs.

IMSA Anti-Piracy Provision

< span id="ms__id20">Piracy, the causes of which are often understandable if not legitimate, flourishes but touches only a small percentage of all shipping. Fighting piracy is asymmetric. To win, more military force than exists would be required to defend merchant shipping. There is no appetite to use military force offensively. Commercial anti-piracy provision is an unwelcome expenditure on an already much depleted bottom line for the ship owner/operator, and much of it is ineffective. Ship owners may feel it is worth running the risk of not protecting their ships from pirate attack. Piracy will only increase into the future.

Ship owners and operators need to know who they can trust in the maritime security field, to provide a recognised level of service that will result in their ships being as well prepared to meet the pirate threat as they possibly can be. Some key questions:

The answers are ships and their crews are vulnerable to piracy. The ships were not built to make illegal boarding and seizure difficult, and the crews mostly did not go to sea expecting to be at peril from criminals, pirates or terrorists nor prepared or trained to deal with such attacks. The vulnerability of both can be significantly reduced by a series of measures, which if sought from a company such as IMSA as a single coherent package, need not cost the earth, and will come in well below the re-routing option. An illustrative “coherent package” might be:

IMSA treats every approach as unique. With much front line experience in the Arabian Gulf and West Africa, IMSA knows there is no ‘one-size-fits-all-solution’.

Why not come and see us to discuss your unique requirement? 

You will be assured a professional and kindly, interested ear: no pressure – no hard sell.