I don’t pretend to know anything about the civilian maritime industry, but I see a lot of parallels with what you’re saying in this thread and the stated intent of the United States Naval Institute. I joined USNI long before I joined the Navy for the Proceedings, their journal-caliber publication. Back when print was king officers like then-CAPT Chester Nimitz were submitting articles on shiphandling, strategy, and other areas of interest to the naval officer. Today they still publish the Proceedings (which some would say has lost its luster) but they do a lot more too, like blogs, conferences, symposiums, and sponsor SailorBob, which is gCaptain for SWOs.
Surely there are already maritime industry conventions, but has there ever been a conference specifically on lifeboats and mariner safety? Perhaps you can expend some of your clout to get union reps, USCG reps, shippers, etc. in a room for a day or two to just talk about improving survivability at sea. Or host a conference for the major unions. Get some traditional journalists to attend as well.
Maybe one day you will get to the point where you can have staffers available to do investigative journalism on behalf of mariner interests, but it isn’t something I would take a loan out for.