A system and method assessing maritime vessel risk in response to automatically detected maritime visual events is provided. At least one maritime visual event is detected by at least one camera aboard a vessel that provides image data of the visual event to a processor. The visual event can be associated with at least one of, safety, security, maintenance, crew behavior, and cargo. A risk assessment score is produced in response to the detected visual event, and that risk assessment score is provided to a user in a desired format. Production of the risk assessment score can entail comparing the visual event to data of complying or non-complying model visual events from a data storage. Risk assessment scores can be aggregated from plurality of events and/or a fleet of vessels to generate overall scores for the vessel and fleet.