Maritime transport in the developing world is often unsafe and inefficient. The need for improvement is especially apparent in the record of fatal ferry incidents. A new approach to solving problems is Design for the Other 90% of Us, in which people in the developing and developed world collaborate to create products and systems that are robust, simple, and efficient. Using efforts to address ferry fatalities as a model, this paper investigates how the concept of Design for the Other 90% of Us could be applied to maritime systems in general. Recommendations for research and collaborative efforts are advanced.