Shipping without detention

If a vessel is detained upon the results of inspection carried out by the port state control authorities, a ship owner will certainly suffer severe losses. At the seminar “Types of state control at seaports. Methods to prevent detention.” Russian Maritime Register of Shipping outlined the most typical claims of officials and provided ship owners with some hints on how to avoid detention.  
Though approximately 95% of vessels under the Russian flag have no problems related to the port state control procedures in foreign ports, ship owners should focus their attention on compliance with the requirements of international safety standards which are under permanent memorandum control. The more so as vessel detention and even inspection revealing quite a number of shortcomings may cause a considerable loss of a shipping company. These are down losses, downgrade of risk profile for both the inspected vessel and all vessels of the company, more frequent inspections in the future and damage to the company’s goodwill.
 
Moreover, constantly growing number of international requirements set forth by IMO and ILO entail strengthening of port state control joining efforts aimed at harmonization of regional memorandums. In autumn 2013, the Paris Mou and Tokyo MoU will hold another joint Concentrated Inspection Campaign and from January 1, 2014 the Tokyo MoU will introduce a New Inspection Regime for the harmonization with the Paris MoU. And inspection frequency in the Asia-Pacific region will be different from that stipulated by the Paris MoU. Average time window since previous inspection will make only half of that in European ports.
 
Meanwhile, some ship owners inefficiently introduce and use safety management systems and don’t apply any comprehensive approach to handling of problems after a vessel is detained. As it was noted at the seminar, a detention is an extraordinary act which should encourage a shipping company not only to remedy the revealed shortcomings but also carry out a comprehensive analysis of vessel’s actual technical state and efficiency of a safety management system. Since port state control is based on random inspections, the compliance with other international requirements may be checked next time. Companies should arrange a systematic preventive control not depending on any individual specialist whose resignation leads to a necessity to build a new system.
 
However, detentions are sometimes attributable to subjective factors and are often determined by the state policy. In case of authorities’ misconduct, the company should settle the disputable situation through phase-by-phase negotiations with the official, who performed the inspection, as well as with the port’s Harbour Master and the state’s Maritime Administration.
 
Nevertheless, the detention statistics demonstrates that most claims are reasonable. In 2012, 20% of shortcomings causing the detention related to deficient fire prevention systems, 12% - life-saving equipment, 9% - major and auxiliary mechanisms etc.
 
The list of fire prevention deficiencies starts with the improper state of major and emergency fire pumps, insufficient readiness of fire-fighting equipment for immediate use, improper state of ventilation and fire detection systems, inadequate firefighters’ outfit.
 
As for life-saving equipment, the most widespread problems are those related to starting rescue boat engines (engine failure, low start batteries, fuel watering or no fuel), hindered lifeboat handling (improper maintenance of lifeboat handling gear or winch brake). Other violations: out of date equipment, its functional disability, insufficient emergency lighting of boarding place.
 
Every second drawback of major and auxiliary mechanisms relates to contamination of engine room with oil products, delayed or incomplete oil collection.
 
The seminar participants noted that the risk of detention is higher for older vessels. Threshold age is 15 years. The year of 2012 was not an exception with 89% of detentions falling on vessels with the age above the threshold level. No Russian vessels younger than 15 years were detained in 2013.
 
So Russian ship owners willing to avoid losses caused by detention of their vessels should pay attention to continuous compliance with the international requirements and to fleet renovation – a radical solution to the problem.
 
Vitaly Chernov