Worrying trends despite safety awareness
Three foreign flag ships were detained in UK ports during June 2011 failing port state control inspection, according to statistics released by the Maritime and Coastguard Agency.A further three vessels remained under detention from previous months. The overall rate of detentions compared with inspections carried out over the last twelve months was 3.31%, a small increase May’s twelve month rate. Out of the detained vessels, two were registered with flag states listed on the Paris MOU white list, two were registered with a flag states on the grey list, and two were unregistered. None was registered under a blacklisted flag.
Despite the raise of the safety awareness same deficiencies are repeated, e.g. missing records of rest, crew unable to perform fire or abandon ship drill, crew unable to communicate effectively in English, crew facilities unclean and unhygienic, the fire dampers were inoperative, watertight doors inoperative, charts not been corrected for the current and forthcoming voyages, passage plan not up to date, maintenance deficiencies indicating that the implementation of the International Safety Management code is not efficient/effective.
All operators should at all times bear in mind that the implementation of safety practices and the proper operation and maintenance of the vessel is being examined onboard, where crew needs to be vigilant.
Source : Safety4Sea