ClassNK Highlights Key Port State Control Issues

On Friday, ClassNK released its annual report on port state control (PSC) activity, part of what the society describes as an effort to "increase the transparency of information related to PSC issues and to make it even more difficult for substandard ships to survive in the market place."

The number of inspections is up, the class society says, in line with new regulations and increasing regional cooperation among port state authorities. In the Paris MOU region alone, 18,000 foreign ships are inspected every year; many more are inspected by the Tokyo MOU states and by the U.S. Coast Guard. 

ClassNK noted that the  general cargo ships it classes were statistically more likely than other vessel types to be detained during a port state control inspection. Age was also a significant factor, with vessels over 20 years of age detained at a rate more than double that for vessels under ten years. Size also played in, with vessels of between 10,000 to 20,000 GT roughly twice as likely to be detained as those over 80,000 GT. 

Leading detainable deficiency categories, in order of importance, were fire safety; ISM code; emergency systems; and life safety appliances. Life safety and fire safety together accounted for about one third of the total number of detentions. 

Getting into the details, the specific deficiencies most frequently cited were: ISM code, in first place; lifeboats; fire pump and piping; oil filtering equipment; emergency generators; and fire dampers.

The society also broke down the data into the most common deficiency categories in each port state. For example, ISM code violations were the most frequent cause of detention in Australia last year; in the U.S. and China, fire safety remains the detainable deficiency inspectors cite most often.