UK holds six vessels

News was prepared under the information support of Online Daily Newspaper on Hellenic and international Shipping "Hellenic Shipping News".

20 Mar 2008

THE UK's Maritime & Coastguard Agency (MCA) detained six foreign ships during February 2008 after failing Port State Control (PSC) inspection. In February 159 Port State Control inspections were carried out in the UK. A total of 41 vessels had no deficiencies raised against them, 70 had between one and five deficiencies, 36 had between six and ten deficiencies 11 had between eleven and twenty deficiencies and there was 1 vessel inspected which had more than twenty deficiencies. Out of the detained vessels three were registered with a flag states listed on the Paris MOU white list, six were registered with flag states on the grey list and two were registered with flag states on the black list and one was not listed. The vessels detained in February included a 499gt St Vincent & Grenadines flagged general cargo vessel which was detained in Hull following the arrest of the master who had been arrested by the local police as it was suspected he had been drinking. In addition, there was no evidence to prove that officers on board held CECs from the Flag State as it appeared that these certificates were locked up in the safe and only the master knew the combination. The vessels magnetic compass had a large bubble and there had been no entries into the compass deviation/correction log since October 2007. The vessel had also suffered a black-out on departure of Antwerp before arriving at Humber that needed to be investigated and any problem resolved as required. In another case a 20,248gt Panama-flagged vessel was detained in Bristol because the port lifeboat suspension falls blocks - forward & aft were holed and wasted. The fire drill and abandonment drill was substandard and the crew showed a lack of emergency preparedness during these drills. The propeller shaft in the starboard lifeboat was found to have an excessive misalignment and required rectification. The number and nature of the defects identified on board indicated a major breakdown of the vessels' Safety Management System (SMS).