The US Coast Guard launched its Domestic Vessel Annual Report, collecting data from the USCG’s Marine Information Safety and Law Enforcement (MISLE) database regarding vessel population, inspections conducted, and deficiencies issued for the 2018 calendar year.
Following remarks on IMO 2020 during his keynote speech at Connecticut Maritime Association’s 2019 Shipping Conference, Rear Adm. John Nadeau also gave attendees a rundown of some of the other initiatives and issues the US Coast Guard’s prevention program focused on in 2018.
The US Coast Guard (USCG) issued an alert informing that deficiencies related to firefighting safety and appliances continue to be the leading cause of detentions in the San Francisco area. During the fourth quarter of 2018, there was also an increase in deficiencies that related to missing or unserviceable fireman’s outfits.
Four foreign flagged ships remained under detention in UK ports during January 2019 after failing Port State Control (PSC) inspection, according to data provided by the UK Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA).
The latest Concentrated Inspection Campaign (CIC) was jointly conducted from 1st September to 30th November 2018 by the Paris, Tokyo, India and Black Sea MoU, focusing on compliance with the MARPOL Annex VI. Namely, during these three months, the PSC Authorities checked eleven items as mentioned in the CIC questionnaire.
As the UK Maritime and Coastguard Agency proceeded to seize Tecoil Polaris, the master of the small product tanker Tecoil Polaris, Vitaliy Trofimov, was found guilty and was ordered to pay an overdue $34,000 fine for major ISM code violations.
Audits are conducted periodically either by company representatives (internal) or by third parties (external) with the aim to check SMS deficiencies and non-conformities. As non-conformity is considered an observed situation where objective evidence indicates the nonfulfillment of a specified requirement. Additionally, audits take place in case an organization requires an overview with a view to change its initiatives.
The North West Europe area, a high density trading route inside the North Sea ECA, is considered as one of the most challenging PSC areas within the Paris MoU region. The main ports included in this area are: Amsterdam (Netherlands), Rotterdam (Netherlands), Antwerp (Belgium) and Hamburg (Germany).
Four foreign-flagged ships were under detention in UK ports during November 2018, after failing Port State Control (PSC) inspection, according to data provided by the UK Maritime and Coastguard Agency. During November, there were six new detentions of foreign flagged vessels in a UK port, while three vessels remained under detention from previous months.
During 2017, Paris MoU conducted 17,920 PSC inspections which led to 685 detentions (detention rate 3.82%). 40,414 deficiencies were reported from which 3,680 led to a detention (9.11% of total).
