According to the Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA), another P&O Ferries vessel has been detained after inspectors found a “number of deficiencies”.
The detention comes a month after the company fired almost 800 seafarers seeking to replace them with contracts with crewing agencies. To remind, until now the line has also faced two more detentions by the UK’s Maritime and Coastguard Agency.
The Spirit of Britain has been detained due to surveyors identifying a number of deficiencies which were grounds for detention. We have advised P&O to invite us back once they have addressed the issues. We do not know yet when this will be
…a spokesperson for the Maritime and Coastguard Agency, said.
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Spirit of Britain, based at Dover, was built in 2010 and it is one of the largest ships operating in Europe. As informed, it will not be released until another inspection is carried out. P&O Ferries will be asked to repair the issues raised by the inspection, before the MCA proceeds to a second assessment.
The other ferry operated, Pride of Kent, remains under detention since March 29 over numerous issues identified aboard the ship.
In the meantime, Nautilus International has welcomed the news that the Insolvency Service, an executive agency of the UK Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, has ‘initiated both formal criminal and civil investigations’ into the circumstances of the redundancies made by P&O Ferries.
What is more, UK has also announced that the country will bring forward new legislation in order to ban ferries that do not pay their workers the national minimum wage from docking at British ports. The British Government has called on the International Maritime Organization to hold an international summit, aiming to discussing the rights of the seafarers at sea and to revising the basic pay standards around the world.