Four new detentions in UK ports
The Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA) announced that eight foreign flagged ships were under detention in UK ports during March 2013 after failing Port State Control (PSC) inspection.
Latest monthly figures show that there were four new detentions of foreign flagged vessels in UK ports during March 2013 and four vessels remained under detention from previous months. Seven vessels remained under detention at the end of March. The overall rate of detentions compared with inspections carried out over the last twelve months was 3.34% this is slightly down from February’s twelve month rate.
Out of the detained vessels five were registered with a flag state listed on the Paris MOU white list, two was registered with a flag state on the grey list, none were registered with a flag state on the black list, one was unregistered and none were registered with a flag state that was not included on the Paris MOU white, grey or black lists.
In response to one of the recommendations of Lord Donaldson’s Inquiry into the prevention of pollution from merchant shipping and in compliance with the EU Directive on Port State Control (2009/16/EC as amended), the Maritime and Coastguard agency (MCA) publishes full details of the foreign flagged vessels detained in UK ports each month.
Inspections of foreign flagged ships in UK ports are undertaken by surveyors from the Maritime and Coastguard Agency. Where a ship is found to be deficient or lacks the required documentation, Maritime and Coastguard Agency surveyors can take a range of actions leading to detention in serious cases. The UK is part of a regional agreement on port state control known as the Paris Memorandum of Understanding on Port State Control (Paris MOU) and information on all ships that are inspected is held centrally in an electronic database known as Thetis. This allows the ships of flags with poor detention records to be targeted for future inspection.
Detained ships have to satisfy surveyors that remedial work has been carried out before they are allowed to leave port.
When applicable the list includes those passenger craft prevented from operating under the provisions of the EU Directive on Mandatory Surveys for the safe operation of regular Ro-Ro ferry and high speed passenger craft services (1999/35/EU).
For more detailed information about ships detained in March 2013, you can click here.
Source:Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA)
