Asia-Pacific Ship Detentions Declining
The Tokyo MOU reports that the number of ship detentions in the Asia-Pacific region has declined.
The analysis, published its Annual Report on Port State Control in the Asia-Pacific Region, shows that detention percentage have continuously declined and, the trend is expected to continue following the introduction of its new targeted inspection regime in 2014.
The Tokyo MOU has enacted measures that target under-performing ships for the past four years and has identified that the total number of under-performing ships in 2014 decreased by 40 percent compared to numbers from three years ago.
Out of 30,405 inspections, there were 19,029 inspections where ships were found with deficiencies. As the total number of individual ships operating in the region was estimated at 24,128, the inspection rate in the region was approximately 69 percent in 2014.
1,203 ships registered under 64 flags were detained due to serious deficiencies giving a detention rate of ships inspected of 3.96 percent. Sierra Leone was the flag state with the greatest number of ship detentions.
Fire safety measures, safety of navigation and life-saving appliances continue to be the top three categories of deficiencies discovered on ships. In 2014, 16,654 deficiencies related to fire safety measures, 14,231 safety of navigation related deficiencies and 10,515 deficiencies related to life-saving appliances were recorded, representing almost 50 percent of the total number of all recorded deficiencies.
The graphs below summarise some of the deficiency statistics in the report.
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Hours of Rest CIC
The concentrated inspection campaign (CIC) on STCW Hours of Rest was carried out from
September 1 to November 30, 2014. During the three-month period, 8,182 port state control inspections were conducted by the member authorities, of which 6,392 were related to a CIC inspection. There were a total of 206 detentions recorded during the CIC inspections resulting in 16 (7.8 percent) detentions.
A total of 1,589 CIC related deficiencies were recorded. The most significant deficiencies found related to documentation and labour conditions, including records of seafarers daily hours of work/rest 997 (63 percent), manning specified by the minimum safe manning document 241 (15 percent) and shipboard working arrangements 232 (15 percent).
Information Exchange
For reporting and storing of port state inspection results and facilitating exchange of information in the region, a computerized database system, the Asia-Pacific Computerized Information System (APCIS), was established. The central site of the APCIS is located in Moscow, under the auspices of the Russian Ministry of Transport.
Members
The Tokyo MOU consists of 19 member authorities: Australia, Canada, Chile, China, Fiji, Hong Kong (China), Indonesia, Japan, Republic of Korea, Malaysia, the Marshall Islands, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines, the Russian Federation, Singapore, Thailand, Vanuatu and Viet Nam.
Currently, there are nine regional port state control agreements (MOUs) covering the
major part of the world:
Abuja MOU
Black Sea MOU
Caribbean MOU
Indian Ocean MOU
Mediterranean MOU
Paris MOU
Riyadh MOU
Tokyo MOU
Viña del Mar Agreement
The Tokyo MOU annual report for 2014 is available here.
Graphs courtesy of Tokyo MOU.