Paris MOU calls for more awareness about vessel stability

The campaign was prompted by several recent stability related incidents. The primary contributing factor in all these incidents was a lack of assessment that the ship had adequate stability upon completion of cargo operations and before departure of the ship.

The objective of the CIC was to check the level of compliance and create awareness with the requirements of stability. 3995 inspections were carried out, and the CIC-topic detention rate in the period was 0.30% (12 ships were detained).

Of the CIC related detentions, the highest number of ships detained were Panama flagged (four). Azerbaijan, Comoros, Cyprus, Dominica, Egypt, Hong Kong (China), Marshall Islands and Norway each had one ship detained with a deficiency from this CIC as a ground for detention.

Responses to Question 3 which asked whether the ship complied with stability criteria as applicable to ship type, reported the most favourable results – 99.7% responded yes. This was closely followed with Question 4, which asked if there was evidence to show that the Master or responsible officer can determine the stability of the ship under varying conditions of service using the approved stability information onboard, – 99.4% responded yes.

However, it is to be noted that whilst the compliance for Question 4 was high, it also led to the most detentions, suggesting that when it was wrong, it was badly wrong.

The least favourable results were reported for Question 7, which asked whether there is evidence onboard to show that the Master/loading officer confirms that the “calculated” displacement and trim corresponds with the observed draughts – 5.4% responded no.

This was followed by Question 8, which asked whether the accuracy of the Stability Instrument (if provided) is verified periodically by applying at least one approved test condition – 4.8% responded no.

By ship type, general cargo/multipurpose had the highest CIC-topic related detention rate (42%), followed by container (25%), and bulk carrier (17%).

The Flag administrations which had CIC topic detentions were a mix of White, Grey, Black and not listed in the Paris MOU WGB list, and no trend could be discerned.

The Paris MOU said that evaluation of the CIC has shown some ambiguity regarding the results recorded based on the questionnaire. Whilst the outcome suggests good compliance, a wider review of inspection statistics within the time period indicated a differing narrative.

It recommends that industry work with crews to raise awareness on the topics of the CIC particularly attention should be brought to the requirements that raised the most concern in the CIC (namely that the Master/Loading Officer confirms that the “calculated” displacement and trim corresponds with the “observed” draughts).

The Tokyo MOU has so far only released preliminary results for this CIC. 356 CIC related deficiencies were found on 306 ships representing 6.14% of the CIC inspections. Eight of the 4,984 ships subject to a CIC inspection were detained for CIC related deficiencies. This represents 6.61% of all 121 detentions for all 6,260 ships inspected over the period.

New lists

The Paris MoU Committee has adopted new performance lists for flag States and Recognized Organizations (ROs) that will effect from the 1st of July 2022.

The “White, Grey and Black (WGB) List” is based on the total number of inspections and detentions during a three-year rolling period for flags with at least 30 inspections in the period.

The “White List” represents quality flags with a consistently low detention record. Flags with an average performance are shown on the “Grey List”. Their appearance on this list may serve as an incentive to improve and move to the “White List”. At the same time flags at the lower end of the “Grey List” should be careful not to neglect control over their ships and risk ending up on the “Black List” next year.

For 2021, 68 flags are listed: 40 on the “White List”, 21 on the “Grey List” and 7 on the “Black List”.

From the 1st of July 2022 the new performance lists will be used for calculating the Ship Risk Profile. More information can be found in the 2021 Annual Report that will be published 1 July.