Port state control covering nearly 50 countries will carry out three months of concentrated inspections to check how ready crews are to tackle fires on ships.
The checks will be carried out by members of the Paris and Tokyo port state control regimes from 1 September to analyse fire safety plans and ensure that equipment is working properly.
The decision by the two regimes to run the campaign — the first of its kind for four years — was in part because of the “relatively large number of fires on board seagoing ships” and the large number of deficiencies identified during inspections.
The campaign follows a number of high-profile fires and concerns about the safety of ageing “shadow fleet” tankers operating in sanctioned oil trades. An explosion and fire aboard an oil tanker, the 96,700-dwt Pablo (built 1997), in the South China Sea in early May, close to the entrance of the Singapore Strait, prompted a surge in tanker detentions in Asia.
The two regimes said the campaign was designed to make ships’ crews and owners aware of the importance of fire safety measures and that they complied with International Maritime Organization regulations.
Each ship would be subject to only one inspection under the fire safety programme during the period based on a standard questionnaire, they said.
“If deficiencies are found, actions by the port state may vary from recording a deficiency and instructing the master to rectify it within a certain period of time to detaining the ship until the serious deficiencies have been rectified,” they said in a statement.
A fire last week destroyed the 6,210-ceu car carrier Fremantle Highway (built 2013) in the North Sea, killing one seafarer. Meanwhile, two firefighters died earlier this month tackling a fire on board a Grimaldi Group-operated ro-ro vessel berthed at Port Newark.
The Paris regime covers port state control in 28 countries, while Tokyo has 21 full members.
