While owners are prepared to spend considerable amounts of money on defending their vessels and crews legally, there remains little evidence that there are sufficient properly organised security companies able to meet the demand. The Barbados Maritime Ship Registry (BMSR) has allowed armed guards to board its registered vessels since the middle of 2010. BMSR sees the safety of its ships and crew as the fundamental responsibility of a flag state and refusal to allow armed guards as a dereliction of that duty.

Eight months ago BMSR circulated a list of conditions, otherwise known as the ‘code of engagement’. While the terms are not being made public, the purpose is to have a framework that allows for a defined, graduated and proportionate response to any attack. Secondly, there are clear and agreed terms of engagement between the flag, owners and providers of the security services, and third, there are documented terms of reference should the presence of armed guards on a vessel become a legal discussion. The security company must be licensed by a recognised authority or affiliated with a national military force.

To date, no firearms have been discharged on a Barbados registered vessel: however, a number of stark lessons have been learned in relation to those companies providing security services. These include:

• guards arriving 20 hours late for their planned embarkation
• guards arriving on time with no weapons
• guards arriving on a ship and then waiting a further six hours for their weapons to arrive
• delivered weapons prove to be unserviceable
• failure to organise guards’ disembarkation from vessels properly, resulting in ship delays as shore authorities process the guards and their weapons.

One cannot help but ask whether it would be better if the money that goes on hiring these firms went direct to world navies, who in return provide properly defended convoys and/ or armed service personnel on board for the duration of a transit?

BMSR is also focusing on the Maritime Labour Convention (MLC06). The registry has decided to carry out the inspections and certification for MLC06 using its own authorised nautical inspectors. This means that BMSR inspectors will be trained to carry out the annual flag safety inspection having a new increased scope incorporating the requirements of MLC06. For both newbuilds and vessels in service being presented for initial registration, but without MLC, the services of the registry’s recognised organisations will be used to confirm those aspects of ship design and construction having an impact on the welfare of the crew.

While many of this convention’s requirements already exist as either ILO resolutions or in Solas, the problem will be to present the existing and new requirements together under one heading for MLC06, in a way that is intelligible to all interested parties. To this end, BMSR engaged with the 14 members of the Barbados Ship Owners & Managers Association, four of whom are tanker owners.

It was decided to go forward with implementing the MLC06 requirements in a voluntary phase. This phase will see all operators of Barbados registered vessels document their means of reaching compliance on the Declaration Part II. Where this document is found on board and in order, and following the AFSI/MLC annual inspection being carried out successfully, the nautical inspector will issue a Barbados Voluntary Compliance Maritime Labour Certificate to the vessel.

This procedure will allow ship operators, crews and nautical inspectors to gain valuable experience in handling these requirements while the industry waits for the convention to come into force. It will also enable Barbados to incorporate those regulations in the MLC06 not already in the Barbados Shipping Act.

BMSR has taken this pre-emptive step as it sees MLC as such a huge piece of pending legislation, that the more operational experience BMSR as a flag authority and its operators can gain the better.

“BMSR sees the safety of its ships and crew as the fundamental responsibility of a flag state and therefore refusal would have been a dereliction of that responsibility,” he said.“From the beginning of the ascendancy of piracy to an international problem, BMSR has felt the solutions being offered by the establishment have fallen short of what was required and now, as the situation escalates, the establishment recommendations and actions still appear to fall short of anything that is likely to rid the world of this problem.”

Owners trading in these troubled waters were unanimous in feeling that the international help provided by governments was not sufficient to provide security for all ships in these areas and that it was therefore a lottery as to who passed through unscathed, said Mr Sawyer.

Conditions were set for accepting armed guards on Barbados ships, requiring the security company to be licensed by a recognised authority or affiliated with a national military force. So far, no firearms have been discharged in defence of a Barbados vessel. However, many lessons have been learned about the lack of organisation of companies providing security services, said Mr Sawyer.

Among them: guards arriving 20 hours late for their planned embarkation; guards arriving on time with no weapons; and guards arriving onboard but having to wait another six hours for their weapons to arrive – and when they do, the weapons are unserviceable. There have also been issues surrounding disembarkation arrangements for guards, said Mr Sawyer, with no liaison with shore authorities – resulting in ship delays where the guards and their weapons were not allowed ashore.

“While owners are prepared to spend considerable amounts of money on legally defending their vessels and crews, there remains little evidence that there are sufficient properly organised security companies able to meet this demand,” he said.

“It is clear that merchant vessels defending themselves is only a temporary measure while the international community comes upon a plan that will suppress this danger, if not extinguish it forever. Would it not be better if these private contributions could go to navy vessels, which could in return provide properly defended convoys and/or armed service personnel onboard for the duration of the transit?”

Other issues concerning the recently reconvened Barbados Ship Owners and Managers Association (BSOMA) is the continually deteriorating security situationaffecting vessels trading lawfully and the apparent inability of governments to mount adequate protection to vessels.

“Barbados supports the work of the IMO in bringing shipping to the point of it making the industry’s contributions to the international effort,” Sawyer said.

Turning to the IMO’s voluntary member state audit scheme (VIMSAS), he said that Barbados was in the process of applying for the IMO audit. However, he warned that BSOMA members were concerned that recent evaluations being made by PSC under the new inspection regime recently announced by the Paris MoU are likely to give a higher inspection priority to a vessel whose flag has low detention rates, but which is not IMO audited, compared with a flag, which has a higher detention rate whose flag had undertaken the IMO audit.

“We are pleased with our PSC record which maintains us solidly in the Paris MOU ‘White List’ – an area in which most of the Barbados flag vessels are trading.

“Our position 30th from the top of the table reflects well compared with flags (listed) near us in the table as our average of our fleet was over 20 years (of age) last year,” he said.

Several years ago, the registry introduced a Safety Watch programme to assist its operators keep on top of the detainable items on vessels of 10 years and older in the fleet. “This, together with our Ship Condition Mapping allows the administration to be alerted in advance that standards are beginning to fall away,” Sawyer said.

Speaking of the possibility of facing sub-standard vessels applying for registration, Sawyer claimed that the registry has not had to deregister a ship for four years. “We are continually having to turn vessels away whose owners wish to register with Barbados, due to either the vessel being too old, or that the vessel, or the manager has a poor PSC detention record. With a manager not known by BMSR, we review all of its vessel’s PSC history,” he said.

Barbados maintains two forums through which shipowners and managers may participate in the management of the registry.

Membership of the Ship Owners Association (BSOMA) is by invitation and is made up of senior representatives of companies having at least three vessels in the BMSR for a minimum period of three years.

The purpose of the association is to give the clients a voice in the decision making process of running an international ship register.

As well as through the AGM, members are encouraged to voice their opinion regarding the operation of the Registry throughout the year and can make depositions regarding the ratification by Barbados of new international regulations and the application and interpretation of existing regulations.

In addition, companies having representation in BSOMA may elect to have a person of their choice represent their company on the registry’s technical committee. The function of this committee is to provide a technical resource to enable the operator’s perspective to influence the decisions made by the registry.

Such decisions may include the assessing of PSC detention reports to assess the viability of launching an appeal against the detention, or the interpretation of current legislation effecting operational matters.

Members of the technical committee are either contacted individually to give their views, or may be brought together for collective discussions when this is warranted by the issues under consideration, BMSR said.

Partly due to the ever increasing area of risk and the earlier cash payments made to release ships and their crews.

The result of this is that the poor fishermen of the region were offered an enticement that they could not refuse.

Their hope being that this ‘friendly piracy could continue’ with ships and crew being returned unharmed following the handing over of substantial sums of money and any captured pirates being released to re-offend.

Clearly this cannot continue and unfortunately the incentive for these locals to change their professions has to be rebuffed forcefully.

The only way to send this message is to ensure pirates that the days of easy pickings is over.

Clearly the only way this can be achieved is that merchant vessels in designated high risk areas be allowed to carry armed guards.

To this end Barbados issued a tri party moa to be signed between the ship operator, the security company and Barbados flag which ensures that the security companies engaged meet Barbados approval and that the rules of engagement are understood.

In some western countries the concerns for human rights has led to perplexing judgements where the perpetrator is accorded the same consideration as the victim.

However with the advent of terrorism it is clear that the terrorist is treated as a special category.

It would make matters regarding the bearing of arms to protect ships and their crews clearer if pirates could be treated in the same way as terrorists.

Clearly nobody wants these attacks to escalate into a blood bath but equally it is a commonly held view that the attraction of easy money with little risk must be removed, and the sooner the better, to prevent the piracy business from further growth.

While broadly welcomed for establishing better conditions of work and pay for crew, the MLC is creating high levels of work for flag states.

“This is such a far-reaching convention – not only does it tie together lots of International Labour Organization resolutions which flags presently deal with in separate entities, but it also brings in new aspects which the flag state must legally enforce,” said Chris Sawyer, Principal Registrar of the Barbados Maritime Ship Registry.

BMSR has decided to split the inspection and compliance processes for MLC. For ships that are being built, it will delegate to class, because this phase is to do with the design, structure and building of the ship – including ventilation, heating, soundproofing, cabin size facilities, etc., said Mr Sawyer. But once the ship is in service, and MLC relates to employment contracts, crew welfare, safety, etc., this will be covered by BMSR’s own people. “The crew is right at the top of the list for a flag state – therefore we want to keep that with our people and train our people accordingly as to what MLC requires,” he said.

However, he warned, there were complex matters to be resolved. A proportion of the convention’s requirements were not specific and one should ask for the flag state to make an interpretation. “Therefore there is a lot of work to be done by flag states to decide how they are going to interpret certain points.”

This included matters such as seafarer employment contracts, conditions of employment and leave ratios, he said. “All of these things will be of great interest to owners, because they have to be added to P&I cover and so on. And not only do we have to carry out certain interpretations but we also have to have it written into law. That is all going to take time – and we want to make sure we don’t ratify something which is unworkable.”

A key aim behind the creation of the Barbados Ship Owners and Managers Association last November was to engage owners and managers in the discussion of requirements and legislation. But with the MLC timing, “instead of one point to discuss every week, they have about 14 every two weeks.”

In the broader field, Mr Sawyer predicted that implementation of MLC – and flag states’ individual “interpretations” could make changing flag rather more problematic for owners.

“Rather than just saying I like the look of that flag and where it sits crew employment, etc.,” he said. “It might be that the owner’s crewing arrangements wouldn’t comply with their flag of choice.” on the white list, you will have to go into what the requirements are for crew employment, etc.,” he said. “It might be that the owner’s crewing arrangements wouldn’t comply with their flag of choice.”

In 2003 the Barbados Maritime Ship Registry (BMSR) developed its condition mapping report, a tool to monitor vessel condition, using information already in the registry’s system and therefore accessible at no cost or inconvenience to the ship operator. These reports apply trend analysis techniques to specific conditions that, when taken together, provide a view of a ship’s overall condition in a range of key categories, and map these against conditions that should reasonably be expected for a vessel of its particular age, size and type.

BMSR’s principal surveyor, Chris Sawyer, claims that “no other flag administration, classification society or P&I club is applying this form of trend analysis on a ship’s overall condition at the present time.” On the basis that the greatest proportion of ships detained under port state control are aged in the middle twenties, BMSR uses condition mapping reports to assess how vessels in its registry compare with the condition that could be reasonably expected of a 25 year ship. This has proven remarkably effective, says Mr Sawyer (see accompanying graphic).

Another aspect of the BMSR approach is to try and filter sub-standard tonnage before it enters the registry. “For an operating company registering with us for the first time, we check the Port State Control (PSC) record of the total fleet to assess if the company has sufficient resources to operate the ship it is registering,” explains Mr Sawyer. “Only IACS classification societies are approved for issuing statutory certificates on behalf of Barbados; this includes an operating company’s ISM document of compliance.”

All vessels accepted are subject to annual inspections. All over four years of age undergo a full flag safety inspection when first registered. Vessels over nine years entering the registry for the first time undergo an ‘initial registration inspection’ designed to confirm structural integrity. Any vessel that is 19 years or more when first registered has to join the BMSR safety watch programme.

This is an inspection programme which follows PSC data in real-time and analyses the types of deficiency causing a ship to be detained. This information is relayed to the registry’s flag state inspectors and acts as an early warning system, enabling them to identify whether these deficiencies exist on Barbados registered ships before the PSC finds them, and to advise owners accordingly.

In order to present a true picture of the registry, BMSR prefers to refer to the number of vessels registered – rather than their aggregated gross tonnage – as a gauge of its present workload and responsibility. It received its first vessel in 1994, and currently has 140 vessels and 35 yachts on the books. “In 2002, the registry experienced its most challenging year, losing 40 per cent of the total gross tonnage on its books (over 320,000 dwt), when an owner decided to withdraw two tankers as part of a strategic withdrawal from the maritime industry,” explains Mr Sawyer.

“This placed the registry under considerable pressure and made it call into question the wisdom of placing too much emphasis on total gross tonnage.

“In another register, 320,000 dwt could represent 100 smaller ships, each requiring certification, certificates and representing over 600 crew. By contract, a VLCC might have a crew of 35. In this way, tonnage can conceal the actual responsibilities being undertaken by a flag state!”

The most recent strand in the BSMR strategy to preserve standards is the formation of the Barbados Shipowners Management Association (BSOMA). “Such associations are not a new idea for flag states,” acknowledges Mr Sawyer. “In most cases, their formation was a cynical attempt to ‘lock in’ clients! Given today’s trading pressures, it might seem curious that we would choose to found this now but, in fact, it is timely. There has never been a greater need for even closer co-operation and liaison between flag and operator.

“First and foremost, class societies have lost their pre-eminent position in ship certification, and this has weakened the barrier that class once represented, insulating flag states from direct involvement in statutory related problems. Class has been displaced by IMO, which has chosen to encroach on matters previously the preserve of classification rules.”

Mr Sawyer cites goal based construction standards as an example. “In parallel, the EU has proven reluctant to accept classification societies as arbiters of statutory compliance. This is increasingly reflected in its legislative requirements that class societies defer decisions back to flag states. Another factor is the insistence of class societies to operate as international business corporations, rather than providers of an altruistic service to shipping,” he continues.

The rise of Port State Control is another consequence of the reduced role of class. “The dramatic increase in the number of ship inspections, coupled with the power of detention granted to PDC inspectors, means even well run ships face a lottery when it comes to detentions. Deficiencies, whether large or small, invariably require a communication by the ship’s flag state to PSC to allow a ship to sail,” he says.

The new BSOMA will operate on two levels. There will be a council, which will act as a liaison between BSOMA and the Barbados ministry of international transport through the council’s chairman. There will also be a technical committee. Recognising the realities of today’s operating environment, the committees will basically take the form of correspondence groups, only convening in person in exceptional circumstances.

An early agenda item for BSOMA is likely to be forthcoming amendments to the ISM Code MSC 273(85) Reg 12.1, coming into effect in June this year. This will require companies to assess ‘all identified risks and establish appropriate safeguards’ on board vessels, something that will have implications on all existing parts of a company’s safety management system.

“This raises the question of how best to incorporate this new requirement, and leave room for future updates without rewriting a company’s entire safety system,” says Mr Sawyer. “It also poses the question of how best to deal with the idea that a company can identify every possible risk raising scenario!

“For the last seven years, BMSR has acted as both a registry and a consultant to our clients. However, due to the increasing size of the registered fleet and complexity of the problems being raised, it makes sense to enlist the experience of our ship operators to deepen the pool of knowledge at our disposal.”

The formation of BSOMA follows on from similar moves among fellow Caribbean flag states to create such bodies.

At the launch in London of the Barbados Ship Owners and Managers Association, Mr Sawyer, pictured, said that one of the key reasons for setting up the new association, which will include a technical committee, was that class societies had lost the pre-eminent position in ship certification. “Until recently, class societies, if they were good ones, did a very good job of insulating flag states from statutory matters but now we are getting involved in questions from class,” he said.

“Class is moving back and we are being moved to the fore, and I feel that BSOMA will be the tool that we need.”

Class was “under threat and attack continuously”, said Mr Sawyer. He highlighted the IMO’s move to goal-based construction standards, “taking away what had been classification society business”, and the reluctance of the European Union to accept class societies as arbiters of statutory compliance – an example being the increasing occurrences in new legislation requiring the class societies to defer decisions back to the flag states.

Another factor was class operating as international business corporations rather than providers of “altruistic service to shipping”; the commission was suspicious of class in this new role, said Mr Sawyer.

The increasing expansion of the IMO’s legislative requirements into all spheres of ship operation was having a major impact, he said: “As is normal in all areas of life, legislators will not hesitate to fill a perceived vacuum, in this case the retreat of the classification societies.”

The Barbados-flagged fleet has just exceeded 1m gt for the first time, “which marks us arriving on the scene as a serious player”, said Mr Sawyer.

The launch of the BSOMA is linked to a renewed commitment of the Barbados government to the registry and the shipping sector, said Barbados Minister of International Business and International Transport George Hutson.

He said that while the registry was well respected and able to provide quality services, he was concerned that tonnage had not expanded significantly over the years.

Barbados is moving ahead with amendments to its Shipping Corporations Act, which should attract investors, shipowners and financiers, he said. The tax advantages in the Act will also be extended to shipmanagers, not just to owners.

The escalation of piracy and how best to protect ships from attack is a major issue for the world’s ship registers.

Belgium has gone as far as agreeing in principle to set up a vessel protection detachment and train four specialist teams drawn from its armed forces. However, while these teams are available, they have not been deployed – mainly because there are still legal and insurance problems to be resolved, including issue of liability, said Belgium’s director-general of shipping Frans van Rompuy.

“But also, we are seeing that together with what shipping itself does to protect itself, other measures for most of the transits [through the risk areas] are satisfactory,” he said.

“In this respect the pressure has perhaps disappeared a bit because of the other alternative, which seems to be better organised.”
What is clear is that Belgium will “very strongly” not accept the use of non-military armed guards, or people whose qualifications and training are not known, on board its vessels, he said.

However, Barbados Maritime Ship Registrar Chris Sawyer said the piracy issue had not been well managed by governments. “In that whatever action taken or proposed has been seen to have limited or no effect”.

“It is clear that all countries whose citizens are putting to sea with the express intention of performing acts of piracy are extremely poor and therefore the original intention was probably one driven by survival,” he said.

However, since the repeated payment of large ransoms has taken place, without any prospect of [the perpetrators] being caught, it should be of no surprise that the elements now leading these enterprises are criminal, and where the incentive is greed.”

Forceful policing was the only way to bring these acts against commercial ships under control, he added.

“Unfortunately the efforts of the participating navies, to date, have had little discernable success in bringing a reduction in these illegal acts. The policing of large areas of ocean is proving not to be feasible with the number of naval ships currently available.

“When such problems have been faced before, the solution has usually involved blockading the ports being used – perhaps it might work again,” Mr Sawyer said.

In cases where governments were seemingly powerless to protect ships with their crews and cargoes, it would appear “obtuse” for the flag state to prevent ship operators from taking such steps as necessary to ensure their ships make it to their intended ports safely, he said.

Mr Sawyer said many of the counter-measures being discussed were patently inappropriate – “from the apparently accepted official encouragement for crew with fire hoses to engage pirates with automatic weapons to the nonsensical idea of installing safe rooms on ships to provide the crew with a safe refuge”.

A safe room was not a sensible solution as it would be too easy to turn it into a prison cell.

“These examples clearly demonstrate that people with little or no appreciation of what it is like to be part of a small crew sailing on ships many miles and days from any possible assistance, are having a disproportionate input into this debate, having only security experience in land-based environments, Mr Sawyer said.

The flag state was ultimately responsible for the safe operation of its ships and the wellbeing of their crews and must have some input into the circumstances and the controls under which armed guards were placed onboard, he insisted.

“Unless the respective country’s shipping act prescribes for such an occurrence, then in all probability the carriage of guns onboard a vessel will come under the same legislation that controls the possession of firearms within the country’s own borders. As a consequence, when considering the carriage of armed guards on a merchant ship, the flag state should be consulted to establish under what conditions such a deployment can be accepted and what controls will be required to ensure that only properly trained and licensed guards are embarked.”

George Hutson, Barbados Minister of International Business and International Transport, said the relaunch represented a renewed commitment on behalf of his government and the country’s flag to further improve the quality of the services it offered.

Christopher Sawyer, BMSR principal registrar of ships, said shipping had changed, which meant flag states and vessel operators had to work more closely together to – “efficiently guide their vessels through the mountain of requirements that modern shipping has to abide by.”

These changes included the loss by class societies of their pre-eminent position in ship certification brought about by the insistence of IMO to encroach on matters previously the preserve of class rules, such as the goal-based construction standards; the reluctance of the EU to accept classification societies as arbiters of statutory compliance as more and more class societies are operating as international business corporations, rather than providers of altruistic services to shipping, which has upset the EU.

Sawyer also criticised the dramatic increase of ship inspections by port state control, plus the powers of detention granted to PSC inspectors which “has made the exposure of even well run ships a lottery.” He also remarked on the increasing expansion of the IMO’s legislative requirements into all spheres of ship operation.

He said that he thought in general, shipping associations didn’t achieve that much as many members failed to attend meetings.

The BMSR association will be split between two entities – the Council and the Technical Committee. Sawyer said that the Council would have five prime roles:

1) To help owners who would like to have the benefit of more involvement rather than just through the medium of BRMS Consult as at present.
2) Review regulation interpretations.
3) Consider with the Minister the practical implementations of impending rules, which might affect different ship types. (Sawyer explained that the Minister gives a lot of direction to the BMSR and also to the Barbados delegation to the IMO).
4) Request technical support for the IMO delegation.
5) Give direct communications between the Ministry and owners and managers – “We must have a means to contact the Ministry directly rather than going through the registry,” Sawyer explained.

He envisaged four primary roles for the Technical Committee:
1) Implications of legislation on running a fleet and making any requests necessary, once the implications had been studied.
2) Make recommendations to the Council for changes to existing BMSR policy.
3) To provide input into BMSR Consult for the benefit of owners and managers.
4) Communications will be conducted via emails on templated paperwork, rather than have time consuming meetings.

Sawyer said that he saw the main advantages as – the facilitating of two-way communications between the Ministry and the clients, plus the provision of a technical forum for the discussing of rules and regulations, the setting up of a pool of shipping professionals to aid the IMO delegation and circumventing the need to attend meetings as BMSR would organise the communications necessary for the association to work.

Vessel inspections
BMSR only uses IACS class society surveyors but will also inspect a vessel at least every 12 months using its own people. If a vessel is detained by PSC twice or more during a 12- month period then it is deleted from the registry. Vessels of 10 years of age or over have to join BMSR’s Safety Watch Programme.

Part of the programme looks for possible problems that could lead to a PSC detention. However, Sawyer lamented that some vessels with proper certification in place were still being detained.

BMSR has what it calls a Condition Mapping Report, which analyses four main vessel parameters – appearance, functionality, control capacity (crew) and maintenance. A mean result is calculated using a grid pattern, which is claimed to be very easy to read.

Sawyer thought that first impressions were very important as a 30-year old vessel could have the appearance and functions of a 10- year old vessel, which often meant it was okay. PSC regimes normally target 20-year old vessels.

Since the implementation of the ISM Code, BMSR confirmed the well held view that the quality of a ship’s management is more critical than the age of the ship itself. However unfortunately, the registry said that it recognised that the controls in place will continue to target older ships.

Given the importance of a ship’s management, the registry has developed procedures to review the management at the initial pre-registration phase and annually thereafter.

BMSR recently hit the 1 mill gt mark of vessels entered and had now arrived on the flag state scene as a serious player, Sawyer said. He also commented that the registry lay 21st out of 50 top ‘White List’ flag states and was also a member of the US Coast Guard’s QALSHIP initiative.

The registry also said that it was close to ratifying and implementing the Maritime Labour Convention 2006 (MLO) and the International Convention on Anti-Fouling Systems. As far as the MLC was concerned, an instruction to ratify would be made any time now, Sawyer confirmed.

The Barbadian Ministry is also hopeful that the some of the island’s population would opt for a seafaring career, partly on the back of BMSR’s success. The Minister said that were opportunities open for local people to serve on Barbados flag vessels. Indeed, the Barbados Polytechnic was aiming to receive an IMO certificate for seafarer training.

In a presentation in London George Hutson, Barbados Minister of International Business and International Transport, said the launch represented a renewed commitment on behalf of his government and the country’s flag to further improve the quality of the services it offered.

However, Christopher Sawyer, Principal Registrar of Ships at the BMSR, said a number of circumstances had changed which meant flag states and vessel operators had to work together to “efficiently guide their vessels through the mountain of requirements that modern shipping has to abide by.”

These changes included the loss by class societies of their pre-eminent position in ship certification brought about by the insistence of IMO to encroach on matters previously the preserve of classification rules such as the goal-based construction standards; the reluctance of the EU to accept classification societies as arbiters of statutory compliance; and the insistence of class societies to operate as international business corporations rather than providers of altruistic services to shipping.

Mr Sawyer also had a few words to say about the dramatic increase of ship inspections by port state control coupled with the powers of detention granted to PSC inspectors which “has made the exposure of even well run ships a lottery,” and he also pointed to the increasing expansion of the IMO’s legislative requirements into all spheres of ship operation.

Reporters were told that while Barbados had yet to ratify and implement the Maritime Labour Convention 2006 and the International Convention on Anti-Fouling Systems. But as far as the MLC was concerned, reporters were told an instruction to ratify would be made in weeks.