The detention of a ship is not taken lightly by any PSCO. It must be justified by clear and concise evidence that indicates the failure of the ship to meet the requirements. A detention is defined in Section 1.7.4 of the Procedures for Port State Control 2011 and clear grounds are found in section 1.7.2. Contained within 1.7.2 is a direction to readers to section 2.4 of the Procedures, which lists examples of clear grounds situations. Ship managers should take note of this and, apart from reading these sections, need to be able to make interpretations.
Section 3.5 of the Procedures for Port State Control states: ‘Notwithstanding the fact that it is impracticable to define a ship as substandard and solely by reference to a list of qualifying defects, guidance for the detention of ships is given in appendix 2.’