The analysis of defects determined at the ships in the context of ship inspection report programme (SIRE)

Because seaborne trade is cheap and safe, it has been main stay of the international trade. As seaborne trade has increasing annual volumes, the requirement for inspection of ships has raised. In this context, to consider historical development of the inspection forms in the world, it is required to review 13.-14. century. In these centuries, state control started by intervention to ship loading boundaries, and then developped by the inspection of the captains information, seasons to put out to sea, rules for ship building and eligibility to sea during the centuries; which then laid the groundwork for state responsibility and control with royal mandates, commandments, court decisions and laws. Because of the increasing volumes in seaborne trade, international community had to co-operate to provide sea safety and to protect marine environment. On the protection of enviroment, international contracts and administration leaded by IMO contributed much to international efforts, intensely in 1970s. With one of these agreements, United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (1982), flag states were charged with life and property safety of ships; and provide and perpetuate protection of marine environment. In this context, under the control of flag states, the eligible ships are allowed to navigate, and those which are not eligible are allowed to navigate only if they provide the completion of their imperfection. Thereby; by protection of marine environment, marine safety, and perfection of living and working conditions within the ships; minimization of accident risk is provided. Although flag states were authorizated for the compliance inspections of the ships to the international standards of the agreements.; flag states started losing their inspection and control functions over the ships due to various reasons, as: - Fast growth in world navigation fleet, - Deployment of Flag of Convenience applications, - Ships working in long distance, away from flag states, - Lack of experience, - Lack of sources, Due to those reasons, to prevent marine pollution and to provide navigation safety; implementation and agreements in operation were reviewed and changed. Additionally, to correct the problems of Flag State Controls, Port State Controls were introduced. By Port State Controls, it was aimed to debug flag state controls which was insufficient to inspection eligibility of the ships to international standards, and to apply sanctions to ships not providing those standards. While struggling against the sub-standart ships, insufficiency of national implemetations on its own, demanded co-operation. It was conclued that, according to the Port State Control, regional cooperation was is the most functional co-operation type. Thus, standardization of Port State Controls, prevention of unfair trade between the ports, and performing more efficient inspections of the neighbouring states on the ships visiting their regions were provided. In this context, with the aim of detection of the ships which do not provide the standards and to apply sanctions for those, first memorandum of understanding, Paris MOU was signed in 1982 with the participation of 14 countries. Currently, 9 regional MOU exists including world seas. - Paris MOU - Tokyo MOU - Vina del Mar MOU - Caribbean MOU - Abuja MOU - Black Sea MOU - Mediterranean MOU - Indian Ocean MOU - Riyadh MOU USA, did not take place within regional agreements made out under Port State Control scope, instead, adopted one-side control precautions by USCG. However, in this Port State Control, due to insufficient number of inspector, parametric differences in targeting systems, etc. several problems occured like non-standard implementations between regions. In recent years, additional to the two applications mentioned above, aiming detection of sub-standart ships and transfer of the shipments by better/well kept and problem-free ships; inspections of the ships are executed in the context of Vetting Inspection by various firms within the sector. These inspections can be performed by: - Individual oil/chemical companies or terminals, - Accredited SIRE inspectors under the SIRE system, - Accredited CDI inspectors under the CDI system, By reason of the inspection, it is not decided whether the ship can pass fail an inspection, however the inspection forms are considered during selection process. The final decision is taken due to various variables as: Port State Control records, terminal reports, the information about ship owner, loading/unloading ports, longevity of the navigation and directions. In this context, CDI is one of the most applied Vetting Inspection, which is a Holland establishment, conducting the operation from England. It is a non-profit organization with 83 members and facilitates 7/24 access to inspection reports by database. It is divided into two as CDI-M and CDI-T; and at present 150 inspector and reporters are performing inspections all over the world. Another application is SIRE program, established by OCIMF in 1993, to provide a tank ship risk evaluation tool about ship safety to renters, ship operators, terminal administrators and public authorities and to resolve the issue of sub-standard transportation. It is also a non-profit organization with 70 members and facilitates 7/24 access to inspection reports by database. Beginning from the date the program entered into force, over 180.000 inspections were performed. In this study, in the context of SIRE, which takes place under Vetting Inspections, a questionnaire form was sent to Turkish firms and data collected for the inspections held between years 2006-2014. In this context, 393 inspections held in 16 firms were reviewed. The inspections were held in 9 MOU, 40 different seaports and made by 14 different inspector firms. The data obtained was analyzed and evaluated by SPSS, the results of the inspections were reviewed and the defects and root causes of the defects were investigated. As a result of this study, the findings are as followed: - It is determined that, the firms inspected have similar imperfection ratios per inspection, - The detects determined by the inspections; * In general framework, are intensely in Chapter 5 (Safety Management), Chapter 8 (Petroleum, Chemicals, LPG and LNG) and Chapter 11 (Engine and Steering Compartments) * The situation is similar yearly, (In 2007 Chapter 5, in 2010 Chapter 11, in 2011 Chapter 8, in 2012 Chapter 8 and Chapters 11, in 2014 Chapter 8 was not in top 3 grade, in the following years, Chapter 5, Chapters 8 and Chapters 11 were in top 3 grade), however, although imperfection ratio regarding Chapter 13 decreased in recent years, total number of defects are high, * The critics of inspector firms are intensely in Chapters 5, Chapter 8 and Chapter 11, but similar to the issue above, also the critics are dense in Chapter 13. - It was determined that, the ratio of imperfection per inspection has decreased yearly, which shows preparation for the inspections were fulfilled and firms are more conscious of the inspections, - There is not any meaningful difference between defects ratio per inspection according to the regions - Firms detected 3-5 defects on average per inspection between 2012-2014.