The Maritime & Coastguard Agency announced last week that two ships flying the Maltese flag were detained in UK ports during November and December after failing Port State Control inspection.

The Agios Nektarios (Bulk Carrier) was detained in Manchester on 27 November after 11 deficiencies were found, (two detainable). It was detained for three days because the fire drill was inadequate and the emergency generator was not working. Other deficiencies included the identity of port state control officers not checked at the gangway and there were no records available of minor injuries, near misses and so on, and the role of the safety officer was not defined in the ship’s SMS. The meat room temperature was too high and the vegetable room bulkheads were dirty, as were the bilges that had signs of exhaust leakages at the generators. The vessel was released on 29 November 2007.

The Rybno (General Cargo) was detained in Grangemouth on 6 December.

Nineteen deficiencies were found (seven detainable). The ship was detained because the engine room fire damper handle was broken and the flaps seized, there was no reserve start on the emergency generator and the port 10 air pipe on main deck was holed. In addition, the automatic position input to both vhf DSC units was missing, the AIS data was incorrect and the reserve power supply to the AIS was missing. There was evidence that the ship was not being maintained satisfactorily.

The ship was still detained as at 31 December 2007.