About deficiencies

The IMO defines a deficiency as ‘a condition found not to be in compliance with the requirements of the relevant convention’. Serious deficiencies contribute to the ship being substandard or unseaworthy. AMSA will issue a ship with a deficiency if it is determined, or reasonably suspected, that the condition of a ship, its equipment, or performance of its crew does not comply with the requirements of relevant international conventions.

There was an increase in the number of deficiencies issued in 2020 (6387) compared to 2019 (5281), despite a decrease in the number of PSC inspections from 3222 to 3021. The corresponding deficiency rate increased from 1.6 in 2019 to 2.1 in 2020.

As shown later in Table 10, the rate of deficiencies per inspection by category increased for structure/equipment, human factors and MLC. The deficiency rate for the categories of operational and ISM remained unchanged.

Deficiencies by category and ship type

For reporting purposes, deficiencies have been categorised into groups that identify key areas of non-compliance, being structural/equipment, operational, human factors, ISM and MLC. Table 8 identifies the number of deficiencies by category along with a comparison of the deficiency rates to those in 2019.

If the number of deficiencies is considered in isolation, as depicted in Table 8, the majority of deficiencies were issued to bulk carriers. However, this is not surprising given bulk carriers accounted for 55 per cent of ship arrivals and 61 per cent of all inspections. In order to assess the performance of ship types, it is necessary to compare the deficiencies per inspection for each category as provided in table 9.

Top five deficiencies per inspection by ship type 2020

A total of 6377 deficiencies were issued in 2020 with the average deficiencies per inspection being 2.1

Ship type (deficiencies per inspection)

1. Passenger ship – 3.6

2. Container ship – 3.3

3. Ro-ro cargo ship – 3.0

4. Woodchip carrier – 2.7

5. General cargo/multi-purpose ship – 2.5

Note: only ship types that had 10 or more inspections are included.

Table 8—Deficiencies by category and ship type

Ship type Structural/ equipment Operational Human factor ISM MLC PSC inspections
Bulk carrier 2032 568 562 202 741 1,840
Chemical tanker 113 21 24 6 15 235
Combination Carrier 0 0 0 0 0 1
Container ship 436 205 96 36 106 263
Gas carrier 23 7 19 2 7 55
General cargo/multi-purpose ship 171 48 42 17 57 135
Heavy load carrier 17 6 7 3 7 36
Livestock carrier 38 12 8 3 10 29
NLS tanker 37 3 7 4 6 31
Offshore service vessel 13 0 1 2 1 15
Oil tanker 83 28 15 9 20 126
Oil tanker/chemical tanker 4 0 0 0 0 2
Other types of ship 15 8 4 0 1 18
Passenger ship 54 8 10 5 5 23
Refrigerated cargo ship 0 1 0 0 1 1
Ro-ro cargo ship 1 2 2 1 0 2
Ro-ro passenger ship 0 0 0 0 1 1
Special purpose ship 2 4 1 0 0 8
Tugboat 17 9 2 0 2 26
Vehicle carrier 109 22 25 7 26 122
Wood-chip carrier 72 18 15 7 30 52
Totals for 2020 3237 970 840 304 1036 3,021
2020 category deficiency rates 1.1 0.3 0.3 0.1 0.3 2.1
Totals for 2019 2819 839 678 266 673 3222
2019 category deficiency rates 0.9 0.3 0.2 0.1 0.2 1.6

Note: as the category deficiency rates are rounded to one decimal place their sum may differ slightly from the overall deficiency rate.

Table 9—Rate of deficiencies per inspection by category and ship type

Note: please use the scroll bar below the table to see the full table.

  Structural/  equipment Operational Human factor ISM MLC Total inspections Total deficiencies Deficiency rate No. of detentions Detention rate
Bulk carrier 1.10 0.31 0.31 0.11 0.40 1,840 4,105 2.23 121 6.6%
Chemical tanker 0.48 0.09 0.10 0.03 0.06 235 179 0.76 7 3.0%
Combination carrier 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 1 0 0.00 0 0.0%
Container ship 1.66 0.78 0.37 0.14 0.40 263 879 3.34 17 6.5%
Gas carrier 0.42 0.13 0.35 0.04 0.13 55 58 1.05 2 3.6%
General cargo/ multi-purpose ship 1.27 0.36 0.31 0.13 0.42 135 335 2.48 14 10.4%
Heavy load carrier 0.47 0.17 0.19 0.08 0.19 36 40 1.11 3 8.3%
Livestock carrier 1.31 0.41 0.28 0.10 0.34 29 71 2.45 2 6.9%
NLS tanker 1.19 0.10 0.23 0.13 0.19 31 57 1.84 1 3.2%
Offshore service vessel 0.87 0.00 0.07 0.13 0.07 15 17 1.13 0 0.0%
Oil tanker 0.66 0.22 0.12 0.07 0.16 126 155 1.23 4 3.2%
Oil tanker/ chemical tanker 2.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 2 4 2.00 0 0.0%
Other types of ship 0.83 0.44 0.22 0.00 0.06 18 28 1.56 0 0.0%
Passenger ship 2.35 0.35 0.43 0.22 0.22 23 82 3.57 1 4.3%
Refrigerated cargo ship 0.00 1.00 0.00 0.00 1.00 1 2 2.00 0 0.0%
Ro-ro cargo ship 0.50 1.00 1.00 0.50 0.00 2 6 3.00 0 0.0%
Ro-ro passenger ship 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 1.00 1 1 1.00 0 0.0%
Special purpose ship 0.25 0.50 0.13 0.00 0.00 8 7 0.88 0 0.0%
Tugboat 0.65 0.35 0.08 0.00 0.08 26 30 1.15 0 0.0%
Vehicle carrier 0.89 0.18 0.20 0.06 0.21 122 189 1.55 4 3.3%
Wood-chip carrier 1.38 0.35 0.29 0.13 0.58 52 142 2.73 2 3.8%
Total 3237 970 840 304 1036 3021 6387 2.1 178 5.9%
Category deficiency rates 1.1 0.3 0.3 0.1 0.3  

Figures in bold are the top five in each category; Figures in italics are above average.

Note: as the category deficiency rates are rounded to one decimal place their sum may differ slightly from the overall deficiency rate.

Table 10—Change in deficiency rate per inspection by category only

Deficiency

2019

2020

Trend

Structure/equipment

0.9

1.1

↑

Operational

0.3

0.3

-

Human factors

0.2

0.3

↑

ISM

0.1

0.1

-

MLC

0.2

0.3

↑