THERE are still rust-buckets around, with severe structural defects, unsanitary and oppressive conditions on board and incompetent  crews, according to the Australian Maritime Safety Agency (AMSA). But, says AMSA in the latest edition of the UK Club's magazine Loss Prevention, the number of such ships is in decline and "are easily dealt with".

What concerns AMSA is that Asia-Pacific Port State Control (PSC) data shows no significant reduction for items that are directly related to the competence and shipboard management of the crew. "Leaking hatches, broken radar, engine rooms awash with oil, fire pumps that won't start or can't pressurise the fire main, rusted boat falls, missing survival gear, broken aerials, flat batteries and broken radio transmitters are common findings in PSC inspections."

AMSA concludes: "These things indicate a fundamental lack of understanding of the ship and its operating environment, a lack of basic seamanship and, in the worst cases, criminal negligence and utter disregard for the safety and well-being of the crew." The agency argues that these defects cannot be put down to owners trying to gain a competitive advantage through cutting costs but are the fault of the masters and officers of the ships involved.

Well, yes and no. AMSA contends: "There is no commercial advantage to be obtained from allowing an A$100,000 (S$111,940) lifeboat to rot in its davits, nor is there an edge to be gained from being unable to seal the engine room in the case of a fire or close watertight doors in bad
weather." It adds that a chart that is out of date and neither corrected nor replaced does not represent a saving, it represents an accident waiting to happen.

Logic appears to be on AMSA's side except that a bad crew is likely, on balance, to be a cheap crew. For an owner thinking purely in terms of the profit to be made on the current voyage, all that matters is that the right number of bodies, clutching the appropriate certificates of competency, are
on board. This sort of operator will have calculated that the ship will bring in a profit on final sale for scrap. So he will not be concerned about "trivia" such as a seized fire damper or suspect hatch cover.

So what can be done about such vessels where the crew are simply not doing the job of maintaining the ship properly? Well, in part, AMSA has the answer. PSC inspectors must continue to target deficiencies caused by crew failures and maintain pressure on shipowners, masters and crews to exercise due diligence and professional competence in their operations.

That is fine as far as it goes but there is something very odd about this AMSA article. It does not mention even once the International Maritime Organisation's International Safety Management (ISM) Code.

The article is titled "Why do you get detained?" The only real answer in today's environment is "Because you don't have a proper safety management system in place". Perhaps more correctly the answer could be there is no safety culture on board because effective safety management systems can only exist on the back of a genuine safety culture.

At present only certain types of vessel, including tankers and passenger ships, must comply with the ISM Code. The rest of the world's fleet will come under the ISM Code in July 2002.

Despite what AMSA says, there is still a competitive advantage, at least when operating old tonnage, to having poor management, masters and crews. That is why the universal application of the ISM Code will be a major advance for the shipping industry. The ISM Code is the yardstick to judge vessels by right now. It is a pity there is still another three years to go.