FOR ALL the sophisticated subterfuge, spoofed skullduggery and shifty shades of grey zone business taking place under the radar, there is an awful lot of substandard shipping happening in plain sight.

Just ask Belize, Comoros, Tanzania and Togo; they should know. Once you add up all of the ships detained for being unseaworthy, these are the flags flagrantly underperforming in all major port state control regions.

Cameroon, Palau, Saint Kitts and Nevis, and Vanuatu manage the same performance, but only in two of the regions, meaning they haven’t quite plumbed the unfathomable depths of their peers in this year’s charts of shame.

Better luck next year.

The substandard ship registry game is having something of a gold rush moment amid the sanctions-fuelled flight away from quality. But don’t conflate nuanced geopolitics with good old-fashioned profiteering off the back of dangerous corner-cutting and turning a blind eye to basic enforcement.

Some ship registries just shouldn’t be in business. The fact the worst offenders continue to suck in ships that would have been scrapped in any other market where oversight and regulation worked as they should, is a problem for which the entire industry to deal.

We name and shame but know that any embarrassment or lip service to enforcement that may follow will simply see ships flag-hop their way through a growing list of registries, old and new, that are willing to take the business.

The difference between a fraudulent flag and a very bad one is largely academic right now; the fact remains that too many ship registries are unwilling or unable to ensure basic shipping safety standards in the vessels they flag.

It is a telling indictment on the services they offer that several of the worst-offending ships have given up altogether on flags are now sailing, unchallenged, through sensitive sea areas, as shadow fleet politics play out around them.

Lloyd’s List readers have heard us say all this before, of course, and may be wondering why we are choosing to play this broken record again today.

Well, to the governments reading this inside the International Maritime Organization’s Maritime Safety Committee in London this week, this one goes out to you. It is time you were reminded of your mission to deliver safe, secure and efficient shipping on clean oceans, because right now it is not just the flag states that are failing.

Richard Meade
Editor-in-chief, Lloyd’s List 

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