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 | ↑ |