Directory UMM :Data Elmu:jurnal:T:Transportation Research_Logistics & Transportation Review:Vol35.Issue2.Jun1999:
Transportation Research Part E 35 (1999) 135±143
The safety and quality of open registers and a new approach
for classifying risky ships
K.X. Li
1,2
University of Wales, Cardi, UK
Received 2 February 1998; received in revised form 20 December 1998; accepted 20 January 1999
Abstract
By examining 20 years data, the paper attempts to outline the safety and quality records of open registers, and to establish a relationship of accidental total loss rate with ship quality factors, e.g., certi®cate,
crew performance and equipment indicated by detention rates. It con®rms that loss rate, detention rate and
age of ships are highly correlated with each other. It shows that the loss rates and detention rates of open
registers are above the world average, but with the exception of Liberia, Marshall Islands and Barbados. A
new approach is suggested for assessment of ships safety score. Ó 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights
reserved.
1. Introduction
In June 1998, 150 delegates from seamen's unions, shipowners/operators, shippers, bankers,
insurers and port and ¯ag states took part in a conference debating on the `¯ag of convenience'
(foc) regime, an old topic of continuing interest to the shipping industry. 3 In the conference, it
was held from the union side that a foc ship could be described as `a ¯oating death-trap', whilst
from ¯ag states, e.g., Bahamas, Liberia and Cyprus, there was a defence of their records, especially from Liberia which claimed a detention rate at 2.1% better than all the European Union
1
PhD Candidate at University of Wales, Cardi, UK, Prof. J. Wonham. Thanks go to Mr. R.W.J. Schiferli, the
Secretary of Paris MOU on PSC for supplying their publications, and to the Editor and three reviewers for their
valuable comments on an earlier version. The views expressed are solely those of the author, who is responsible for any
errors and omissions.
2
LEEKX@cardi.ac.uk
3
Flag of Convenience (foc) has other aliases, in present study ``open register'', ``open-registry'' and ``foc'' are used as
interchangeable terms. The foc Conference was held in Oslo in June 1998. A full report please see Telegraph Special
report, 1998.
1366-5545/99/$ ± see front matter Ó 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
PII: S 1 3 6 6 - 5 5 4 5 ( 9 9 ) 0 0 0 0 2 - 2
136
K.X. Li / Transportation Research Part E 35 (1999) 135±143
(EU) ¯ags. In fact the argument of safety and quality of foc ¯eets is not new. It was observed
earlier that foc countries have `neither the power nor the eective administrative machinery to
impose any governmental or international regulations' (Rochdale Report, 1970) and their ¯eets
`have poor safety records in comparison to the world average' (Doganis and Metacxas, 1976a).
These arguments can however be supported by numerous samples, but `it would require a much
more detailed investigation. . . to eectively explain the poor safety record of the convenience
¯eets' (Doganies and Metacxas, 1976b).
The failure in uni®cation of the requirements of ship registration under international law allows
the existence of the foc regime (For more detailed examination on legality of foc regime and ship
registration, see Li and Wonham, 1999a). Consequently, registration is the only test of the nationality of a merchant vessel, 4 and the `legality of open registers should not be challenged' (OECD,
1993) under the present international law. The ``second registry'' regime has been recognised by
traditional maritime nations as a tool to attract back their ¯eets, and has become a strong competitor to open registry. 5 The port state control (PSC) is another practical way of controlling the
further development of sub-standard ¯eets, and to ensure the peace and order of sea transport.
Since the ®rst establishment of the Paris Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on PSC in 1982,
there are now ®ve such programmes, involving 77 port states. 6 The implementation of PSC
worldwide and the growing data on inspection records provide a possibility to monitor the quality
of ¯ags, shipping operators, classi®cation societies and insurers relating to the ships in question.
The paper endeavours to test the common understandings of foc ¯eets by quantifying their
growth rates and accidental total loss rates compared with the world average. With data covering
inspections in 37 nations, the paper uses the detention rate 7 as an indicator to describe the quality
of a ship: e.g., its certi®cate, crew performance, living and working conditions, accident prevention, and equipment as required and inspected by PSC, to gain an overall quality picture of foc
¯ags. Based on data examination, it then tries to identify the relationship between safety records
and quality records; suggestions are made to improve safety management and port-state inspection as to assessment and classi®cation of risky ships.
2. Scope and sources of data
Open-registry ¯ags in the study include 18 ¯eets, i.e., Antigua and Barbuda, Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Bermuda, Cyprus, Gibraltar, Honduras, Lebanon, Liberia, Malta, Marshall
4
The International Court of Justice (ICJ) held that the registered tonnage was the only test in determining the eight
``largest'' ship owning nations referred to Art. 28 (a), IMO Convention. The Court rejected the test of the nationality of
the bene®cial owners of the ships, which was found ``no basis in international practice''. ICJ Rep., 1960.
5
Second registry or International register is established by traditional maritime nations to attract back their national
¯eet currently ¯ying foc. Currently Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands Norway, Portugal Spain, and UK
have their second registries, and Brazil, Finland, Korea, and Turkey set to have theirs as well. Li and Wonham, 1999b.
6
Including Paris MOU, Latin American MOU, Tokyo MOU, Caribbean MOU and US Coast Guard PSC. IMO
News, No.1, 1997.
7
When a ship has been found de®ciency according to safety regulations by Port State Authority, it will not allow to
sail from the port until such de®ciency being recti®ed. The detention rate of a certain ¯ag is de®ned as the number of
ships detained by the number of ships inspected annually.
K.X. Li / Transportation Research Part E 35 (1999) 135±143
137
Islands, Mauritius, Panama, Saint Vincent, Sri Lanka, Tuvalu and Vanuatu, which are covered by
UNCTAD and ITF. 8 A new register, the Cambodian Register, was born during recent years. As
on February 1997, it has more than 120 vessels with an aggregate of over 300,333 g.t. on its book,
mainly from Asian shipowners. Any type of vessel, under any ownership and with crew of any
nationality, may be registered. There is no tax whatsoever on pro®ts, capital gains or anything
else, very low registration fee, just US$ 0.05/n.t. (net tonnage), with a tonnage tax of US$ 0.10/
n.t., and a radio tonnage tax of a ¯at of US$ 50. By de®nition, the Cambodian Register is a
perfect open register, but it is so new that, as on December 1997, there are no data recorded yet in
the publication of Lloyd's Register of Shipping. Thus, it is not included in the present study.
Regarding ship type, the study focuses on propelled sea-going merchant ships, including cargo
and passenger ships that are no less than 100 gross tonnage (g.t.). Preliminary data is collected
from Statistical Tables (1978±1991), World Fleet Statistics (1992±1997), Casualty Return (Annually, 1978±1993), and World Casualty Statistics (1994±1997), published by Lloyd's Register of
Shipping. The data on ship quality and detention records is pooled from four main PSC, i.e., Paris
MOU on European PSC, Tokyo MOU on Asia-Paci®c PSC, Australian Maritime Safety Authority and US Coast Guard PSC, covering inspections carried out in 37 states in the period from
1995 to 1997.
3. Methodology
3.1. Development of open-registry ¯eets
For the purpose of this study, a growth rate (Rg ) of a ¯eet is the average annual growth rate
from 1977 to 1996, which can be illustrated by formula (1) as:
Rg N96 =N77 1=19 ÿ 1 %:
1
For example, in 1977 the world had 67,945 ships (393,678,369 g.t.). In 1996, it rose to 84,264
(507,873,011 g.t.). Thus, the world average growth rate of the past 20 years should be:
Rg 84; 264=67; 9451=19 ÿ 1 1:14% in terms number of ships;
2
3
Rg 507; 873; 011=393; 678; 3691=19 ÿ 1 1:35% in terms of g:t::
Accordingly, we can have the average growth rates of the foc group and of each foc ¯eet. The
foc has kept an average growth rate of 4.41%, about 4 times the world average growth rate of
1.14%, and reached the peak of 10% in 1987. Since 1994, it has stabilised at around 6% annually.
The contribution of open-registry tonnage to the world total has gone up from 27% in 1977 to
47% 1996 in terms of g.t. and from 11% to 20% in terms of number of ships. Only the growth rates
of Bermuda, Lebanon and Liberia are below the world average. The study also reveals that the
8
Bahamas, Bermuda, Cyprus, Liberia, Malta, Panama and Vanuatu are listed as major open-registry countries by
UNCTAD, see UNCTAD, 1997. Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Belize, Gibraltar, Honduras, Marshall Islands,
Mauritius, Saint Vincent, Sri Lanka, and Tuvalu are listed as foc ¯eets by ITF. See ITF Internet home page, http://
www.itf.org.uk/sections/mar/foceng.html.
138
K.X. Li / Transportation Research Part E 35 (1999) 135±143
average size of foc ships is 15,180 g.t., i.e., almost 3 times larger than the world average of 5615
g.t. The average age of foc ships is 18 years, slightly younger than the world average of 19 years.
3.2. Accidental total loss rate
For the purpose of study, a total loss rate (Rloss ) is de®ned as the annual total loss number out
of one thousand ships in a certain ¯eet, which can be described as:
Rloss Nloss =Nship ½:
4
For example, Bahamas in 1995 had 1176 ships and had ®ve ships incurring accidental total loss.
Thus, the annual total loss rate is
Rloss82 5=1176 4:25½:
5
3.3. Average total loss rate
To gain a general idea of the safety record over the period between 1977 and 1996, the average
annual total loss rate can be introduced. For each ¯eet, sum up all the ships in each year (Nallship )
and all total loss numbers in 20 years (Nallloss ). Thus, an average total loss rate (R) can be calculated by using the formula:
6
Rav Nallloss =Nallship ½:
Again in the case of Bahamas, the sum of ships over all years is 10,877 ships, and 43 total loss
ships over the 20 years period. Thus we get an aggregated annual total loss rate:
R 43=10877 3:95½:
7
3.4. Improved rate
We can compare each year's total loss rate (R) with that of the previous year (Rp ) and an
improved rate can be yielded by the formula:
8
Rimp R ÿ Rp =Rp %:
In 1977, the foc total loss rate was 12.79&, in 1978 it rose to 14.77&, thus the improved rate in
1986 was then:
9
Rimp 12:79 ÿ 14:77=14:77 ÿ13:41%;
which indicates that the foc annual total loss number increased by 13.41% in 1978. When it is
positive, it means that the total loss number has decreased. Accordingly, we can have the aggregated improved rate of foc at 8.76%, the world improved rate at 6.28%.
3.5. Detention rate and quality of ships
The quality of a ship can be re¯ected in its safety management in general, the completeness of
certi®cates, the eciency of life saving, ®re ®ghting appliances, radio, navigation, anti-pollution,
propulsion and auxiliary machinery, loading lines compliance, competency of crew, and quality of
food and accommodation. Any de®ciency in these areas will cause the ship to be detained. Thus,
139
K.X. Li / Transportation Research Part E 35 (1999) 135±143
the detention rate can be used as a general indicator re¯ecting the quality of a ¯eet, which is
de®ned in the following formula as:
Detention rate ships detained=ships inspected %:
10
4. Safety and quality analysis
4.1. Safety records of open-registry ¯eets in general
According to the methodology discussed in Li and Wonham (1999c), the total loss rate and
detention rate can be produced for each individual ¯eet, as well as the world average and foc
average (Table 1). It is noted that the annual total loss rate of the open-registry ¯eet (7.31&) is
about 2 times higher than the world average. However, it is encouraging to note that its safety
record in general has been much improved since 1977. The accidental total loss rate is 4.30& in
Table 1
Performance of open registers (1977±1996)
Flag
In year 1996
a
Growth
rate (%)
a
Detention Average total Improvement Score
rate (%) b loss rate a (&) rate (%)
Ships
g.t. (`000) av. g.t.
age
Column 1 Column 2 Column 3 Column 4 Column 5 Column 6 Column 7
Bermuda
91
Marshall Isl. 130
Liberia
1684
Bahamas
1186
Antigua & B. 520
Vanuatu
304
Sri Lanka
61
Panama
6105
Tuvalu
15
Malta
1247
Barbados
74
St. Vincent 1168
Cyprus
1652
Gibraltar
23
Mauritius
50
Belize
640
Lebanon
122
Honduras
1408
Group
10,862
World
76,315
a
3462
4897
59,989
24,409
2176
1711
242
82,131
57
19,479
497
7134
23,799
306
2474
1016
275
1198
141,150
428,606
38,046
37,670
35,623
20,581
4185
5629
3961
13,453
3797
15,621
6716
6108
14,406
13,287
49,473
1587
2255
851
15,180
5615
15
12
12
15
12
16
22
18
14
19
15
22
16
20
19
25
31
25
18
19
0.2
38
ÿ2.3
13
39
3.1
22
3.4
18
19
4.3
2.7
3.9
7.3
5.8
33
ÿ1.5
18
4.41
1.14
2.25
5.59
6.21
6.50
9.88
10.41
ÿ
11.42
14.29
15.48
16.79
16.91
16.99
21.05
40.00
44.43
44.44
65.17
20.46
9.25
4.31
2.67
3.29
3.95
5.12
3.56
5.26
8.59
ÿ
9.91
1.27
10.02
11.82
12.40
9.22
13.46
13.83
12.96
7.31
3.91
c
Column 8
ÿ15.41
ÿ
17.88
57.44
ÿ20.49
ÿ23.46
ÿ17.31
7.05
ÿ
10.84
ÿ
6.31
46.98
ÿ12.51
10.53
36.43
ÿ39.55
ÿ47.97
8.76
6.28
1
2
2
2
2
3
3
3
3
4
4
4
4
5
5
5
5
5
5
2
Lloyd's Register of Shipping (1997).
Paris MOU (1998), Australian Maritime Safety Authority, Tokyo MOU, US Coastal Guard.
c
The scores are based on the detention rates pooled from four PSC programmes: score 0 for detention rates
The safety and quality of open registers and a new approach
for classifying risky ships
K.X. Li
1,2
University of Wales, Cardi, UK
Received 2 February 1998; received in revised form 20 December 1998; accepted 20 January 1999
Abstract
By examining 20 years data, the paper attempts to outline the safety and quality records of open registers, and to establish a relationship of accidental total loss rate with ship quality factors, e.g., certi®cate,
crew performance and equipment indicated by detention rates. It con®rms that loss rate, detention rate and
age of ships are highly correlated with each other. It shows that the loss rates and detention rates of open
registers are above the world average, but with the exception of Liberia, Marshall Islands and Barbados. A
new approach is suggested for assessment of ships safety score. Ó 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights
reserved.
1. Introduction
In June 1998, 150 delegates from seamen's unions, shipowners/operators, shippers, bankers,
insurers and port and ¯ag states took part in a conference debating on the `¯ag of convenience'
(foc) regime, an old topic of continuing interest to the shipping industry. 3 In the conference, it
was held from the union side that a foc ship could be described as `a ¯oating death-trap', whilst
from ¯ag states, e.g., Bahamas, Liberia and Cyprus, there was a defence of their records, especially from Liberia which claimed a detention rate at 2.1% better than all the European Union
1
PhD Candidate at University of Wales, Cardi, UK, Prof. J. Wonham. Thanks go to Mr. R.W.J. Schiferli, the
Secretary of Paris MOU on PSC for supplying their publications, and to the Editor and three reviewers for their
valuable comments on an earlier version. The views expressed are solely those of the author, who is responsible for any
errors and omissions.
2
LEEKX@cardi.ac.uk
3
Flag of Convenience (foc) has other aliases, in present study ``open register'', ``open-registry'' and ``foc'' are used as
interchangeable terms. The foc Conference was held in Oslo in June 1998. A full report please see Telegraph Special
report, 1998.
1366-5545/99/$ ± see front matter Ó 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
PII: S 1 3 6 6 - 5 5 4 5 ( 9 9 ) 0 0 0 0 2 - 2
136
K.X. Li / Transportation Research Part E 35 (1999) 135±143
(EU) ¯ags. In fact the argument of safety and quality of foc ¯eets is not new. It was observed
earlier that foc countries have `neither the power nor the eective administrative machinery to
impose any governmental or international regulations' (Rochdale Report, 1970) and their ¯eets
`have poor safety records in comparison to the world average' (Doganis and Metacxas, 1976a).
These arguments can however be supported by numerous samples, but `it would require a much
more detailed investigation. . . to eectively explain the poor safety record of the convenience
¯eets' (Doganies and Metacxas, 1976b).
The failure in uni®cation of the requirements of ship registration under international law allows
the existence of the foc regime (For more detailed examination on legality of foc regime and ship
registration, see Li and Wonham, 1999a). Consequently, registration is the only test of the nationality of a merchant vessel, 4 and the `legality of open registers should not be challenged' (OECD,
1993) under the present international law. The ``second registry'' regime has been recognised by
traditional maritime nations as a tool to attract back their ¯eets, and has become a strong competitor to open registry. 5 The port state control (PSC) is another practical way of controlling the
further development of sub-standard ¯eets, and to ensure the peace and order of sea transport.
Since the ®rst establishment of the Paris Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on PSC in 1982,
there are now ®ve such programmes, involving 77 port states. 6 The implementation of PSC
worldwide and the growing data on inspection records provide a possibility to monitor the quality
of ¯ags, shipping operators, classi®cation societies and insurers relating to the ships in question.
The paper endeavours to test the common understandings of foc ¯eets by quantifying their
growth rates and accidental total loss rates compared with the world average. With data covering
inspections in 37 nations, the paper uses the detention rate 7 as an indicator to describe the quality
of a ship: e.g., its certi®cate, crew performance, living and working conditions, accident prevention, and equipment as required and inspected by PSC, to gain an overall quality picture of foc
¯ags. Based on data examination, it then tries to identify the relationship between safety records
and quality records; suggestions are made to improve safety management and port-state inspection as to assessment and classi®cation of risky ships.
2. Scope and sources of data
Open-registry ¯ags in the study include 18 ¯eets, i.e., Antigua and Barbuda, Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Bermuda, Cyprus, Gibraltar, Honduras, Lebanon, Liberia, Malta, Marshall
4
The International Court of Justice (ICJ) held that the registered tonnage was the only test in determining the eight
``largest'' ship owning nations referred to Art. 28 (a), IMO Convention. The Court rejected the test of the nationality of
the bene®cial owners of the ships, which was found ``no basis in international practice''. ICJ Rep., 1960.
5
Second registry or International register is established by traditional maritime nations to attract back their national
¯eet currently ¯ying foc. Currently Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands Norway, Portugal Spain, and UK
have their second registries, and Brazil, Finland, Korea, and Turkey set to have theirs as well. Li and Wonham, 1999b.
6
Including Paris MOU, Latin American MOU, Tokyo MOU, Caribbean MOU and US Coast Guard PSC. IMO
News, No.1, 1997.
7
When a ship has been found de®ciency according to safety regulations by Port State Authority, it will not allow to
sail from the port until such de®ciency being recti®ed. The detention rate of a certain ¯ag is de®ned as the number of
ships detained by the number of ships inspected annually.
K.X. Li / Transportation Research Part E 35 (1999) 135±143
137
Islands, Mauritius, Panama, Saint Vincent, Sri Lanka, Tuvalu and Vanuatu, which are covered by
UNCTAD and ITF. 8 A new register, the Cambodian Register, was born during recent years. As
on February 1997, it has more than 120 vessels with an aggregate of over 300,333 g.t. on its book,
mainly from Asian shipowners. Any type of vessel, under any ownership and with crew of any
nationality, may be registered. There is no tax whatsoever on pro®ts, capital gains or anything
else, very low registration fee, just US$ 0.05/n.t. (net tonnage), with a tonnage tax of US$ 0.10/
n.t., and a radio tonnage tax of a ¯at of US$ 50. By de®nition, the Cambodian Register is a
perfect open register, but it is so new that, as on December 1997, there are no data recorded yet in
the publication of Lloyd's Register of Shipping. Thus, it is not included in the present study.
Regarding ship type, the study focuses on propelled sea-going merchant ships, including cargo
and passenger ships that are no less than 100 gross tonnage (g.t.). Preliminary data is collected
from Statistical Tables (1978±1991), World Fleet Statistics (1992±1997), Casualty Return (Annually, 1978±1993), and World Casualty Statistics (1994±1997), published by Lloyd's Register of
Shipping. The data on ship quality and detention records is pooled from four main PSC, i.e., Paris
MOU on European PSC, Tokyo MOU on Asia-Paci®c PSC, Australian Maritime Safety Authority and US Coast Guard PSC, covering inspections carried out in 37 states in the period from
1995 to 1997.
3. Methodology
3.1. Development of open-registry ¯eets
For the purpose of this study, a growth rate (Rg ) of a ¯eet is the average annual growth rate
from 1977 to 1996, which can be illustrated by formula (1) as:
Rg N96 =N77 1=19 ÿ 1 %:
1
For example, in 1977 the world had 67,945 ships (393,678,369 g.t.). In 1996, it rose to 84,264
(507,873,011 g.t.). Thus, the world average growth rate of the past 20 years should be:
Rg 84; 264=67; 9451=19 ÿ 1 1:14% in terms number of ships;
2
3
Rg 507; 873; 011=393; 678; 3691=19 ÿ 1 1:35% in terms of g:t::
Accordingly, we can have the average growth rates of the foc group and of each foc ¯eet. The
foc has kept an average growth rate of 4.41%, about 4 times the world average growth rate of
1.14%, and reached the peak of 10% in 1987. Since 1994, it has stabilised at around 6% annually.
The contribution of open-registry tonnage to the world total has gone up from 27% in 1977 to
47% 1996 in terms of g.t. and from 11% to 20% in terms of number of ships. Only the growth rates
of Bermuda, Lebanon and Liberia are below the world average. The study also reveals that the
8
Bahamas, Bermuda, Cyprus, Liberia, Malta, Panama and Vanuatu are listed as major open-registry countries by
UNCTAD, see UNCTAD, 1997. Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Belize, Gibraltar, Honduras, Marshall Islands,
Mauritius, Saint Vincent, Sri Lanka, and Tuvalu are listed as foc ¯eets by ITF. See ITF Internet home page, http://
www.itf.org.uk/sections/mar/foceng.html.
138
K.X. Li / Transportation Research Part E 35 (1999) 135±143
average size of foc ships is 15,180 g.t., i.e., almost 3 times larger than the world average of 5615
g.t. The average age of foc ships is 18 years, slightly younger than the world average of 19 years.
3.2. Accidental total loss rate
For the purpose of study, a total loss rate (Rloss ) is de®ned as the annual total loss number out
of one thousand ships in a certain ¯eet, which can be described as:
Rloss Nloss =Nship ½:
4
For example, Bahamas in 1995 had 1176 ships and had ®ve ships incurring accidental total loss.
Thus, the annual total loss rate is
Rloss82 5=1176 4:25½:
5
3.3. Average total loss rate
To gain a general idea of the safety record over the period between 1977 and 1996, the average
annual total loss rate can be introduced. For each ¯eet, sum up all the ships in each year (Nallship )
and all total loss numbers in 20 years (Nallloss ). Thus, an average total loss rate (R) can be calculated by using the formula:
6
Rav Nallloss =Nallship ½:
Again in the case of Bahamas, the sum of ships over all years is 10,877 ships, and 43 total loss
ships over the 20 years period. Thus we get an aggregated annual total loss rate:
R 43=10877 3:95½:
7
3.4. Improved rate
We can compare each year's total loss rate (R) with that of the previous year (Rp ) and an
improved rate can be yielded by the formula:
8
Rimp R ÿ Rp =Rp %:
In 1977, the foc total loss rate was 12.79&, in 1978 it rose to 14.77&, thus the improved rate in
1986 was then:
9
Rimp 12:79 ÿ 14:77=14:77 ÿ13:41%;
which indicates that the foc annual total loss number increased by 13.41% in 1978. When it is
positive, it means that the total loss number has decreased. Accordingly, we can have the aggregated improved rate of foc at 8.76%, the world improved rate at 6.28%.
3.5. Detention rate and quality of ships
The quality of a ship can be re¯ected in its safety management in general, the completeness of
certi®cates, the eciency of life saving, ®re ®ghting appliances, radio, navigation, anti-pollution,
propulsion and auxiliary machinery, loading lines compliance, competency of crew, and quality of
food and accommodation. Any de®ciency in these areas will cause the ship to be detained. Thus,
139
K.X. Li / Transportation Research Part E 35 (1999) 135±143
the detention rate can be used as a general indicator re¯ecting the quality of a ¯eet, which is
de®ned in the following formula as:
Detention rate ships detained=ships inspected %:
10
4. Safety and quality analysis
4.1. Safety records of open-registry ¯eets in general
According to the methodology discussed in Li and Wonham (1999c), the total loss rate and
detention rate can be produced for each individual ¯eet, as well as the world average and foc
average (Table 1). It is noted that the annual total loss rate of the open-registry ¯eet (7.31&) is
about 2 times higher than the world average. However, it is encouraging to note that its safety
record in general has been much improved since 1977. The accidental total loss rate is 4.30& in
Table 1
Performance of open registers (1977±1996)
Flag
In year 1996
a
Growth
rate (%)
a
Detention Average total Improvement Score
rate (%) b loss rate a (&) rate (%)
Ships
g.t. (`000) av. g.t.
age
Column 1 Column 2 Column 3 Column 4 Column 5 Column 6 Column 7
Bermuda
91
Marshall Isl. 130
Liberia
1684
Bahamas
1186
Antigua & B. 520
Vanuatu
304
Sri Lanka
61
Panama
6105
Tuvalu
15
Malta
1247
Barbados
74
St. Vincent 1168
Cyprus
1652
Gibraltar
23
Mauritius
50
Belize
640
Lebanon
122
Honduras
1408
Group
10,862
World
76,315
a
3462
4897
59,989
24,409
2176
1711
242
82,131
57
19,479
497
7134
23,799
306
2474
1016
275
1198
141,150
428,606
38,046
37,670
35,623
20,581
4185
5629
3961
13,453
3797
15,621
6716
6108
14,406
13,287
49,473
1587
2255
851
15,180
5615
15
12
12
15
12
16
22
18
14
19
15
22
16
20
19
25
31
25
18
19
0.2
38
ÿ2.3
13
39
3.1
22
3.4
18
19
4.3
2.7
3.9
7.3
5.8
33
ÿ1.5
18
4.41
1.14
2.25
5.59
6.21
6.50
9.88
10.41
ÿ
11.42
14.29
15.48
16.79
16.91
16.99
21.05
40.00
44.43
44.44
65.17
20.46
9.25
4.31
2.67
3.29
3.95
5.12
3.56
5.26
8.59
ÿ
9.91
1.27
10.02
11.82
12.40
9.22
13.46
13.83
12.96
7.31
3.91
c
Column 8
ÿ15.41
ÿ
17.88
57.44
ÿ20.49
ÿ23.46
ÿ17.31
7.05
ÿ
10.84
ÿ
6.31
46.98
ÿ12.51
10.53
36.43
ÿ39.55
ÿ47.97
8.76
6.28
1
2
2
2
2
3
3
3
3
4
4
4
4
5
5
5
5
5
5
2
Lloyd's Register of Shipping (1997).
Paris MOU (1998), Australian Maritime Safety Authority, Tokyo MOU, US Coastal Guard.
c
The scores are based on the detention rates pooled from four PSC programmes: score 0 for detention rates