Vessels at risk and the effectiveness of Port State Control inspections

Port state control regimes have been established more than 30 years ago to help prevent accidents in shipping. These controls are obviously not sufficient to correct or prevent all hazards leading to an accident, but they have played a major role in the general reduction of the number of maritime accidents observed during the last decade. Using data on 42,000 vessels/inspections carried out from 2002 to 2009 by 18 state members of the Indian Ocean Memorandum of Understanding, this paper focuses more closely on the type of deficiencies found during inspections and on changes in these deficiencies over time and between successive inspections