Shipowners, managers, and due diligence
Due diligence matters
As a shipowner or manager, when reconciling what's happening on your vessel with the requirements of those who choose your ship for carriage, you may come up against ESG blocks you didn’t know about.
For ship owners and managers, the impact of seafarer abandonment is incredibly negative. You might not be aware that for charterers, bankers, and financiers, due diligence is required for ESG compliance in all their dealings.
How you can adopt best practice for due diligence
To make profitable voyages, you don’t want a mark against your name with an open abandonment case against your vessel or any third parties you are associated with.
Check with RightShip when you buy a vessel or choose a ship manager
Try to avoid problems
- Know the history of the company which owned that vessel, how it was operated and by whom.
- Check the ship manager’s history and if there are any open abandonment cases against their company or any vessels they are currently or have previously managed.
Why do this?
- Because RightShip will have recorded any seafarer abandonment instances connected to that vessel or management organisation.
- This gives you the tools to keep your organisation informed and safe.
What can happen?
- Abandonment cases must be resolved by you, as the vessel's new owner. You are liable for all financial and other settlements.
- You can't secure charters, financing, or port calls until resolutions are completed. This can be expensive as you lose your supply chain focus.
How to become a vessel of choice
You can become a well-rated shipowner, manager and vessel of choice by choosing to act to prevent seafarer abandonment and put best crew welfare practices in place. If you plan and act to prevent issues you will rate highly on the RightShip Platform, used by global charterers, financiers and ports to select ESG compliant vessels.
What to avoid
- Don't ignore the issues. You should know that RightShip takes a hard position on any open abandonment cases, and a Safety Score showing this means we will not endorse your vessel on our Platform at any level, and we will disable vetting services.
- Don't let your cargo remain stuck through not being aware of unresolved issues.
- Seafarers under the pressure of abandonment or crew distress make mistakes and could impact your operational efficiency and the safety of the vessel.
- You could be featured in the press as uncaring about seafarer abandonment.
Free due diligence tool for shipowners and managers
If you want to take those first steps to see where you are, you can take the RightShip Crew Welfare Assessment for free and start measuring your welfare programs today.
The tool helps you:
- Stand out from other vessels competing with you in the same category.
- Identify where your trouble spots lie so you can put an action plan in place on crew welfare.
- Obtain a RightShip badge. You get a globally recognised benchmark for social welfare best practice measurement by the maritime industry at all levels.
Further action to take
Beyond preparing for the Crew Welfare Self Assessment, ship owners and managers can also review their practises within their operational and commercial teams at a vessel, flag and management level.
Review the following:
- If you are involved in the transportation of dry cargoes, ensure RightShip Dry Bulk Inspections are carried out regularly to gain a third-party review of the practises onboard your vessels.
- Check vessel and company histories before purchasing or chartering vessels.
- Review the crew welfare status of ship managers prior to working with them, to ensure they are not associated with any open abandonment cases.
- We also recommend selecting reputable Flag States that have ratified the 2006 MLC and are recognised by the Flag State Performance Table from the International Chamber of Shipping. The latter is used to measure the performance of each Flag State as part of our DoC assessment and impacts a DoC holder’s and Vessel’s Safety Score.
There’s no reason to become unsuitable for voyages under the purview of a sizeable group of maritime industry operators who guard their reputations with RightShip. You can change this.