AMSA to find out if live ex ships up to scratch.

Splash 24/7 reports that the Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA) will carry out a focused inspection campaign (FIC) on livestock ships from March 1 to August 31. The campaign will target every livestock ship departing Australian ports.

Livestock ships are one of the oldest category of merchant ships and have been plagued by severe safety issues in recent years. Amongst other incidents there has been the Jawan wobbling wildly out of Portland, the loss of Gulf Livestock-1 (carrying NZ cattle but a regular export ship from Australia before that) and the Barkly Pearl with such concerning issues  it was banned from Australian waters for 2 years. On top of that, according to Neale Prior of the West Australian,  Emanuel Export's legal team have just claimed that their former director provided "questionable" pen air turnover details for the infamous Awassi Express in 2014 albeit not in his capacity as a director for Emanuel Export.  It seems as though AMSA has said "enough is enough".

The new Australian campaign will look closely at the maintenance and repair requirements of livestock ships in relation to international conventions as well as the ships crews’ familiarity with determining the ship’s stability and the use of accurate information for the livestock cargo carried when calculating stability.

Once AMSA start going over these ships with a fine tooth comb, watch this space....