US Detains Bulker for Safety Violations
A 738-foot motor vessel Kind Seas was detained by the U.S. Coast Guard after significant safety violations were found during an inspection in Kalama, Washington, Friday.
Discrepancies were discovered by Portland’s Coast Guard Marine Safety Unit vessel inspectors during a routine inspection of the 1998-built Marshall Islands-flagged bulk carrier vessel.
Safety violations were related to a complete failure of the emergency generator, which provides power to emergency equipment including the emergency firefighting pump system. Other discrepancies include deficient structural fire boundary doors designed to prevent the spread of a fire, inoperable bilge pumps critical to removing excess water and waste oil accumulation in engine compartments, and inoperable life saving communication equipment.
“Shipboard fires pose severe risk to vessel crews, the vessel, and the port,” said Capt. Patrick Ropp, commanding officer and officer in charge of marine inspection at MSU Portland. “The deficiencies were determined to pose significant risk to the vessel’s crew and the marine environment indicating that the vessel is unfit to proceed to sea.”
Coast Guard vessel inspectors are working with the Kind Seas’ flag state and Nippon Kaiji Kyokai, the vessel’s classification society responsible for certificating vessel construction and engineering and the vessel’s crew, owner and managing company to make essential repairs.
The Kind Seas, owned by Fairplay Maritime Ltd., loaded corn and wheat in Kalama and will depart for Japan after the safety violations have been corrected.
