The Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI) Registry hosted two port State control (PSC) seminars in Japan in early March 2025. These seminars, held in Tokyo and Imabari, attracted more than 150 participants and included speakers from the RMI Registry and ClassNK. Sessions included discussions on recent PSC trends in Australia, the People’s Republic of China, the European regions of Italy and Belgium, and North and South America.
Bill Gallagher, President, International Registries, Inc. and its affiliates (IRI), which provides administrative and technical support to the RMI Registry, welcomed participants at both seminars, expressing the importance of sharing information between stakeholders to continually improve safe vessel operation. Michinori Kurihara, Representative from IRI’s Tokyo office gave participants an overview of RMI’s PSC detentions for 2023-2024 before Captain Sascha Dyker, Fleet Operations Manager from Hong Kong and Brian Poskaitis, Senior Vice President, Fleet Operations based in Baltimore/Annapolis provided updates on the Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA), the People’s Republic of China Maritime Safety Administration, the United States Coast Guard, and the Brazilian Maritime Authority. At the Tokyo seminar Class NK representative, Satoshi Shimizu, Manager (Research) provided an update on PSC trends in Europe, specifically Italy and Belgium, while Erkang Fu, Surveyor, Survey Department, Class NK, spoke on the same subject at the Imabari seminar. Theo Xenakoudis, Chief Commercial Officer and Managing Director— Piraeus and Annie Ng, Head of Asia and Managing Director — Vancouver participated in the seminars, offering a senior level flag perspective to the discussions.
PSC authorities carry out inspections worldwide to identify deficiencies incompatible with international or national standards. The Registry’s Fleet Operations team tracks and analyzes PSC data, looking for trends to help improve safe vessel operation. This data directly influences the RMI Maritime Administrator’s Critical Items Checklist, an onboard tool for crew to use in advance of arriving to ports in the United States and Asia, that helps crew easily identify and resolve potential areas of concern before a deficiency occurs. This data is disseminated through seminars and the RMI Maritime Administrator’s Marine Safety Advisories.
