Vessel Vetting

Your vessel can be class compliant, certificated, and maintained to a reasonable standard and still fail a vetting inspection.

That is because vetting inspections are not primarily about compliance. They are about whether your vessel meets the specific standards of the charterer or oil major who wants to fix it. Those standards go beyond flag state and class requirements. In many cases they go significantly beyond them. The VIQ (Vessel Inspection Questionnaire) for SIRE inspections contains hundreds of questions, many of which relate to operational procedures, crew competency, and management systems rather than physical equipment.

A vessel that has not been systematically prepared for a vetting inspection will find things that should have been addressed weeks earlier. The time to find them is before the inspector boards. Not during.

SIRE and the tanker market

SIRE is the Ship Inspection Report programme operated by OCIMF, the Oil Companies International Marine Forum. For tankers and gas carriers, SIRE reports are the primary tool that charterers, oil majors, and terminals use to assess vessel fitness. A vessel with a poor SIRE report or a recent SIRE that shows deficiencies cannot trade to many charterers regardless of its class status.

The current VIQ (Version 7) covers the full vessel operation: navigation, cargo, mooring, machinery, safety management, environmental management, crew management, and security. It is structured around what actually causes incidents rather than what certificates say should be in place. That is a different standard from a flag state inspection and requires different preparation.

I have worked on tankers. I know what the VIQ is looking for at a practical operational level, not just from reading the questionnaire. The preparation work I do with a vessel owner or manager is grounded in how the inspection actually proceeds, not how it looks on paper.

Pre-vetting assessment

A pre-vetting assessment is a systematic review of the vessel against the current inspection standard before the formal inspection takes place. It identifies gaps, prioritises what needs to be addressed, and gives the master and crew a clear picture of where the vessel stands.

The assessment covers the same structure as the SIRE VIQ: bridge and navigation, cargo operations, mooring and anchoring, engine room, safety management systems, environmental compliance, crew documentation and certification, and security.

For each area, findings are categorised by severity and likely inspector response. Some items are deficiencies that will be raised in a SIRE report regardless of explanation. Others are areas where the vessel’s current practice is acceptable but needs to be better documented or articulated. Others are minor observations that an inspector may or may not note. That distinction matters for prioritisation: you cannot fix everything before an inspection, and you should not try to. You address what matters most first.

Deficiency response

If your vessel has a recent SIRE report with deficiencies, or has been informed that a charterer is holding a previous report against you, the right response is not to wait for the next inspection and hope it goes better.

Send me the deficiency list. I will review what was raised, advise on how each item should be addressed, and attend the vessel to verify that the responses are complete and credible before you submit them to the charterer or before the next inspection takes place.

A deficiency response that is factual, documented, and clearly explains what was done and why carries significantly more weight with a charterer than a generic statement that the item has been corrected. The quality of the response to a SIRE deficiency often determines whether a charterer accepts it or continues to treat it as a trading restriction.

Beyond tankers

Dry cargo vessels, bulk carriers, and general cargo ships also face vetting requirements for specific charterers, terminals, and cargo types. The standard and checklist differ from SIRE, but the principle is identical: meet the charterer’s requirements or do not get the fixture.

If your vessel is facing a vetting requirement that is not SIRE-based, contact me with the specific requirement and I will advise on whether I can assist and what a preparation assessment would involve.

Timing

Start four to six weeks before the expected inspection. Earlier is better. Finding a significant gap in your safety management documentation two weeks before a SIRE is a recoverable situation. Finding it the week before is not always.

I work with vessels across the Atlantic corridor and Portuguese coast. If your vessel is positioned in this region and an inspection is coming, contact me with the vessel details and the timeline. We will work out what is possible.