Patchwork rules govern ships like one in Baltimore disaster
The patchwork system of safety regulations pertaining to massive cargo ships like the one that toppled a bridge in Baltimore this week can allow freight transporters to skirt oversight, critics say, making maritime shipping what one expert called “the weakest link in the transportation system.”
The thousands of container ships that carry more than 80% of all goods moved around the world are governed by rules established by the International Maritime Organization in London and are enforced by the various countries where ships are based and ports across the world. And many ships fly the flags of so-called countries of convenience that offer cheap registration fees and tax breaks but may not have robust oversight.
“There’s no strong infrastructure for safety in maritime,” said Jim Hall, who led the National Transportation Safety Board from 1994 to 2001. “And there’s a lack of adequate oversight of what we have because the Coast Guard is essentially underfunded and doesn’t have the adequate manpower to do the many jobs it is given to do.”
Former Rep. Peter DeFazio of Oregon, who chaired the House Transportation Committee and tried to improve regulations for decades before leaving office last year, said the system encourages ship owners to seek out “the least-regulated place in the world and the cheapest labor that you can exploit and make money.”
“The only protections we have are harbor inspections when ships come to the U.S.,” DeFazio said.
But regulators and ship owners defend the safety of the industry because regardless of where a ship is based, it’s still supposed to meet the same standards that countries and ports enforce through periodic inspections. Records show the ship that struck the bridge in Baltimore — the Dali — was inspected Sept. 13 by the Coast Guard in New York. The examination didn’t identify any deficiencies, according to data from the shipping information website Equasis. That was one of at least 27 inspections the ship underwent at ports around the world since it was built in 2015.
Given the amount of freight delivered around the world by some 90,000 ships of all sizes, relatively few accidents are reported, according to the International Chamber of Shipping coalition of ship owners. Insurer Allianz Global said 38 vessels were lost in 2022, which is down significantly from the 1990s, when more than 200 ships were routinely lost each year.
The Dali was flagged in Singapore, which has one of the best safety records of any country where ships are based. It’s not listed as one of the 42 countries identified as “flags of convenience” by the International Transport Workers Federation.
Aside from a problem where the pressure gauges for the Dali’s fuel heaters were found to be illegible last June during an inspection in Chile and a 2016 collision in Belgium when it struck a berth used for mooring vessels in the port of Antwerp, the ship doesn’t appear to have had many issues, according to Equasis.