Record 31 failings found on P&O Ferries boat at safety inspection
Maritime inspectors listed an unprecedented 31 separate failings on a P&O Ferries vessel detained last month, ranging from problems with fire safety to lifeboat drills.
Inspectors for the Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA) refused to allow the European Causeway to keep sailing from Larne, Northern Ireland, after discovering issues with labour conditions, navigation and documentation.
Emerging details of the inspections show the MCA has flung the book at the ferry operator, which provoked outcry when it sacked 800 crew to replace them with cheap agency staff in March.
Since then three of its vessels have been detained following inspections, with the Spirit of Britain and Pride of Kent still held in Dover after safety issues were uncovered.
On the first inspection, the MCA found that the “launching arrangements for survival craft” on European Causeway were “not as required”, while an evacuation slide was not properly maintained, fire prevention systems were inadequate, and the new crew hired from abroad were insufficiently familiar with the radio equipment.
According to an analysis by the PA news agency, more failures were found on the European Causeway than in 46,000 Port State Control inspections of ships in the last three years, listed under the Paris memorandum of understanding, an alliance of 27 national maritime authorities, including the UK.
The European Causeway has now been passed fit and sailings have resumed on the route between Larne and Cairnryan in Scotland, as well as between Hull and Rotterdam after the Pride of Hull passed an inspection.
However, P&O’s ferry services remain suspended on the main Dover-Calais crossing, contributing to huge queues of lorries trying to cross the Channel in recent weeks, and
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