USCG detains MOL containership in Seattle

MARCH 9, 2015 — U.S. Coast Guard personnel detained the containership MOL Precision in Seattle, Thursday, March 5.

Port State Control officers, from Coast Guard Sector Puget Sound, discovered several significant violations during a port state control exam of the Panamanian-flagged ship, which was required to remain in Sector Puget Sound’s Captain of the Port zone until the violations were corrected.

The Coast Guard says the violations included defective oil bilge line filtering equipment, missing security training records, and not sending required ballast tank information to the National Ballast Information Clearinghouse prior to entering a U.S. port. The NBIC collects, analyzes and interprets ballast water management data to reduce the likelihood of exotic species invasions.

The oil bilge line filtering equipment is required to be maintained so that the ship will not discharge bilge oil overboard, had a non-functional alarm and intermittently operating meter.

Records of the security drills could not be provided for an eight month period in 2014.

“The Port State Control program holds foreign flagged vessels to internationally agreed upon standards to ensure the safety of life at sea and to prevent damage to the global and local environment,” said Lt. James Tynan, chief of the Sector Puget Sound Port State Control Branch. “We are continuing to monitor the MOL Precision and are working with the crew and Panamanian representatives to correct these deficiencies.”

The MOL Precision is a 962-foot containership. The crew was conducting cargo operations in Seattle at the time of the exam. Their last port of call was Busan, South Korea.