Long before a fixture is agreed, a vessel has already been judged. Charterers, traders and commodity majors run every nominated ship through a vetting and approval screen that decides whether it is acceptable for the cargo and the voyage — and that decision rests almost entirely on data the vessel generated months or years earlier. Inspection history, deficiency trends, detention record, incident performance and the track record of the management company all feed a screen that can reject a ship regardless of the freight rate offered. For charterers and vetting departments, the challenge is applying that screen consistently and defensibly across every nomination. For owners and operators, the challenge is the mirror image: presenting a record clean enough to clear it, because a vessel that cannot pass vetting is commercially constrained no matter how well it trades on paper. This guide sets out how vessel vetting and approval actually works in 2026 — the two screening regimes, the factors the screen weighs, the thresholds that decide acceptability, and the hard triggers that make a vessel unacceptable outright — and what it takes to stay on the right side of it. To keep the inspection record, deficiency closure and evidence trail that vetting screens depend on in one auditable system, book a demo or start a free trial.
GUIDE · VETTING AND APPROVAL
Charterer Vessel Vetting and Approval: How Risk Screening Decides Acceptability
Every nominated vessel is screened on inspection history, deficiency trends, detention record and operator track record before a fixture is agreed. Here is how the vetting decision is made, what the screen weighs, and what separates an acceptable vessel from a rejected one.
What Vetting Actually Decides
Vetting is not a safety formality running alongside the commercial process — it is a gate in front of it. A vetting recommendation determines whether a specific vessel may carry a specific cargo on a specific voyage for a specific charterer, and it is deliberately narrow: each recommendation is valid only for the nominated vessel and the voyage under consideration at that moment. Put a different ship forward for the same voyage, or let the recommendation expire, and a fresh vet is required.
The commercial consequence of failing that screen is severe and immediate. Major charterers in the dry bulk sector, particularly the commodity houses moving iron ore, coal and grain, will not accept a sub-threshold vessel regardless of the freight rate offered — so an owner with a poorly rated ship watches the addressable market shrink, ending up competing for lower-quality cargoes with less rigorous vetting requirements, typically at lower rates. On the tanker side the same logic applies through a different mechanism: a heavy list of negative observations, especially unresolved ones from earlier inspections, makes charterers cautious, and many will simply choose a cleaner vessel rather than take on the risk. Vetting acceptance, in short, defends charter eligibility. It is the difference between a ship that trades freely and one that is quietly priced out of the better cargoes.
Two Screening Regimes, One Purpose
Which screen a vessel faces depends on what it carries. The two dominant regimes serve a similar commercial purpose but are run by different organisations with different question sets and different scoring logic, and they are not interchangeable — a team well drilled on one can walk unprepared into the other.
Tankers
OCIMF SIRE 2.0
Covers oil, chemical and gas or LPG carriers. The inspection is requested by an OCIMF member — usually a charterer or oil major — through the OCIMF portal; the operator cannot request its own. Roughly a hundred tailored questions are drawn from a wider library, so no two inspections are identical, and the final report is published to the OCIMF database where charterers and terminal operators can purchase it. Barges fall under the separate BIRE programme, and chemical tankers may additionally need CDI, run by the Chemical Distribution Institute under the IBC Code framework.
Dry bulk
RightShip
Dry bulk and general cargo vessels are screened through RightShip, whose customers include major commodity charterers such as BHP, Vale, Cargill and Rio Tinto. A desktop vetting process combines the Safety Score with physical inspection outcomes, sanctions and trade checks, and the customer's own bespoke criteria, after which a vetting superintendent issues a recommendation for the nominated vessel and voyage. The RISQ 3.2 physical inspection covers 588 questions across safety, operations and management-system areas.
Both regimes ultimately ask the same question — is this operator's ship a safe, well-run partner for this cargo — but they answer it from different evidence. An operator with a mixed fleet needs readiness for whichever screen applies to each vessel type, since one vetting routine does not cover them all. To keep inspection readiness and evidence organised across vessel types in one platform, book a demo or start a free trial.
What the Screen Weighs
The dry bulk Safety Score offers the clearest published view of how a screening model actually works, and its structure is instructive for any vetting assessment. It rates a vessel from zero to five by combining six sub-scores — and notably, the weighting is not even.
Vessel incident performance
A sixty-month history of incidents, and one of the two heaviest-weighted inputs in the model.
DOC holder performance
The track record of the ship management company itself — the other heaviest input, meaning one operator's weak fleet drags on every vessel it manages.
PSC deficiency performance
A twenty-four-month deficiency history, now severity-weighted, with each inspection compared against the average for that location so route-specific inspection practices do not unfairly penalise a vessel.
PSC detention performance
Detentions over the preceding twenty-four months and how recent they were, with a clean period improving the score.
Flag state performance
Measured against published flag performance tables — one of the two lightest-weighted inputs.
Classification society performance
The performance of the vessel's class society, also lightly weighted relative to incidents and management.
The screen measures performance, not pedigree
One of the most important and least understood features of the model is what it leaves out. Age, size, vessel type and builder are not inputs to the Safety Score — the score measures how a vessel and its management have actually performed, not what the ship is. That cuts both ways. An older vessel with a disciplined operator, clean inspections and closed-out findings can score well, while a younger ship under weak management can score poorly. For owners, this is the encouraging part of the picture: the factors that drive the score are almost entirely within operational control, and they are built from exactly the records a well-run inspection and maintenance system already produces.
The Thresholds That Decide Acceptability
Understanding where a vessel sits on the scale, and what each band triggers, is the practical heart of the screen. While a score anywhere on the range can in principle receive an acceptable recommendation if it meets the minimum vetting standard and the customer's own criteria, the working reality in the market is considerably firmer.
0
The vessel is flagged as sanctioned and cannot receive a positive vetting outcome.
1
The most serious rule triggers — a Paris MoU, AMSA or USCG ban, three PSC detentions within twenty-four months, or an open serious incident within twelve months. Rejected by most major charterers and effectively excluded from large parts of the market.
2
The broader rule set — two detentions within twenty-four months, an excessively high deficiency count, an unacceptable last inspection, class outside IACS, or an ageing vessel with no acceptable inspection. Significant commercial restrictions apply and many charterers will not accept the vessel.
3
Roughly average performance for the fleet, and in practice the working minimum: charterers typically require three or above before proceeding to full vetting, and the market treats anything lower as a commercial handicap.
4–5
Above-average to best-practice performance, with five reflecting sustained attention to safety across the preceding five years. The band that keeps a vessel freely competitive for premium cargoes.
A low score does not merely lower a vessel in the queue; it routes it into additional checks, which can include a full score review, PSC deficiency reports and class survey status, and at the end of that road a required physical inspection. The screen, in other words, escalates scrutiny exactly where the record is weakest.
The vetting screen reads the record you kept months ago
Deficiency closure, corrective-action evidence, inspection readiness and certificate status are what the screen assembles into a verdict. Marine Inspection keeps that record complete, current and auditable across the fleet — so the profile a charterer screens is one you have actively managed rather than inherited.
Book a demo to see it against your own fleet, or
start a free trial to load a vessel and explore it yourself.
The Hard Triggers
Beyond the scored model, vetting standards apply categorical criteria that can render a vessel unacceptable irrespective of how it otherwise performs. These are the conditions a vetting department checks as pass-or-fail gates.
Sanctions exposure, screened against OFAC, AMSA, DFAT, EU and Paris MoU listings
A history of being dis-classed or class-suspended for performance failures or incomplete class requirements
Class outside the IACS membership, or an ageing vessel without a valid acceptable inspection
Vessels over thirty years of age, save for case-by-case exceptions in trades where the available pool is older
Poor close-outs into any incident, PSC finding, detention or adverse report — the standard expects a high quality of closure, not merely a response
Open class or statutory conditions, or a vessel not in normal service, such as laid up, in casualty or repairing
The close-out criterion deserves particular attention, because it is the one most within an operator's control and the one most often underestimated. Vetting standards look for a high standard of close-outs into incidents, PSC findings and detentions — meaning the quality of the root-cause analysis and the evidence of corrective action, not just the fact that a box was ticked. Unresolved or poorly documented findings are precisely what makes a charterer choose another ship.
How a Vessel Stays Approvable
Everything above resolves into a single operational conclusion: a vessel's vetting profile is built continuously, from ordinary inspection and maintenance discipline, long before any charterer looks at it. There is no way to prepare for a screen retrospectively, because the screen reads a multi-year history.
In practice, staying approvable means converting negative observations into tracked corrective actions immediately rather than at leisure, since the next inspection will verify remediation and an unresolved item compounds across screens. It means keeping deficiency counts low and closure quality high across every port, maintaining the certificate and class-survey position so no open condition is outstanding, and — for tankers — keeping the vessel particulars questionnaire, pre-inspection questionnaire and photo repository current, since the photo repository must be no more than six months old and the questionnaires feed which questions the inspection draws. It also means recognising that findings cascade: a single corroded fitting can generate observations for hardware condition, planned maintenance, internal inspection procedures, crew competence and reporting, so even minor deficiencies become commercially significant because the observation count directly affects charterer acceptance. And because the management company's own record is one of the heaviest weighted inputs, the discipline has to hold across the whole fleet, not just the ship currently being nominated. The operators who clear vetting comfortably are those for whom this is routine — one system holding the inspection record, the corrective actions and the evidence, ready whenever a screen is run. To build and hold that profile across your fleet, book a demo or start a free trial.
Frequently Asked Questions
What do charterers actually screen when vetting a vessel?
Charterers screen a vessel's performance record rather than its specification. In the dry bulk model the assessment combines six sub-scores: vessel incident performance over sixty months, the performance of the DOC holder or ship management company, PSC deficiency performance over twenty-four months with severity weighting, PSC detention performance over twenty-four months, flag state performance and classification society performance. Incidents and management performance carry the heaviest weight, while flag and class carry the least. Alongside this, vetting applies categorical criteria such as sanctions screening, class status, age limits and the quality of close-outs into incidents and PSC findings. For tankers, the equivalent evidence comes through the SIRE 2.0 inspection report, its negative observations and how thoroughly they were remediated. In both cases the screen is reading history the vessel generated months or years earlier.
What score does a vessel need to be accepted?
Formally, a vessel scoring anywhere on the range can receive an acceptable recommendation if it meets the minimum vetting standard and the customer's own criteria. Practically, the market is firmer: a score of three or above is typically the minimum before charterers proceed to full vetting, and owners are increasingly expected to maintain at least a three. A score of one or two routes the vessel into additional checks that can include a full score review, PSC deficiency reports, class survey status and ultimately a required physical inspection. At two, significant commercial restrictions apply and many charterers will decline the vessel; at one, it is rejected by most major charterers and effectively excluded from large portions of the market. A zero indicates sanctions exposure and cannot receive a positive vetting outcome at all.
Does a vessel's age determine whether it passes vetting?
Not directly, which surprises many owners. Age, size, vessel type and builder are not inputs to the Safety Score — the model measures how the vessel and its management have actually performed, not what the ship is. An older vessel with a disciplined operator, clean inspections and well-closed findings can score well, while a newer ship under weak management can score poorly. Age does enter vetting through separate categorical criteria rather than the score: vessels over thirty years are generally not acceptable except case-by-case in trades where the available pool is older, and there is a phased requirement for dry bulk and general cargo vessels to hold a valid inspection based on age, tightening progressively so that steadily younger vessels fall in scope. So age drives inspection obligations and some hard limits, but day-to-day performance drives the score.
How is tanker vetting different from dry bulk vetting?
They are different programmes run by different organisations, with question sets and scoring logic that are not interchangeable. SIRE 2.0 is OCIMF's tanker programme, covering oil, chemical and gas or LPG carriers; the inspection is requested by an OCIMF member such as a charterer or oil major through the OCIMF portal, and the operator cannot request its own. Roughly a hundred tailored questions are drawn from a larger library, so no two inspections are alike, and the report is published to the OCIMF database for charterers and terminal operators to purchase. Dry bulk and general cargo vessels are screened through RightShip instead, combining a Safety Score with inspection outcomes and bespoke customer criteria. Barges fall under the separate BIRE programme, and chemical tankers may also need CDI. A manager running a mixed fleet needs readiness for each applicable regime, since one routine does not cover them all.
Why do unresolved deficiencies matter so much?
Because they signal to a charterer that problems are not being managed, and because they compound. Vetting standards look for a high standard of close-outs into any incident, PSC finding, detention or adverse report — the quality of the root-cause analysis and the evidence of corrective action, not merely a response on file. Negative observations should be converted into tracked corrective actions immediately, since the next inspection verifies remediation and an unresolved item carries forward. Findings also cascade: a single corroded fitting can generate observations against hardware condition, planned maintenance, internal inspection procedures, crew competence and reporting, which is why even minor deficiencies become commercially significant when observation count feeds acceptance decisions. A heavy list of negative observations, especially unresolved ones, makes charterers cautious, and many will simply select a cleaner vessel rather than accept the risk.
Is a vetting approval permanent once granted?
No. A vetting recommendation is deliberately narrow and time-limited: it is specific to the requesting party and valid only for the nominated vessel and the particular voyage under consideration at the time it is issued. Putting a different vessel forward for the same voyage requires a new vet, and once the original recommendation expires a fresh assessment is needed even for the same ship. This is why vetting readiness is a continuous operational state rather than a certificate to be obtained. The underlying data keeps moving too — deficiency and detention windows roll over twenty-four months, incident history over sixty months, and the management company's fleet-wide record shifts with every inspection across the fleet. A vessel's standing can therefore improve or deteriorate between one nomination and the next, which is precisely why the record has to be actively maintained.
Clear the Screen Before It Is Run
Vetting decides commercial access, and it reads a record built long before any charterer looks at it — inspection history, deficiency trends, closure quality and the management company's fleet-wide performance. Marine Inspection keeps that record complete and auditable: inspections captured at the point of work, findings tracked to evidenced closure, certificates and survey status current across every vessel. Build the profile that clears vetting rather than the one that explains itself —
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