PSC Inspection: What to Expect from Boarding to Clearance
The inspection itself is the easy half. An officer comes aboard, looks at the ship, and leaves after a few hours. What costs money is what he wrote down, which code sits beside it, how fast it has to be put right, and what the whole thing does to the ship’s standing for the next three years. Most guidance stops at the closing meeting. This one walks the full sequence from the gangway to clearance, including everything that happens after the inspector has formed a view.
Port state control · boarding to clearance
The whole sequence, and where it actually bites
Every deficiency, code and close-out held against the vessel
An officer boards, is received, and begins with the certificates and documents. At this stage the inspection is in its narrowest form: confirm the ship is what the paperwork says, form a general impression of condition, and leave. Many inspections end here, and a well-run ship with a tidy certificate file and an unremarkable walk round is the reason why.
The certificate file
Validity, endorsements, consistency between documents, and whether anything has been extended or issued short. A file that has to be assembled while the officer waits has already said something about the ship.
The general impression
The accommodation, the alleyways, the state of the deck on the way to the bridge. This is not a formal part of the scope and it carries more weight than anything else in the first twenty minutes.
The people
How the gangway watch handles the arrival, whether the right officer appears, whether anyone can answer a straightforward question without fetching somebody else.
What inspectors examine once they go further — the core areas, the preparation that keeps a ship out of trouble and the deficiency categories that recur — is set out in our guide to PSC inspection preparation and deficiencies. This page takes the sequence forward from the moment something is found.
Clear grounds: what turns a short visit into a long one
The expansion from an initial inspection to a more detailed one is not discretionary in the way crews often assume. It follows from clear grounds — specific reasons, able to be stated, for believing the ship, its equipment or its crew do not substantially meet the requirements.
01Certificates missing, invalid, or inconsistent with the ship in front of him
02Evidence from the general impression that equipment or structure is seriously deficient
03Crew unable to demonstrate familiarity with essential shipboard operations
04Operations observed being carried out unsafely, or not in the way the procedures describe
05A report or complaint from a crew member, a professional body or another authority
06Information that the ship has deficiencies outstanding from a previous port
Three and four are the ones ships give away themselves. A certificate file can be perfect and a drill performed badly in front of a visitor will still open the ship up, because inability to demonstrate an operation is itself a clear ground. The expansion is usually caused on board rather than imposed from outside.
The closing meeting
The closing meeting is the last point at which anything can be influenced, and it is routinely treated as a formality where the master listens and signs. Three things are worth doing properly.
Understand each item as written
Not the conversation about it — the wording that will appear on the report. Ask for the text of anything unclear, because that wording is what the next port, the flag and the company will read.
Establish the code, not just the finding
What is being recorded against each item decides the deadline and whether anybody has to return. A finding you understand with a code you did not ask about is a finding you do not understand.
Present evidence while it still counts
If something has been rectified during the inspection, or a record exists that answers the point, produce it now. Afterwards it is a correction to a published report rather than a fact at the time.
The action code decides whether you sail
Every deficiency is recorded with an action code beside it, and that code — not the severity of the finding in isolation — carries the practical consequence. For the departure decision, five of them do almost all the work.
Code
Meaning
Can the ship sail?
What it leaves behind
10
Deficiency rectified during the inspection
Yes — it is already closed
A line on the record that still counts toward history
15
To be rectified at the next port
Yes
An open item the next authority can see before you arrive
16
To be rectified within 14 days
Yes
A calendar deadline that does not pause for a passage
17
To be rectified before departure
Only once it is put right — no detention, nobody returns
Port time, closed on the master’s confirmation
30
Detainable deficiency
No, until it is fixed and verified by the officer
A detention on the ship’s record and on the company’s
Other codes handle the cases around the edges — an ISM audit required before departure, company corrective action over a longer period, or permission to sail to an agreed repair port. The full set, how the five-digit deficiency codes work alongside them, and how detainable findings are classified, is a reference subject in its own right and is covered separately.
Code 17 or code 30: the re-verification line
If there is one distinction worth carrying off this page, it is this one. Both codes mean the ship does not sail in its current state. Only one of them means somebody has to come back.
That test is the one the officer is applying, and it is worth reading twice because it contains the argument. It is not whether the deficiency is serious in the abstract. It is whether the ship can make this voyage without unreasonable danger. A finding that would detain a ship crossing an ocean may not detain the same ship moving two hours along the coast to a repair berth, which is exactly what code 46 exists to accommodate.
Rectifying and evidencing
Rectification is rarely the hard part. Proving it, to somebody who was not there, in a form that closes the item rather than inviting a question, is where ships lose time.
Fix the finding as writtenAgainst the wording on the report rather than against what the crew believe was meant. A repair that answers a different problem leaves the recorded item open.
Evidence it the way an inspector reads evidencePhotographs before and after, the work record, the part fitted, the test result, the date. A statement that it has been attended to is not evidence; it is a claim.
Fix the cause for anything with a deadlineA 14-day or three-month code is a signal that the authority expects a system response, not a repair. Treat the underlying procedure as part of the scope.
Close it formally, with the right partySome items close with the authority, some with flag, some with class, some with the company. Knowing which applies to each code avoids an item that everyone believes somebody else closed.
Keep the evidence with the shipThe next port may ask about a carried-forward item. The file that answers in two minutes is the difference between a conversation and a fresh inspection.
Detention: how it works and how it ends
A detention is not a penalty in itself; it is a hold placed until the ship meets the standard. The mechanics matter because the cost accrues by the hour.
1
The order and the notifications
The detention is recorded against the ship and the flag State is informed, along with the recognised organisation where certificates it issued are involved. The company learns at the same time as everybody else, which is why the first call matters.
2
Scope agreed before work starts
Establish precisely what has to be demonstrated for release, in writing, before mobilising anybody. Work carried out against an assumed scope is the most common reason a release visit fails.
3
Rectification, with the right attendance
Class or flag attendance may be required before the authority will return. Sequencing those visits is usually what determines the length of the detention, not the repair itself.
4
Re-inspection and release
The officer returns and verifies. Items may be released while others remain, and the ship may sail with carried-forward codes once nothing detainable remains.
5
The record afterwards
The detention stays on the ship’s history and on the company’s, and it is visible to every authority and every charterer that looks. This is the part that outlasts the repair by years.
Which deficiencies actually produce detentions, and the way several individually minor findings can combine into a detainable management system failure, is covered in our guide to the top detainable deficiencies.
Clearance, and what follows the ship
Clearance is not the end of the event. The inspection result enters a risk model that decides how often the ship is looked at next, and for how long.
The risk profile moves
Deficiency and detention history is one of the scored factors, alongside ship type, age, flag performance, the recognised organisation and company performance.
The interval changes with it
Under the Tokyo MoU regime, high risk ships fall in a 5 to 8 month window, standard risk 10 to 18 months and low risk 24 to 36. One bad inspection can halve the time to the next one.
The company carries it too
Company performance is scored, so a detention on one vessel affects the targeting of sister ships that were nowhere near the port.
Carried items travel ahead of you
Codes 15 and 16 are visible to the next authority, which generally means the next inspection starts by looking at exactly those items.
Everything after the closing meeting is an evidence and deadline problem, and it is handled almost everywhere by email and memory. That is why carried-forward items get missed and three-month company actions are discovered by the next inspector rather than closed by the company.
Every finding, with its code
Deficiencies recorded as written, with the action code attached, so the deadline is a property of the item rather than something somebody remembers.
Deadlines that surface themselves
14-day and three-month actions tracked to their dates and escalated before they expire, including the ones that belong to the office rather than the ship.
Evidence attached to the item
Photographs, work records, parts and test results held against the deficiency they close, so the file that answers the next port already exists.
Carried-forward items visible on arrival
Open codes 15 and 16 shown against the vessel before the next port call, because that is where the next inspection will start.
Fleet-wide repeat detection
The same finding appearing across vessels surfaced as a pattern, which is what separates a ship problem from a management system problem before an auditor makes that call for you.
A history that survives crew changes
The inspection record held against the ship rather than in a handover folder, so the next master inherits the position instead of the paperwork.
The deadline is a property of the deficiency, not of somebody’s inbox
Marine Inspection records PSC findings with their action codes, tracks every rectification deadline to its date, holds the closing evidence against the item and shows carried-forward deficiencies before the next port call.
What are clear grounds for a more detailed inspection?
Specific reasons to believe the ship, equipment or crew do not substantially meet requirements: certificates missing, invalid or inconsistent; evidence of serious deficiency from the general impression; crew unable to demonstrate familiarity with essential operations; operations observed being carried out unsafely; a report or complaint; or deficiencies known to be outstanding from a previous port.
What is the difference between a deficiency code and an action code?
The deficiency code is a five-digit number identifying what was found, with the first two digits naming the area such as certificates, fire safety or life-saving appliances. The action code beside it carries the deadline and the enforcement level. Only together do they tell you how serious the finding is.
What does action code 17 mean?
To be rectified before departure. The ship does not sail until it is put right, but there is no detention and no re-verification — the ship sails on the master’s confirmation rather than waiting for an officer to return.
What is the difference between code 17 and code 30?
Re-verification. Both mean the ship does not sail in its current state, but code 30 marks a detainable deficiency where an officer must return and verify the fix before departure, which brings a detention onto the record. Code 17 does not.
What test decides whether a ship is detained?
Whether the ship can proceed to sea without unreasonable danger to safety, health or the environment, considering the intended voyage. It is a judgement about this voyage rather than about the deficiency in the abstract, which is why a ship may be permitted to sail to an agreed repair port under code 46.
What happens to a deficiency marked for the next port?
Code 15 items are rectified before or on arrival at the next port, and they are visible to that authority. In practice the next inspection tends to begin with exactly those items, so arriving with them closed and evidenced is worth more than arriving with an explanation.
Which code is most often missed?
Code 21, ISM corrective action by the company within three months. It belongs to the office rather than the ship, falls outside the port call that produced it, and is frequently discovered open at the following inspection.
How is a detention released?
Agree in writing what must be demonstrated, carry out the rectification with any class or flag attendance that is required, and have the officer return to verify. Items can be released individually, and the ship may sail once nothing detainable remains, carrying forward any items coded for later.
How long does an inspection affect the ship afterwards?
Years. Deficiency and detention history is a scored factor in the risk profile that sets inspection frequency — under the Tokyo MoU regime roughly 5 to 8 months for high risk, 10 to 18 for standard and 24 to 36 for low risk — and company performance is scored too, so one vessel’s detention affects the targeting of the rest of the fleet.
Leave the port with the list closed, not carried
Marine Inspection holds the inspection record, the action codes and their deadlines, the evidence that closes each item and the fleet-wide pattern behind repeat findings — so the half of the process that happens after the officer leaves is managed rather than remembered.
