Launch of ship security officers organisation
http://www.mandusc.com

Maritime and Underwater Security Consultants, probably the world's oldest established maritime security consultancy, has launched an organisation called the International Merchant Ship Security Organisation (IMMSO), which ship, company and port security officers can join, as well as other security professionals including consultants and lawyers. 

"We want to create a kind of forum for them to communicate with each other and learn," says Chris Austen, managing director of MUSC. "They can learn about potential problems they might be liable for."

Membership will be $50 a year; the organisation will ultimately be independent of any company and non-profit making. 

"From our point of view I'm keen to get a big database of people. The thing is to create a critical mass - 500 to 600 members - and then other people will join up," he says.

Initially, there will be two services provided through the IMMSO organisation; a network of agents able to put together ship security plans, and an emergency legal and security advice service.

There are plans for IMSSO to have a website, where they can find information about related maritime security services, such as training, and talk to other security officers on chatrooms. 


SUBHEAD
Agents network

MUSC is putting together an international network of Lloyd's agents, P+I agents and lawyers, which are able to visit vessels and gather information, which is then sent electronically to MUSC in London, so it can put together the ship security plans.

MUSC has started training the network of port agents - so far it has 80 agents trained and aims to get agents trained in 200 ports. 

"If we have got a network of IMSO representatives around the world - all of whom trained to a particular standard, they can come onboard and do the survey," he says.

"A shipowner can say to us - for instance, I've got a ship in Shanghai, I've got another one in Singapore - one in Dubai, one in Athens - one in Antwerp, one in Baltimore, we can get them all done tomorrow."

"This is one of the barriers that we feel the owners have is - they think, if we hire MUSC in the UK, they've got to fly a guy from the UK - the travel costs alone come to thousands of pounds."

"If the program changes and then goes to another port then the travel costs multiply, you have to re-route the guy or cancel his trip. Often they are reluctant to say, go out and do the survey.

"They do the on scene surveys, send the information to us electronically, and the security assessments and plans are produced very quickly," he says.

"We've trained them to carry out on-scene surveys of ships using a particular electronic format - using that we can very rapidly turn out a security plan," he says.

"The first bottleneck is actually doing the work - plenty of owners haven't started that process - they've not submitted the plans to do the approval."

SUBHEAD
Advice line

IMMSO will also be a first point of contact for shipping companies requiring urgent legal and security advice, for example if vessels have security-related difficulties to gaining access to ports, or an official says there is a problem with the ship's security plans. 

"There is a 24 hour standby service - so the shipowner can say - help, this has happened to my ship, what should we do about it," he says. "IMMSO will provide a 24 hour guidance."

"What we are putting together is a network of marine lawyers, including Clyde and Co, who have spent some time in trying to understand the implications of the ISPS code - and how that might affect the liabilities of the ship operator."

It seems quite likely that shipping companies will have plenty of urgent legal and security problems to sort out after July 1. 

"We enter into a new phase, with a lot of new port state control officers and flag state control officers," he says. "The likelihood is that ships will be much more vulnerable to delay." 

"In the past - a ship going into a US port - would be scored on a matrix before it goes in - to see if it's alright in terms of the safety and pollution aspects.

"Now they are applying two other matrixes - the security matrix and the ISPS compliance matrix. 

"The security matrix - can be information from US intelligence - that's all confidential information. The third one covers if the ship is compliant in terms of the ISPS code."

"There may be a problem because an inspector could go onboard and feel that the gangway security wasn't right, or they asked them to do a bomb search as a drill and they make a hash of it - or if the baggage screening gear wasn't working."