Marine service
Vessel commercial surveys look at a ship from the cargo owner's side: is she suitable, clean and equipped for this cargo and this voyage. A surveyor checks holds or tanks, cargo gear and documents, and tells the charterer in plain terms whether the vessel is ready to load. Findings are reported before loading begins.
Directory
Company
Baltic Control A/S is an inspection company based on Herstedøstervej in Albertslund, Denmark, accredited to ISO/IEC 17020. Recent news on its site covers a new ultrasonic hatch cover tightness testing service using Cargo-Safe, Indonesian import verification and halal rules, and work in Gdynia. Its services include quality and quantity inspection, container surveys and repair supervision, with Copenhagen, Aarhus and Gdynia among the ports listed.
Company
Sparks Surveyors has provided survey and consultancy services for more than 45 years from its base in the port of Antwerp, with worldwide coverage. Clients include shipowners, P&I clubs, charterers, insurers, carriers, underwriters and transport firms. The website publishes technical papers including "Steel by Sea", one on ultrasonic testing of hatch covers and one on ventilating steel cargoes, reflecting its work on steel cargo and hatch cover tightness.
Company
Marine Consulting Services (MCS) is an Adelaide practice whose principal has a 41-year marine career: 11 years running a national construction company's fleet of dredgers, tugs, barges, landing craft and workboats, 17 years at a refinery handling marine infrastructure, tanker berthing and ship-to-ship transfers, and 3 years in vessel maintenance. MCS surveys commercial and recreational vessels and offers damage, pre-purchase, draft, on/off-hire, P&I, hold, load line and machinery surveys, underwater inspections and consultancy.
Company
Marine Surveying Australia provides AMSA surveys and vessel management for commercial and recreational boats, led by Justin Gorddard, who has held senior maritime roles since 1998. Alongside surveys, the team arranges slipping, sets up planned maintenance systems and offers vessel deliveries, and it says it has completed hundreds of inspections across many vessel types.
Company
Chris Tucker Marine Design (CTMD) is a small naval architecture practice based in Olinda, Victoria. Its principal, Chris Tucker, is a chartered engineer, RPEQ, RINA member and AMSA surveyor who grew up racing catamarans and studied naval architecture at UNSW. The firm develops vessels and products closely with its clients, including workboats, commercial vessels, yachts and small craft, and also carries out surveys.
Company
Admiral Marine Surveying is a Sydney yacht and small-boat survey practice run by a surveyor certified for small boats, with wide contacts in the industry and experience in modern sailing technology. It carries out pre-purchase surveys, insurance condition and valuation reports, damage and expert witness reports, and specialist inspections of alloy and composite spars and rigging. It also manages yacht builds and repairs and offers consulting on buying and maintaining vessels. The site lists IIMS membership.
Williamson Marine Surveyors LLC is run by Joe Williamson, who joined the Coast Guard in 1977 and spent ten years as a machinery technician on rescue boats. He went on to manage a large storage and service yard on Ohio's north coast, handling repairs, salvage and fibreglass work, and was a partner in a small yacht brokerage. He began surveying in 1997 with a large US survey company and became a SAMS member, and he also lists ABYC and NFPA.
Stansbury & Associates, LLC is an oilfield marine survey and consulting firm on Roderick Street in Morgan City, Louisiana, specialising in inspections of commercial tugs and barges. Its principal has more than 25 years as a full-time surveyor, and the staff share over 50 years in fabrication, repair and surveying. It runs a 24-hour service for on/off-charter surveys and repair specifications, mainly on the Gulf Coast and at times in Mexico, the Caribbean, the East Coast and the Great Lakes.
Alaska Survey Associates L.L.C. is led by principal surveyor Michael Terminel, SAMS AMS, who has over 35 years of maritime experience, and works from Eagle River near Anchorage. It serves the Pacific Northwest, Hawaii and Guam and travels further, with a team that includes three other surveyors. Work includes expert witness testimony, damage surveys, Subchapter M and USCG fishing vessel consultation, NDT, deliveries, shrink wrapping and fire extinguisher servicing, and it offers a discount to military and first responders.
South Coast Marine Surveyors & Consultants is run by Giles Innes, who trained as a boatbuilder at Northshore Shipyard, worked for Camper & Nicholson's in Gosport and ran his own boatbuilding firm in Chichester for ten years. He later served as an officer on offshore supply ships and anchor handlers and spent a decade as a towage master in the Port of Southampton. He now surveys yachts and motorboats, codes commercial craft through SCMS and IIMS, advises on refits and sits on the YDSA committee.
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About this service
Vessel commercial surveys are concerned with whether a ship can do the job commercially: carry the intended cargo safely, in the amount stated, with the gear promised, without contaminating or damaging it. The requester is usually a charterer, cargo receiver, trader or broker, not the technical manager.
This differs from a technical or vessel condition assessment. The surveyor is not trying to rank the ship against class rules; they are measuring it against the fixture. Description in the charterparty, such as the stated deadweight, hold capacities, crane safe working loads, speed and consumption warranty, and the cargo to be loaded, defines the check.
Typical work includes inspecting cargo holds or tanks for cleanliness suitable for the cargo, odours, residues, rust scale and coating state, and testing hatch cover operation. Cargo gear is checked for current test certificates and for working order. Ballast arrangements, ventilation, pumps and heating coils may matter, depending on the cargo. The surveyor compares trading certificates against what the voyage needs, for instance whether the vessel carries documents required for the loading terminal, such as a document of compliance for the cargo or fumigation arrangements.
The Hague-Visby Rules and similar regimes require the carrier to take reasonable care that the vessel is fit to sail and fit to carry the goods, so evidence of the vessel's state before loading can be valuable if a claim arises later.
Ask the surveyor whether they will issue a hold clean certificate, a statement of observations only, or a pass/fail view, and which cargo types they have worked with. Request that the report is delivered before loading starts.
Deliverables include an inspection report, photographs of each space, equipment test records seen, and a written recommendation to the charterer on acceptance or rectification.
Typical findings are cargo residues from the previous voyage, flaking paint in holds, and inoperative cranes.