Because of the many disturbing reports we have received lately about unprofessional behaviour by some Port State Control authorities and -officers, varying from bribery to threats of retaliation in case of protest/appeal- Quality Sailing has decided to develop an on-line portal for reporting such behaviour. We hope to have this portal operational at the end of October 2012.

Our intention is to compile some kind of "black-book" with reports about serious misbehaviour of PSC-authorities and -officers, that may be presented to overseeing democratic institutions like the European Parliament and national parliaments of flag- and port states involved.

We are in a position to manage such a portal because we are quite immune to retaliations by maritime authorities: we have no direct interest in the merchant shipping industry. Furthermore, we have good contacts with several persons and (governmental) bodies that are in a position to undertake some action if provided with substantiated examples of unprofessional behaviour.

We are fully aware of the sensitive and confidential character of such reports, including the risk of retaliation by port state authorities, and have therefore taken precautions to guarantee anonymity to persons and companies submitting such reports.
The originals of the reports we receive will be stored safely offline; only fully anonymized documents, that cannot be traced back to persons or companies involved, will be used for publication. However, to build strong cases we do need access to complete copies of original documents.

To start with, we would be interested in reports concerning

For each case, we would like to receive copies of the following documents:

Although we accept documents in any language, our preferred languages are English, German and Dutch.

We would also be very interested in any internal or external documents that shed some light on detention policies of individual Port States, for example regarding minimum detention quotas.

Until our on-line reporting portal is operational, you are invited to send us documents on any case you think might be of interest, either by

It goes without saying that any documents you send us will be handled with utmost confidentiality.

Please note: we are not in a position to undertake any actions in individual cases or regarding "regular" detentions.