RightShip Safety Score: What you need to know

The Safety Score replaced RightShip’s Star Rating in February 2021, which was widely used by chartering interests to provide a top-level assessment of the performance of a vessel.

The score provides an indication of a vessel’s likely performance based on past data, allowing users to compare against similar vessels in the same peer group.

What is the Safety Score?

Ranging from ‘N/A’, ‘0’ or ‘1’ to ‘5’, the Safety Score is designed to allow benchmarking against the historical operational performance of the world’s fleet.

This helps shipowners and operators identify areas where safety performance can be improved through better processes and technologies.

It also provides charterers with an initial view on a potential vessel’s operational performance during the pre-fixing due diligence process and helps them decide whether they would like to conduct a full vet on a vessel.

How is the score assigned?

A Safety Score is calculated using a two-stage process.

First, the vessel is assessed against a series of industry standard safety performance rules. If a safety performance rule is triggered, the vessel will be assigned a Safety Score of ‘N/A’, ‘0’, ‘1’ or ‘2’:

N/A – applies to vessels that are not covered by RightShip’s Platform, such as tugs, RoRos, or vessels over a particular age (e.g. bulk carriers over 35 years).

0 – vessels which have been sanctioned or are connected to a sanctioned entity.

1 – includes vessels that:

• have been reported for abandoning seafarers.
• are listed on the Paris Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA) or United States Coast Guard (USCG) banned list.
• have been detained three times in the last 24 months or rated unacceptable during last RightShip inspection.
• have, in the previous 12 months, had a ‘Category A’ incident, which is RightShip’s most severe category and covers pollution, loss of life, missing persons, fire/explosion or a total loss.

2 – includes vessels that:

• have two Port State Control (PSC) detentions in the last 24 months
• have received an excessively high number (50+) of PSC deficiencies over the previous 24 months
• are non – IACS classed vessels
• have had a ‘Category A’ incident in last 12 months and, post-incident, and the incident was closed during a RightShip inspection.

If none of the above safety performance rules are triggered, then the second step is an evaluation by the Safety Score tool.

The model calculates a score between ‘3’ and ‘5’, measuring performance on six sub-score categories:

Vessels scoring ‘1’ or ‘2’ are identified as requiring improvement to achieve the industry standards of ‘good’ operations. Owners and operators of these vessels can request a Safety Score review which will be carried out by RightShip, after which, specific guidance will be provided on how the vessel’s score can be improved.

Vessels that score between ‘3’ and ‘5’ are considered by RightShip to be working towards industry best practice in safe operations.

Interpreting PSC data

To ensure that PSC data is interpreted with consistency and to allow for differences in inspection regimes around the world, the Safety Score considers all inspection data for the port in question. If the inspection port is not known or there has limited historical data, this is also taken into account.

Transparency

The Safety Score is designed to be transparent and provides a clear and concise explanation of the elements that factor into a vessel’s score.  Anytime a Safety Score rule is triggered, it is highlighted on the platform so the shipowner can see why a particular score has been allocated.

Safety Score and Charterparties

In the absence of a specific charterparty term, documents proving a vessel needs RightShip approval (or similar) are not indicative of seaworthiness.  There is a distinction between legally required documents (such as Class approval) and commercial requirements of private organisations (such as RightShip).

RightShip has never supported the use of either its previous Star Rating or the new Safety Score as a charterparty requirement.  However, some parties agree to insert clauses into charterparties requiring the vessel to achieve or maintain a minimum RightShip ‘rating’.

Where there is such a charterparty term and the vessel fails to meet a contractually agreed rating, charterers may have a claim for damages for breach of charterparty against owners.  However, charterers would likely be obliged to try to mitigate their loss. For example, charterers could continue to trade the vessel with the lower rating (if possible) and claim losses from owners (for instance, the difference in hire rates between a three-star rating and any lower rating).  In practical terms, charterers would need to evidence the loss and/or show a causal connection between the RightShip rating and the loss of a fixture or a lower hire or freight rate.

Find out more

Learn more about RightShip’s Safety Score here