Poorly-kept lifeboats, engine issues, missing equipment: latest P&O ship defects

The vessel, called the European Highlander, started operating on the NI-to-Scotland route again on Sunday after inspectors came aboard last Thursday and Friday to comb over the ferry.

While a number of media sources have reported that the vessel has been cleared to sail, none have listed the defects that were found on it.

In all, inspectors came across 17 different deficiencies, the details of which can be found on an official register called the Paris MOU database, containing thousands of inspection reports from across Europe and Canada.

None of the defects were serious enough to impound the ship.

And whilst 17 is an improvement on the 31 defects found recently on fellow P&O passenger ship European Causeway (which was impounded as a result), it is still an unusually large number.

A search of the Paris MOU database shows that out of 5,356 ship inspections since the start of the year, only 95 have resulted in 17 or more defects being found.

Here are just some of the problems found on the European Highlander:

> Lifeboats: Not properly maintained

> Rescue boats: Not properly maintained

> Lifebuoys including provision and disposition: Not as required

> Fire detection and alarm system: Not as required

> Fire prevention structural integrity: Not as required

> Propulsion and auxiliary machinery, gauges, thermometers, etc: Missing

> Propulsion, main engine: Not as required

> Structural Conditions – Closing devices/watertight doors: Malfunctioning

In addition, P&O plans to resume Dover / Calais sailings for freight on Wednesday, and tourists next week.

P&O’s sailing schedule was massively disrupted after the company summarily sacked about 800 staff last month, replacing them with foreign agency staff on about £5.50 per hour (as opposed to £9.50 an hour for UK staff).

Meanwhile yesterday, P&O insisted that claims it is trying to drive down wages even further is becase on an “administrative misunderstanding” based around a misreading of a contract presented to one seafarer; a spokesman for P& said: “No agency seafarers were asked to accept reduced wages.”

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