Posted:
July 9, 2012
By Tom Bethel
National President
A notorious shipping company booted from U.S. registry for consistently deficient operation, inadequate maintenance, chronic safety violations and miserable labor and living conditions continues to haunt legitimate U.S. maritime interests.
The company is TransAtlantic Lines, an affront to civilized seafaring worldwide since its rise in 1998. TAL is based in a home on Lincoln Avenue in tony Greenwich CT, and its performance record makes the world's worst flag-of-convenience operation look like a model of responsibility, dignity and humanitarian impulse.
TAL has the disgraceful distinction of having had its International Safety Management Code Document of Compliance and its ISM safety certificates yanked by the U.S. Coast Guard. The Coast Guard's punitive but prudent action against TAL in December 2011 effectively prohibited the company from operating under the American flag.
In mid-June, Coast Guard Capt. Eric Christensen cited the TransAtlantic Lines experience as the principal evidence supporting his unfounded, unfair public comments about the relative safety of the privately owned and operated U.S. merchant fleet on the high seas.
"In a recent case, objective evidence of continued non-compliance with the requirements of the ISM code, applicable international conventions and flag state regulations, as well as a systemic failure to adequately implement company policies and procedures led to the first-ever revocation and cancellation of a U.S. company's ISM Document of Compliance," Capt. Christensen wrote on the Coast Guard's Homeport Web site.
"A review of attendance reports, documented by various authorities - including port and flag states - clearly established a pattern of habitual disregard for rules and regulations," Capt. Christensen continued. "There was also a repetitive inability of the company to implement corrective action, both indicative of an ineffective SMS."
Capt. Christensen, chief of the Coast Guard's Office of Commercial Vessel Compliance, did not identify the specific company by name, but the circumstances he spelled out applied only to TransAtlantic Lines.
Weak as it was, this was the heart of Capt. Christensen's narrow, unwarranted and unduly opinionated conclusion that the U.S. merchant fleet in international trade is beset by "an alarming trend in the number of significant deficiencies noted."
As we report elsewhere in this issue, seagoing labor responded immediately and forcefully to counter the alarming trend in the number of significant deficiencies found in Capt. Christensen's Web post.
Seafarers International Union President Mike Sacco, Marine Engineers' Beneficial Association President Mike Jewell, International Organization of Masters, Mates and Pilots President Tim Brown and I made our points in a letter June 15 to Adm. Robert Papp Jr., commandant of the Coast Guard.
In our letter to Adm. Papp, we noted that, in the specific overseas flag state control jurisdiction cited by Capt. Christensen, the number of U.S.-flagged ship detentions was actually quite small, especially in proportion to the number of vessel inspections conducted. We also addressed the difficulties resulting from inefficient federal rulemaking procedures that often delay Coast Guard regulations conforming to International Maritime Organization conventions.
Responsible U.S.-flagged merchant ship owners and operators can overcome the TAL taint brought upon them by Capt. Christensen. Theirs is a collective record of safe, efficient and dependable service to commercial customers and to government agencies. And it would take a lot more than one man's thoughtless commentary to sag the spirit of skilled civilian American mariners, who are as resilient as they are reliable, and who have served these United States so well for so long in routine trade and in distant defense emergencies.
This recovery would be a lot easier if there were a fitting end to the TransAtlantic Lines story. But, despite its embarrassing history, TAL lives on. Operating under a succession of temporary ISM documents, TAL is propped up willfully by the Surface Deployment and Distribution Command (formerly Military Traffic Management Command), a unit of Transportation Command in the Department of Defense.
For reasons known only to SDDC brass, the agency has in recent years awarded TAL charters worth multiple millions to supply U.S. military bases in the Azores, Ascension Island and Guantanamo Bay. TAL has demonstrated repeatedly that it cannot provide the services specified in the charters - TAL uses third party shipping companies routinely to meet its contractual commitments to the SDDC.
For reasons known only to SDDC brass, the agency awarded yet another charter to TransAtlantic Lines in April 2012 - five months after the company lost the honor and the privilege of U.S. merchant ship registry.
The SDDC has apparently learned nothing from another TRANSCOM unit - Military Sealift Command, the only federal agency with the exclusive, specific responsibility of arranging the seaborne transport of defense cargoes. When the Coast Guard revoked TAL's papers, MSC immediately canceled its only contract with the company.
TAL's unseemly tie to the SDDC is one issue. The SDDC's encroachment upon Military Sealift Command's mission is another. American Maritime Officers is focusing on both in every possible venue, and we will keep everyone in our union informed.
As always, I welcome comments and questions from AMO members everywhere. Please feel free to call me on my cell at (202) 251-0349.
Legitimate U.S.-flag interests can overcome TAL taint
By Tom Bethel
National President
A notorious shipping company booted from U.S. registry for consistently deficient operation, inadequate maintenance, chronic safety violations and miserable labor and living conditions continues to haunt legitimate U.S. maritime interests.
The company is TransAtlantic Lines, an affront to civilized seafaring worldwide since its rise in 1998. TAL is based in a home on Lincoln Avenue in tony Greenwich CT, and its performance record makes the world's worst flag-of-convenience operation look like a model of responsibility, dignity and humanitarian impulse.
TAL has the disgraceful distinction of having had its International Safety Management Code Document of Compliance and its ISM safety certificates yanked by the U.S. Coast Guard. The Coast Guard's punitive but prudent action against TAL in December 2011 effectively prohibited the company from operating under the American flag.
In mid-June, Coast Guard Capt. Eric Christensen cited the TransAtlantic Lines experience as the principal evidence supporting his unfounded, unfair public comments about the relative safety of the privately owned and operated U.S. merchant fleet on the high seas.
"In a recent case, objective evidence of continued non-compliance with the requirements of the ISM code, applicable international conventions and flag state regulations, as well as a systemic failure to adequately implement company policies and procedures led to the first-ever revocation and cancellation of a U.S. company's ISM Document of Compliance," Capt. Christensen wrote on the Coast Guard's Homeport Web site.
"A review of attendance reports, documented by various authorities - including port and flag states - clearly established a pattern of habitual disregard for rules and regulations," Capt. Christensen continued. "There was also a repetitive inability of the company to implement corrective action, both indicative of an ineffective SMS."
Capt. Christensen, chief of the Coast Guard's Office of Commercial Vessel Compliance, did not identify the specific company by name, but the circumstances he spelled out applied only to TransAtlantic Lines.
Weak as it was, this was the heart of Capt. Christensen's narrow, unwarranted and unduly opinionated conclusion that the U.S. merchant fleet in international trade is beset by "an alarming trend in the number of significant deficiencies noted."
As we report elsewhere in this issue, seagoing labor responded immediately and forcefully to counter the alarming trend in the number of significant deficiencies found in Capt. Christensen's Web post.
Seafarers International Union President Mike Sacco, Marine Engineers' Beneficial Association President Mike Jewell, International Organization of Masters, Mates and Pilots President Tim Brown and I made our points in a letter June 15 to Adm. Robert Papp Jr., commandant of the Coast Guard.
In our letter to Adm. Papp, we noted that, in the specific overseas flag state control jurisdiction cited by Capt. Christensen, the number of U.S.-flagged ship detentions was actually quite small, especially in proportion to the number of vessel inspections conducted. We also addressed the difficulties resulting from inefficient federal rulemaking procedures that often delay Coast Guard regulations conforming to International Maritime Organization conventions.
Responsible U.S.-flagged merchant ship owners and operators can overcome the TAL taint brought upon them by Capt. Christensen. Theirs is a collective record of safe, efficient and dependable service to commercial customers and to government agencies. And it would take a lot more than one man's thoughtless commentary to sag the spirit of skilled civilian American mariners, who are as resilient as they are reliable, and who have served these United States so well for so long in routine trade and in distant defense emergencies.
This recovery would be a lot easier if there were a fitting end to the TransAtlantic Lines story. But, despite its embarrassing history, TAL lives on. Operating under a succession of temporary ISM documents, TAL is propped up willfully by the Surface Deployment and Distribution Command (formerly Military Traffic Management Command), a unit of Transportation Command in the Department of Defense.
For reasons known only to SDDC brass, the agency has in recent years awarded TAL charters worth multiple millions to supply U.S. military bases in the Azores, Ascension Island and Guantanamo Bay. TAL has demonstrated repeatedly that it cannot provide the services specified in the charters - TAL uses third party shipping companies routinely to meet its contractual commitments to the SDDC.
For reasons known only to SDDC brass, the agency awarded yet another charter to TransAtlantic Lines in April 2012 - five months after the company lost the honor and the privilege of U.S. merchant ship registry.
The SDDC has apparently learned nothing from another TRANSCOM unit - Military Sealift Command, the only federal agency with the exclusive, specific responsibility of arranging the seaborne transport of defense cargoes. When the Coast Guard revoked TAL's papers, MSC immediately canceled its only contract with the company.
TAL's unseemly tie to the SDDC is one issue. The SDDC's encroachment upon Military Sealift Command's mission is another. American Maritime Officers is focusing on both in every possible venue, and we will keep everyone in our union informed.
As always, I welcome comments and questions from AMO members everywhere. Please feel free to call me on my cell at (202) 251-0349.