Lost Of Ship Store Properties At Vung Tau Anchorage (Vietnam)

Brief Description of Event

A bulk carrier vessel, with DWT 38,000 T, after loading steel product in Nghi Son port (Vietnam), continued her voyage to Vung Tau port for loading more cargo.

According to the report of ship’s master, the vessel dropped anchor at Vung Tau anchorage I-16 at 0312 LT, waiting for berthing schedule.

At 0745 LT on next day, bosun went to ship’s forward store to take paint for routine maintenance and found that the store was open with the lock broken. He immediately reported to C/O and master.

It was suspected that the thieves broke into ship’s forward store at night. Ship's stores were then checked by crew.

The final result after thorough check found that totally 68 cans of paint were missing.

Master submitted the incident report to the port authority as required and for any further assistance.

Initial Investigation Process

The investigation onboard was conducted. Crew thoroughly were interviewed and the scene also was checked thoroughly by port immigration officers.

Immediate Causes

Since Vung Tau anchorage is potential risk of boarding robbery, but no deck security watch (or even enhanced night time deck security watch as normally exercised by ship crew on other ships) was arranged.
Forward store where the lost paint was kept, was not sufficiently secured and easy to be broken by robbers.

Root Causes

Lack of commonsense of vessel’s master and C/O when anchoring in such potent risk area.
Master and C/O wrongly applied watch arrangement schedule: (priority is given to daily maintenance work (instead of Security – Safety First). As it was reported by C/O, only one deck officer was arranged on bridge watch (deck security watch was not arranged) for the purpose of saving man powers for day time maintenance work.

Proposed Preventive Actions

Enhanced security deck watch should be always arranged, especially for night time, in areas essential for robbery as in Vietnam, Indonesian, Malaysia, Bangladesh, Indian waters, etc.
The enhanced locking device and store door securing method should be applied for all ship stores so that any robber cannot open even without ship security watch.
It is recommended that master should not solely believe in or rely on Maritime Security Map. It may be based on insufficient resources or reports from local port authorities.
The policy Security – Safety First should always be followed.

Proposed Measures and Plan of Improvement for Crew Managers

Immediately include the Case Study into training material for top 4 seminar, crew pre-joining briefing.
To remind and warn ship masters whenever their ships is scheduled to enter such potential risk areas.