Every time a foreign vessel enters a port, the host nation's maritime authority has the right to inspect it. Those inspections — their findings, their deficiencies, their detentions — are recorded, aggregated, and made publicly available through a network of regional agreements called port state control memoranda of understanding. Equasis aggregates them all into one searchable interface. The result is one of the most underused public databases in maritime OSINT: a free, searchable record of any vessel's compliance history, going back years.
Use PSC records when establishing a vessel operator's compliance pattern, contextualising flag state quality, or supporting a broader investigation into an operator's conduct. A single deficiency is routine. A pattern of safety detentions, ISM Code failures, and fire safety deficiencies, corroborated across multiple inspection authorities, describes an operator's relationship with regulatory compliance.
MAR-004 sets out the methodology for retrieving, reading, and documenting port state control inspection records to evidentiary standard.
Five tooling sources, four OPSEC requirements, seven workflow steps, five false-positive patterns, five chain-of-custody requirements, six key queries.
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01
Required Tools
Five portals covering Equasis, Paris MoU, Tokyo MoU, and USCG PSIX.
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02
OPSEC
Registry query attribution and data staleness risks in PSC research.
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03
Workflow
Seven-step sequence from Equasis retrieval to flag state ranking assessment.
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04
False Positives
Five inspection record patterns misread as evidence of operator misconduct.
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05
Chain of Custody
Five requirements for preserving inspection records and deficiency classifications.
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06
Key Queries
Six queries across Equasis, Paris MoU, and USCG PSIX portals.
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