Wednesday, December 30, 2009

Know Your Shipping Container

Marine surveyors do a thorough evaluation of ship container from both outside and inside aspects. Let’s discuss in brief important components of both aspects of evaluation of a shipping container:

Outside of Container:
• No cracks or holes in any part of a container.
• Doors open and close properly.
• Closing devices work correctly.
• There should not be adhesive labels from the previous cargo.
• Fitting of flatracks at the correct place
• All open-top containers should be fitted correctly with a complete roof bow.
• All open-top containers should have undamaged tarpaulins that fit properly.
• All hard-top containers should have undamaged roofs and it should have roof locking mechanism that fits and operates properly.

Inside of Container:
Container should be watertight and tested by a defined authority.
Container interior should be dry.
Container should be clean, free from any kind of cargo residues and odorless.
Cargo should be undamaged.

Qualifications of a Marine Surveyor

A professional marine surveying is needed by almost every company having shipping interests. The exactness of a marine survey defines the capacity and ability of a company to expand its revenue base. Hence, only professional and experienced marine surveyors are allowed to evaluate a ship or shipping container to determine the exact value or determine other aspects of a evaluation process.

For becoming a marine surveyor, a person needs to be a certified and accredited professional from any established body such as Accredited Marine Surveyors (AMS) and Surveyor Associates (SA). People with previous marine surveying experience are preferred in this kind of job. It is important to note here that a surveyor can be a full-time or part-time professional depending on experience and being a part of the membership associations. Some surveying companies hire specialist surveyors who hold command on different specialties such as yacht, cargo, fishing vessel, blue water and NDT (non-destructive testing).