RISQ is the RightShip Inspection Ship Questionnaire: the structured question set a RightShip inspection is carried out against. It covers the vessel's physical condition, the safety management system in operation and the crew's familiarity with their own procedures, and it is the standard dry bulk equivalent of what SIRE 2.0 is to tankers. The completed inspection feeds RightShip's assessment of the vessel, which charterers read when fixing cargo.
How it shows up in practice
The inspection usually arrives on a schedule the operator can see coming. RightShip expects older dry bulk vessels to hold a recent acceptable inspection, a threshold explained in the inspection age trigger, and charterers can require one regardless of age. Once booked, an accredited inspector spends the day working through the questionnaire chapter by chapter: certificates and documents, then the deck, holds and hatch covers, the machinery spaces, mooring arrangements, life-saving and fire-fighting equipment, and throughout it all the crew's answers to questions about their own ship. Each chapter's expectations, and the findings inspectors most often record, are walked through in the RISQ chapter walkthrough.
Findings become observations the operator must close out with evidence: what was fixed, when, and what stops it recurring. The quality of that close-out matters as much as the finding itself, because RightShip reviews the response before treating the matter as resolved, and a thin answer keeps the observation alive in the eyes of every charterer who reads the record.
What it means for operators
RISQ turned dry bulk vetting from a document check into a physical standard. A bulk carrier operator now needs the same discipline tanker operators learned under SIRE: know the questionnaire, prepare the ship against all of it rather than guessing what the inspector will pick, and hold evidence of condition before anyone boards. The inspection result flows into the RightShip Safety Score, so a poor day on board follows the ship commercially long after the inspector leaves. Fleetward's approach to preparing crews for that day is on the RightShip solution page.