The Ship Risk Profile is the Paris MoU's targeting system. It classes every ship trading to the region as low, standard or high risk, using seven weighted parameters: vessel type, age, flag performance, the recognised organisation, the ISM company's record, and the ship's own deficiency and detention history. The class decides how often Port State Control inspects the ship and how deep the inspection goes.
The profile is not a judgement anyone writes; it is arithmetic, recalculated every night in the THETIS database. A ship reaches high risk at 5 or more weighting points. Low risk requires meeting every low-risk criterion, including a white-listed flag and a clean detention record, plus at least one inspection in the previous 36 months. Most of the world fleet sits in between, at standard risk.
How it shows up in practice
Take a 13-year-old bulk carrier. Type gives her 2 weighting points and age gives 1, so she carries 3 before any inspection result counts. Keep her on a white-listed flag with a well-rated ISM company and she stays a standard risk ship, due for inspection every 10 to 12 months. Move her to a black-listed flag, or record two detentions in 36 months, and she crosses to high risk: due every 5 to 6 months, and eligible for the longer expanded inspection each time. The same arithmetic runs in reverse. A well-run ship that clears the low-risk bar can trade for 24 to 36 months between boardings. The full weighting table, and the asymmetries in it, are worked through in the Ship Risk Profile explained.
What it means for operators
The generic parameters, type and age and flag, move slowly or not at all. What an operator actually controls are the historic ones: deficiency counts and detentions. One detention costs far more than the port stay because it feeds the profile and raises inspection pressure across future years, an escalation priced out in what a detention costs. Company performance spreads the damage further, since a poor ISM rating adds points to every ship the company runs. Finding problems before the officer does is the one reliable way to keep the profile down, which is the premise behind Fleetward's PSC pre-inspection workflow.