SIRE 2.0 is OCIMF's tanker inspection programme, the report charterers read before they trust a vessel with cargo. Live since 2024, it replaced the fixed Vessel Inspection Questionnaire with a compiled questionnaire built for each inspection from the vessel's particulars, its history and the operator's declarations. It publishes no grade and no score; charterers read the observations and draw their own conclusions.
How it shows up in practice
Before the inspector boards, the operator has already shaped the inspection. The Pre-Inspection Questionnaire, the vessel's particulars and a defined set of photographs all feed the algorithm that compiles the question set, a mix of core, rotational and campaign questions drawn from OCIMF's library. Two inspections of the same ship are rarely identical, which is why operators prepare against the whole library rather than a fixed checklist. The mechanics of that compilation are covered in the CVIQ explained.
On board, the inspector works from a tablet and records evidence question by question. The biggest change from the old regime is human factors: the inspector assesses how the crew actually performs a task, not only whether the hardware works and the procedure exists, and records whether a shortfall traces to equipment, process or people. A finding becomes a negative observation with supporting detail. The operator then has a 14-day window to attach comments and evidence before the report publishes to charterers, and comments written without pre-existing evidence rarely carry weight. What happens to those observations once vetting departments read them is the subject of negative observations and charterer screening.
What it means for operators
SIRE 2.0 moved the work ashore and forward in time. The photograph set, the PIQ and the crew's day-to-day practice now decide more than the walk-through itself, so preparation is continuous rather than a scramble the week before. Operators who document their own condition between inspections arrive with evidence already in hand for the comment window; operators who do not are reconstructing events from memory against a published deadline. A side-by-side comparison with the old regime is in SIRE 2.0 vs VIQ7, and Fleetward's approach to the preparation cycle is on the SIRE 2.0 solution page.