RightShip

What it is

RightShip describes itself on its own about-us page (rightship.com/about-us) as "The maritime industry's leading safety and risk intelligence platform". It is a commercial company. An accreditation body, a standards owner and a public authority are three different things, and this record calls RightShip none of them.

The Safety Score page states, verbatim: "The Safety Score benchmarks the historical operational performance of the world's fleet. It is intended to help our risk assessment customers gain an initial perspective on the operational performance of a potential vessel as part of a comprehensive due diligence process, while simultaneously encouraging shipowners to invest in improved processes and technologies that make the entire supply chain safer."

The score is produced in two different ways, and the bands are not one continuous scale. The same page states, verbatim: "First, every vessel is checked against a series of industry standard safety performance rules, which, if triggered, provide a vessel with a Safety Score of N/A, zero, 1 or 2." A score of N/A, 0, 1 or 2 is therefore the result of a triggered rule.

For the upper bands the page states, verbatim: "Depending on the vessel's historical performance, vessels can achieve a score of 3, 4 or 5. 5/5 indicates best practice attention to safety over the last five years." Those three bands come from the scoring model, once no rule is triggered.

The methodology page sets out how the upper bands are built, verbatim: "The model is made up of six sub-scores and more than 20 safety considerations, providing indications of historical safety performance." It also states, verbatim: "It is calculated from a vessel's five-year historical performance, with various risk factors considered at the vessel, DOC, Class and Flag level."

Scope, verbatim from the Safety Score page: "All cargo carrying commercial vessels (>1,000 DWT):" — dry bulk vessels, tanker vessels (including bunkering and FSO), container vessels, LNG, LPG and multigas vessels, and general cargo vessels (including vehicle carriers).

The vetting output is tied to one request. The vessel vetting methodology page states, verbatim: "Each vetting recommendation is specific to the vet requestor and is only valid at the time of recommendation for the nominated vessel and voyage under consideration." The same page continues, verbatim: "A new vet will be required to consider a new vessel for the same voyage, or once the original recommendation expires."

The same page states, verbatim: "A confirmed vetting outcome, marked with an 'acceptable' or 'unacceptable' recommendation will be logged in RightShip's platform and an email notification will be sent to the vet requestor." It also states, verbatim: "A vessel which does not meet the RightShip standard will not be eligible for an 'acceptable' recommendation from RightShip, regardless of the vessel's performance against additional customer vetting criteria."

The same page dates the current criteria set, verbatim: "From June 2021, RightShip's vetting criteria has been expanded from 20 to 50 items, in line with the launch of our Platform and Safety Score." The about-us timeline records the same year, listing for 2021, verbatim: "RightShip launched its Platform and Safety Score, an important initiative to level the playing field for charterers and shipowners".

RightShip also runs vessel inspections. Its inspections page states, verbatim: "RightShip vessel inspections evaluate a ship's condition, quality and the effectiveness of Safety Management System (SMS) implementation, adoption of industry recommendations and best practices, and the health and well-being of seafarers onboard." and "All inspections are carried out by accredited inspectors trained to apply a standardised inspection methodology to deliver consistent evidence-based outcomes." The question set is the RightShip Inspection Ship Questionnaire (RISQ), and the page lists a Standard Inspection (10-12 hours onboard), a Hybrid Inspection (8-10 hours onboard) and a Dual Inspection (6-7 hours onboard, two inspectors).

The inspections page, opened on 2026-09-02, does not state how long an inspection result stays current or what document it produces. This record makes no claim in either direction on those two points.

Who owns it

RightShip is a commercial company. Its own about-us timeline records that RightShip was founded in Melbourne, Australia in 2001, and lists for 2025, verbatim: "Permira becomes a shareholder in RightShip". The page sets out no further ownership detail, and this record adds none.

The scoring rules are reviewed inside the company. The Safety Score page states, verbatim, that each rule's road to resolution "is reviewed by RightShip's internal governance department", and the Safety Score Rule Governance page states, verbatim: "Each resolution must undergo a multi-approval process. This means that every review is escalated for a second review, undertaken by a second superintendent." No external committee, board or industry body is named as the owner of the rules on either page.

Safety Score bands

• SS N/A — Vessels which are out of scope for the Safety Score
• SS 0 — Vessels which have been flagged as sanctioned
• SS 1 & 2 — Vessels which need improvement to achieve the industry agreed standards of "good" operations
• SS 3 to 5 — Vessels which are working towards best practice in safe operations

Who asks for it

Buyer-driven. The demand side is verified only in the platform's own generic terms — the vetting methodology page's "vet requestor" and the Safety Score page's "our risk assessment customers". No named buyer, industry body or authority was verified for this record.

RightShip's own pages name the requesting side generically: the vetting methodology page calls it "the vet requestor", and the Safety Score page calls the users "our risk assessment customers".

This record names no individual charterer, cargo owner, owners' association or authority as a requester — none was verified from the pages opened on 2026-09-02.