Foreign ships which visit Bermuda from now on will leave our waters in a more seaworthy and environmentally-friendly condition.

Government has signed an international pact to ensure sub-standard ships which call are better inspected, while sound ships are spared unnecessary boardings by local Marine and Ports surveyors.

The pact requires Marine and Ports to share the information with other signatories, which include Canada, EC countries, Finland, Norway, Sweden and Poland.

Government made the announcement yesterday, noting that in the past surveyors conducted inspections only at random.

In a year, they were required to randomly board just 25 percent of all visiting ships to ensure the vessels complied with International Maritime Organisation Conventions on: Safety at sea, pollution prevention, training standards, watch keeping, collision prevention, living conditions. Ships in violation of the regulation were liable for detention until the deficiencies were corrected.

Now that Bermuda has signed the Paris Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on Port State Control, it has access to a broad database on "good ships and bad ships''.

"Ships which are due to visit Bermuda can be checked against that database to see if they warrant inspection on arrival,'' a Government spokesman said.

"If a ship is inspected and found to have deficiencies which require further visits to ensure it is safe to sail, the ship will be charged for the surveyors time on the second and subsequent visits. Bermuda's affiliation to the Paris MOU will ensure that sub-standard ships visiting Bermuda will be properly checked to ensure that they will not cause pollution or put at risk the lives of seafarers.'' The Paris MOU was adopted in 1980 expressly so countries around the world could share information on ships which have been inspected to enable closer monitoring of sub-standard ships.

Principal marine surveyor Mr. David Wright said the UK had also signed, though Bermuda became affiliated on its own initiative.

"It will enable us to concentrate our inspections on the ships that require inspection rather than just picking ships at random,'' he said.

"And if we find things wrong, we can pass that information on to other countries. That way, we can build up a history on good ships and bad ships.''