Dutch tanker Star Bonaire held at Ghent since mid-September
The 1997-built product tanker is listed as inspection suspended with no published deficiencies
The Dutch-flagged product tanker STAR BONAIRE, IMO 9148453, has been held at Ghent since Monday 14 September and has not been released.
The ship lies in the Ghent-Terneuzen canal. She was detained by the inspectorate of the Directorate-General for Shipping, and her file has since been carried as inspection suspended, the status a ship holds when the port state has stopped work on the case and is waiting for the owner to ask for a reinspection. No deficiency list has been published, and neither the inspectorate nor the owner has stated what was found.
The vessel is operated by Volharding of Dordrecht. She was built in 1997, measures around 90 metres and carries edible oils and clean products, a trade that runs on small parcels between north European refineries, crushing plants and terminals, and one where a coaster-sized hull of that age is still commercially normal.
Two other ships detained by the same inspectorate in the same period have since been given their freedom, which is the ordinary shape of a port state case: deficiencies are rectified, a reinspection is booked and the ship sails. What distinguishes this one so far is only its length. A detention that runs past a week usually means either structural or machinery work that cannot be done alongside, or a documentary or certification problem that has to be resolved with the flag state or the class society rather than with the inspectors on the quay.
Belgium publishes its detentions through the Paris Memorandum of Understanding regime, under which a detained ship's record follows it: the detention counts towards the flag's and the company's performance, and towards the risk profile that decides how often the ship is boarded in the years that follow. For a Dutch-flagged coaster tanker working the same short-sea range, that profile is the practical cost, rather than the days lost at Ghent.
Neither the owner nor the inspectorate has indicated when a reinspection is expected.
This story is part of the Maritime Briefing of 23 September 2026.
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