RightShip Review: Screening ship risk before it hits your book

RightShip sits in the “risk and reputation plumbing” of global shipping: it’s the background platform that scores vessels, vets nominations and flags safety and environmental issues before they turn into casualties, detentions or ESG headaches. From a Melbourne head office and a network of regional offices, the offer to charterers, cargo owners and owners is simple: fewer bad surprises in the fleet you fix your name to, and a clearer way to prove you are taking safety and emissions risk seriously.

RightShip • Melbourne headquarters
Level 8, 550 Bourke Street, Melbourne VIC 3000, Australia
Shipowners, charterers and cargo interests benefit by:
  • Screening out weak vessels before they hit your shortlist: RightShip’s Safety Score and GHG Rating give you a fast filter on safety performance and emissions profile, so commercial teams can remove obvious outliers before time is spent on vetting or negotiations.
  • Turning vetting into a repeatable, documented process: The platform’s vetting engine and superintendent review create a timestamped recommendation trail for each nominated vessel and voyage, making it easier to show boards, customers and regulators how decisions were made if something later goes wrong.
  • Reducing the odds of casualties, delays and detentions: By combining PSC performance, incident history, inspections and peer benchmarking, RightShip aims to lower the probability that a nominated vessel brings with it avoidable safety issues, cargo damage, port problems or off-hire-style disruption.
  • Aligning vessel choices with your ESG and zero-harm story: Because the tools integrate safety, environmental and social indicators, you can show how chartering and procurement choices support internal ESG policies and external expectations around “zero harm” shipping rather than treating safety and emissions as separate conversations.
  • Using data to benchmark managers, flags and trades: Safety Score components and inspection outcomes give owners and charterers a way to compare performance across fleets, managers, flag states and trading patterns, and then direct improvement work where the gaps are biggest instead of working from anecdotes.
  • Feeding terminal requirements straight into vessel choice: Terminal Questionnaires, feedback reports and berth-specific criteria live inside the same platform, helping you avoid nominating vessels that look fine on paper but are poor terminal fits in practice.
  • Keeping one risk language across internal teams: Commercial, technical, HSQE and sustainability teams can all look at the same scores, inspection history and recommendations rather than maintaining parallel spreadsheets and local views of “acceptable” versus “too risky.”
Notes: This is a planning view based on RightShip’s public materials and external commentary. Exact workflows and value depend on how deeply you plug their data into your own chartering, vetting and ESG processes.
Notable mentions and external coverage
A few places where RightShip’s scores, vetting and GHG work show up outside their own channels.
  • Safety Score explained for P&I clients NorthStandard • 2022
    NorthStandard gave a client-facing explainer on the Safety Score as a way to benchmark likely vessel performance and compare ships against similar tonnage, putting a third-party lens on operational history and PSC outcomes. Read the NorthStandard overview .
  • Disconnect between ESG talk and vessel choice Sea & Job • 2025
    Sea & Job covered a RightShip report showing how public ESG commitments can diverge from actual vessel selection, using Safety Scores and GHG data to illustrate gaps between policy and day-to-day chartering decisions. See the Sea & Job news item .
  • GHG Emissions Rating with Carbon War Room RMI / Carbon War Room
    Rocky Mountain Institute describes the GHG Emissions Rating, developed with Carbon War Room, as a way for charterers to compare design efficiency and surface potential fuel savings via an A–G style scale. View the RMI explainer .
  • Zero Harm Innovation Partners in ESG coverage Thetius • 2025
    A Thetius piece on ESG at sea highlighted RightShip’s Zero Harm Innovation Partners programme as one of the signals that owners and OEMs are investing in safer, cleaner and better-managed vessels. Read the Thetius article .
  • Zero Harm Innovation Partners launch Container News • 2024
    Container News reported on the launch of the Zero Harm Innovation Partners program, framed as a way to support technologies aimed at a “zero harm” maritime industry and plug them into RightShip’s user base. See the Container News coverage .
This is a sample of external coverage, not a full list. For internal memos, pair it with your own reading of Safety Score and GHG methodology notes.
Vetting and emissions impact sketch
A simple way to translate stricter vessel screening and GHG filters into avoided incidents, CO₂ and an annual headline benefit.
Your voyage and risk picture (before stronger screening)
Nominated voyages you influence (charterer, cargo owner, operator, pool, etc.).
Incidents that trigger large claims, lengthy off-hire or heavy reputation impact.
Combine repairs, cargo, legal, diversions and lost earnings into one number.
Your own view of how much tighter vetting and minimum score rules can reduce big losses.
Internal time plus platform cost, averaged per voyage.
GHG filter and emissions sketch
For example, only allowing A–C rated vessels on certain trades.
Simple design-efficiency uplift from picking better-rated vessels.
Use EU ETS price, an internal shadow price, or leave at zero if not relevant.
Serious incidents avoided per year
0
Incident cost avoided per year
$0
CO₂ avoided per year
0 t
Total indicative net benefit per year
$0
Category Calculated value (per year)
Serious incidents before stronger screening 0
Serious incidents after stronger screening 0
Serious incidents avoided 0
Gross serious-incident cost avoided $0
Voyages under GHG filter 0
CO₂ avoided on filtered voyages 0 t
Value of avoided CO₂ (if priced) $0
Annual screening cost $0
Total indicative benefit (incidents + CO₂ − screening) $0
Total benefit per voyage $0
Planning sketch only. Replace defaults with your own loss history, volumes and CO₂ assumptions.

For most charterers, cargo owners and owners, RightShip is really a question of discipline: how much of your voyage book do you want to run through a consistent third-party filter, and how far are you willing to go in tying commercial freedom to minimum safety and GHG rules. A sketch like the one above will not replace a full internal business case, but it does force the right conversations: if you plug in your own loss history, screening costs and CO₂ assumptions, does a tighter, score-backed shortlist process pay for itself in fewer serious incidents and a cleaner emissions story that you can defend to boards, customers and financiers?

By the ShipUniverse Editorial Team — About Us | Contact