UPDATES
S&P inspection, for both sides of the trade
SolarisTech now offers S&P inspection for the sale and purchase of vessels: buyer-side pre-purchase inspection before a deal is committed, and seller-side pre-sale inspection before a vessel is offered to the market, each attended and reported by our founder. Current attendance base is Korea and Japan, with travel elsewhere by arrangement. Sale and purchase runs on a short clock and an asymmetry of information. The seller has lived with the vessel for years. The buyer often has a few hours alongside and a stack of records to read in a hurry. The inspection exists to close that gap far enough that the price reflects the ship rather than the optimism of whoever wrote the particulars, and it works the ship and the class record together, because a clean survey status means little if the machinery history shows renewals quietly deferred.
The document review happens before anyone travels
Most of the clock is lost before the inspection even starts, waiting for records to be collected, sent and read. We take that out of the critical path. Ahead of attendance, or as a standalone screening service if you are still deciding whether the vessel is worth a trip, Nautilux runs an advance document review and initial photo condition analysis. You or the operator upload the certificate set, the class record, the PMS extracts, the survey status and the photographs through a secure portal.
Upload typically takes one to two hours through the secure portal, and for a complete submission received early in the working day we aim to return the reviewed result the same working day. Nautilux reviews the full submission, not a sample of it. For a broker working a competitive candidate list, that is the difference between an opinion at the end of the week and a ranked shortlist while the candidates are still live. It also tells you what to look at first once you are on board, so the hours alongside are spent on the questions that actually move the price.
The scope limit applies here as everywhere: Nautilux reviews 100% of what is uploaded, not 100% of the vessel. The screening informs the decision to attend. It does not replace attendance.
What we do not sell
What we do not offer is the thing this category is usually sold on. There is no proprietary grade, no point count and no claim about how much of the market we inspect, because a practice built around one senior principal cannot honestly make those claims. What you get instead is findings ranked by commercial consequence, each carrying an estimate of what it is likely to cost, when the money has to be spent, and whether it is a price point or a walk-away. The report is written to be argued with, and the person who wrote it takes the call when the other side disputes it.
Seller-side, the logic reverses
One independent inspection commissioned before the vessel is offered gives every interested party the same starting point, lets you correct the small and cheap findings before anyone else sees them, and removes the leverage a buyer gains from finding something you did not know you had. We hold no interest in the transaction, take no commission on it and do not broker vessels. Our reports are prepared for the party that instructs us and for the purpose stated in the engagement. Reliance by any other party requires our written agreement.
The scope, the boundaries and the questions we are asked most often are on the S&P inspection page.
YOUR INSPECTOR
Thomas Blenk
Former Corporate Vice President, Global Marine Sectors, ABS. Former Deputy Commissioner of Maritime Affairs, Republic of the Marshall Islands.
Inspect before you commit.
Tell us the vessel, the side you are on and the date the deal turns. Upload typically takes one to two hours through the secure portal, and for a complete submission received early in the working day we aim to return the reviewed result the same working day.