Abstract: The international ship registration practice is born out of the conflict between strict registration system and open registration system. It should, though failed, have made good use of the two systems, upholding the values of safety and efficiency. After reviewing the defects exposed in the ship registration practice in the free Trade Zone (port), the paper uses NVivo to analyze the content of 114 existing legal texts from the perspective of the content of the system, with an aim to delve into the internal causes of the problems. It is found that there are some problems in the current international ship registration practice, such as disordered normative documents, inconsistent legislative principles, unclear ship registration requirements and too abstract supervision measures. Based on the problems and the essence of law, and under the principle of innovation, security and efficiency, the paper defines the legal connotation of ship registration practice, and suggests that we should reshape elements in building a safe and efficient supervision system, so as to establish a more international ship registration system to meet the requirements of China's current development.