The campaign starts on September 1, 2015 and ends on November 30, 2015
The six member Authorities of the (Bulgaria, Georgia, Romania, Russian Federation, Turkey, Ukraine) of the Black Sea Memorandum of Understanding on Port State Control will start a concentrated inspection campaign on Crew Familiarization for Enclosed Space Entry.
The three-month campaign will start on September 1, 2015 and end on November 30, 2015 under the co-ordination of the Maritime Transport Agency of Georgia. The campaign shall be conducted simultaneously with the Paris MOU, Tokyo MOU and other MOUs
During the campaign period, member Authorities of the BS MOU will inspect, within the resources available, as many ships as possible in conjunction with routine port State control inspections.
The CIC is aimed to verify that there is compliance with the procedures and measures are in place to safeguard the seafarers who are serving on board ships meeting applicable requirements of the SOLAS and STCW Conventions.
For the purpose of interregional harmonization of the action, the Black Sea MOU will use the model of relevant Questionnaire developed by the Paris & Tokyo MOUs with a checklist of 7 selected areas for crew familiarization for enclosed space entry, some of which are related to the master, officer and crew familiarization with relevant equipment and have received training to carry out their duties and identify and understand the hazards associated with entry into enclosed space. Furthermore there are additional questions aimed to gather information about the existence measures in place to test the atmosphere of an enclosed space to confirm it is safe to enter, and personnel training to use of the test equipment.
If deficiencies are found, actions by the Port State Control Officer may vary from recording a deficiency and instructing the master to rectify it within a certain period to detaining the ship until serious deficiencies have been rectified. All inspections will be inserted in the Black Sea Information System and will be published on-line at the MOU web-site.
The results of the campaign shall be analysed and finding will be presented to the Black Sea MOU Committee for submission to the IMO.
Source: Black Sea MOU
