In INTERCARGO’s Annual General Meeting on 1-2 October, the Association’s Chairman, John Platsidakis, underlined the challenge with respect to international regulators’ lack of understanding of how dry bulk ships operate worldwide on tramp trades.
The UK MCA announced that eight foreign-flagged ships were under detention in UK ports during August 2018, after failing PSC inspection. From these, there were five new detentions of foreign flagged vessels in a UK port, while three vessels remained under detention from previous months.
Liberia Maritime Authority issued a document to assist Masters on their responsibilities under Liberian Law and provide guidance to ensure a positive PSC inspection. Under Liberian Regulation 2.35, it is the responsibility of owners and masters to ensure compliance with all applicable international conventions.
The People’s Republic of China and the Republic of Liberia signed a five-year extension of their maritime agreement. They also agreed to establish a technical cooperation committee, to collaborate in port state control, crew training and future maritime regulatory policy.
SQE MARINE recommends best practices to check compliance with the applicable requirements of the MARPOL Annex VI for the forthcoming CIC which will be held for a period of three months by Paris, Tokyo, Black Sea and Indian MoUs.
Paris MoU on Port State Control issued an official announcement to remind the launch, along with Tokyo MoU, of a joint three-month Concentrated Inspection Campaign (CIC) on MARPOL Annex VI, starting from 1 September 2018 and ending 30 November 2018.
The first detention of a fishing vessel under the provisions of the International Labour Organization’s Work in Fishing Convention, 2007 (No. 188) has taken place in late June, involving a foreign 380 GT vessel in Cape Town, South Africa, following complaints by the crew about working conditions, ILO informed.
A Tutoring Project on Port State Control took place in Turkmenbashi, Turkmenistan, on 2-6 July, within the technical assistance which EMSA provides to European Neighbourhood Policy countries under the Black and Caspian Sea Regions Project.
The US Cruise Ship National Center of Expertise cited a list of common causes of PSC detentions on cruise ships by the USCG throughout 2017. USCG conducted 292 cruise ship examinations in 2017 and only 0.34% received a detention, which shows there is a strong safety culture in the cruise line industry.
Since MLC came into force in August 2013, a lot of inspections have been conducted on items related to working & living conditions of seafarers. Paris MoU and AMSA are two regions which appear to conduct thoroughly PSC inspections with respect to MLC implementation.
