CREW navigation skills are to come under the spotlight with a new inspection campaign by port state control around the world.
The Paris and Tokyo MOUs have announced that their members will be conducting what is known as a Concentrated Inspection Campaign on safety of navigation.
The two MOUs represent 46 port state control authorities in Asia and Europe and regularly coordinate such campaigns.
This inspection campaign will be held during the three months of September to November and focus on the requirements of the Safety of Life at Sea convention, the overall status of a vessel’s navigation safety and the competency of crew involved in navigation. The two MOUs say they expect to carry out 10,000 inspections of vessels during that period and serious deficiencies could result in detentions.
A similar joint CIC was conducted in 2008 and the Paris MOU has put out a statement saying that navigation regulations have changed significant5ly since then hence the need to revisit the theme.
Changes include the adoption of mandatory electronic chart display and information systems on vessels.
The Paris MoU also said deficiencies relating to navigation equipment contribute a major proportion of the total deficiencies port inspectors find. A total of 174,559 deficiencies concerning safety of navigation were recorded in the seven years to 2016, accounting for 15.27% of all deficiencies.
A list of the questions that Port State Control inspectors will use to determine compliance has been made available on the Paris MoU website.
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