Statutory Alert: Port State Control
The 43 maritime authorities of the Paris and Tokyo Memoranda of Understanding (MOU) on port state control will launch a joint concentrated inspection campaign (CIC) to verify compliance with SOLAS Chapter II-2/ Construction – fire protection, fire detection and fire extinction arrangements on board ships.
The CIC will last for three months, starting on 1 September, 2012, and ending on November 30, 2012. In practice, the CIC will mean that during a regular port state control inspection conducted under the regional ship selection criteria within the Paris and Tokyo MOU regions, the fire safety arrangements, maintenance records and other applicable documentation will be verified in detail for compliance with SOLAS Chapter II-2.
Port State Control Officers (PSCOs) will use a questionnaire covering 12 selected items to verify critical areas for the shipboard fire safety systems, some of which are related to documentation, equipment and crew familiarization. When deficiencies are found, actions by the port state 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.
Detentions will be published in the monthly lists on the Paris and Tokyo MOU web sites. The results of the CIC will be analysed and findings will be presented to the governing bodies of the MOUs for submission to the IMO. Other MOU regions may also carry out a CIC on the same topic during this period.