1-Essential Seafarers’ Knowledge for Port State Control

 

Essential Seafarers’ Knowledge for Port State Control

 

Purpose of Port State Control (PSC)

1.      Enforcement of International Maritime Conventions: Port State Control enforces international maritime conventions on safety, pollution, and crew welfare as set by IMO and ILO.

2.      Ensuring Maritime Safety and Security: PSC inspects foreign ships in ports to ensure they meet international safety and security standards.

3.      Preventing Marine Pollution: PSC prevents marine pollution by ensuring ship compliance with environmental standards on pollutant discharge.

4.      Upholding Crew Welfare Standards: PSC enforces the Maritime Labour Convention, ensuring seafarers' living and working conditions meet international standards.

Historical Background and Legal Framework

The development of PSC is based on international collaboration to improve maritime safety, prevent pollution, and secure fair labor for sailors. Key to this has been the creation of regional agreements, following global conventions, to unify and enforce these standards worldwide.

Historical Background

Origins in the 1970s

Paris MOU of 1982

Expansion Worldwide

Legal Framework

International Maritime Conventions

Role of the IMO and ILO

Authority of Port States

Regional MOUs and Agreements

 

International conventions

set harmonized maritime safety, environmental, and labor standards, enabling PSC to enhance global compliance and seafarer welfare.

Key conventions include:

SOLAS (Safety of Life at Sea)

MARPOL (Marine Pollution)

STCW (Standards of Training, Certification, and Watchkeeping)

MLC (Maritime Labour Convention)

The effectiveness of PSC is heavily dependent on these international frameworks, making them critical to global maritime operations.

 

Types of Inspections

Initial Inspection aims to evaluate a ship's general condition and identify obvious deficiencies through a review of certificates, documents, and a brief examination of accessible areas, potentially leading to a more detailed inspection if discrepancies are found.

The More Detailed Inspection, triggered by initial inspection deficiencies or doubts about compliance, involves comprehensive checks of the ship's structure, equipment, systems, and crew competence, potentially leading to detention until deficiencies are rectified.

Expanded Inspection targets high-risk vessels like older tankers and bulk carriers, focusing on structural, safety systems, and living conditions, including operational drills. Deficiencies must be rectified, possibly leading to detention until compliance is ensured.

 

Pre-arrival Documentation and Preparation

Pre-arrival documentation and crew preparation ensure vessel compliance with maritime standards.

1. Documentation: Vessels must have all relevant certificates and documents up-to-date and readily available.

2. Ship's Logbooks: Maintenance of logbooks, including records of navigational activities, engine operations, and any incidents or anomalies, is crucial.

3. Safety and Environmental Compliance: Ensuring that all safety and environmental protection equipment is in good working order.

4. Crew Preparedness: The crew should be aware of the inspection process and prepared to participate in any required drills or to answer questions about their roles, responsibilities, and safety procedures.

 

Onboard Inspection Process

Onboard inspections evaluate ship compliance with safety, security, environmental, and welfare standards, identifying potential deficiencies.

Inspection Planning: Inspectors plan the inspection based on the ship's type, age, previous inspection records, and any specific areas of concern.

Initial Examination:

Inspectors review the ship's certificates and documents for validity and compliance.

Physical Inspection:

A detailed physical inspection of the ship's structure, equipment, and living conditions is conducted.

Operational Checks:

Inspectors may test the functionality of various systems such as alarms, steering, emergency response systems, and communication equipment.

Observation of Procedures and Practices: Inspectors observe the implementation of onboard procedures, including safety and environmental management practices, maintenance routines, and operational procedures.

Reporting and Follow-up:

After the inspection, a report is generated detailing any deficiencies found. Depending on the severity of these deficiencies, the ship may be allowed to proceed, required to rectify the issues within a certain timeframe, or detained until serious deficiencies are resolved.

 

Common Areas of Focus during Inspections

1.  Safety Equipment and Procedures:

Inspectors check the condition and availability of safety equipment like lifeboats, life jackets, fire extinguishers, and navigational aids. Compliance with safety procedures, including emergency preparedness, is also assessed.

2.  Ship's Certification and Documentation:

Verification of up-to-date certification such as the Certificate of Registry, Safety Management Certificate, and compliance documents for international conventions (SOLAS, MARPOL, STCW, MLC).

3.  Crew Competence and Welfare:

Ensuring that the crew is properly trained, certified, and that their living and working conditions meet the standards set by the MLC.

4. Structural Conditions:

The structural integrity of the ship, including its hull, decks, and machinery, is inspected for any signs of damage or inadequate maintenance.

5. Navigation and Communication Equipment:

Functionality and compliance of navigation and communication systems are checked to ensure they meet the required standards.

6. Environmental Compliance:

Inspectors focus on the ship’s adherence to environmental regulations, particularly concerning pollution prevention measures as outlined in MARPOL.

 

7. Operational Procedures:

Evaluation of operational procedures, including cargo handling and storage, to ensure they are conducted safely and in accordance with international guidelines.

 

Safety Management and Emergency Preparedness

Safety Equipment and Procedures

PSC inspections check ship safety equipment maintenance, safety management systems, and crew readiness through drills, crucial for ship and crew safety and security.

Emergency Drills and Training

PSC inspections evaluate emergency drills and training for regularity, adequacy, and effectiveness, observing crew performance to maintain high safety standards and manage sea emergencies.

Reporting Incidents and Accidents

PSC inspections review ship incident and accident reporting records for compliance, a critical aspect of maritime safety management, enhancing overall safety at sea.

 

 

Environmental Protection and Pollution Prevention

Key aspects of Environmental Protection and Pollution Prevention on board include:

MARPOL Annexes and Compliance

PSC inspections rigorously verify compliance with MARPOL Annexes, checking documentation, equipment like oil water separators, and logbooks to reduce maritime environmental footprint and protect oceans.

Waste Management on Board

PSC inspections review ship's waste management procedures and records for environmental compliance, essential for reducing pollution footprint and sustaining marine environment health.

Oil Spill Prevention and Response

PSC inspections assess oil spill prevention and response preparedness, reviewing emergency plans, equipment condition, and crew training, crucial for protecting the marine environment from oil pollution.

 

 

Crew Welfare and Maritime Labour Compliance

MLC Requirements and Compliance

PSC inspections involve reviewing MLC documentation, inspecting onboard living and working conditions, and interviewing crew to ensure compliance, vital for seafarers' rights and a sustainable shipping industry.

Health and Medical Standards

PSC inspections review ship’s medical facilities, crew fitness certificates, and health and safety measures, ensuring high standards of onboard care for seafarers' welfare and ship safety.

Working and Living Conditions on Board

PSC inspections assess ship's living quarters, catering, sanitation, work areas, and safety measures, ensuring high-quality conditions for crew well-being and efficiency.

Navigation and Communication

Navigation Safety Practices

PSC inspections assess ship's navigation equipment, maintenance, voyage plans, and observe navigational practices, crucial for preventing accidents and enhancing shipping safety and efficiency.

Communication Equipment and Procedures

PSC inspections scrutinize communication equipment functionality, maintenance, logs, and crew competence, vital for ship safety, operational efficiency, and coordination with maritime authorities.

Electronic Navigational Aids

PSC inspections evaluate electronic navigational aids' condition and function, checking updates, calibration, and integration into navigation processes, critical for safety and efficient voyage execution.

 

PSC Detentions and Rectifications

Reasons for Detention

Key reasons for detention include:

Inadequate Safety Measures

Environmental Threats

Poor Living and Working Conditions

Structural and Mechanical Issues

Inadequate Crew Competence or Certification

Invalid or Absent Certificates and Documents

Operational Deficiencies

If PSC inspections find significant deficiencies, the vessel is detained until corrected, deterring non-compliance and ensuring safety, environmental, and crew welfare standards.

 

Rectifying Deficiencies

Key aspects of rectifying deficiencies include:

Developing a Rectification Plan

Immediate Repairs and Corrections

Engagement of Qualified Personnel

Training and Instruction for the Crew

Verification and Certification

Documentation of Actions Taken

Continuous Monitoring and Prevention

PSC re-inspections verify if corrective actions address deficiencies, essential for lifting detention and ensuring long-term safety, environmental compliance, and vessel efficiency.

 

PSC Detentions and Rectifications

Post-detention Follow-up

Key aspects of post-detention follow-up include:

Re-inspection

Monitoring for Recurrence

Reporting Requirements

Increased Scrutiny in Subsequent Port Visits

Feedback to Ship Management and Crew

Implementation of Preventative Measures

Record-Keeping and Documentation

Post-detention follow-up in PSC is crucial for immediate deficiency rectification and fostering a culture of continuous compliance and improvement in maritime safety and environmental practices.

 PSC တွင် ထိန်းသိမ်းခံရပြီးနောက် နောက်ဆက်တွဲအဖြစ် ချို့တဲ့မှုကို ချက်ချင်းပြုပြင်ရန်နှင့် ရေကြောင်းဘေးကင်းရေးနှင့် သဘာဝပတ်ဝန်းကျင်ဆိုင်ရာ အလေ့အကျင့်များတွင် စဉ်ဆက်မပြတ်လိုက်နာမှုနှင့် မြှင့်တင်ပေးသည့် ယဉ်ကျေးမှုတစ်ရပ်ကို မွေးမြူရန်အတွက် အရေးကြီးပါသည်။

Case Study 1:

Emergency Equipment and Crew Training Deficiencies

Scenario: A bulk carrier was detained after a PSC inspection revealed that several lifeboats were not properly maintained and the crew was unable to demonstrate proficiency in emergency drills. 

အသက်ကယ်လှေအများအပြားကို စနစ်တကျ ကောင်းစွာစောင့်ရှောက် မထားကြောင်း  သင်္ဘောသားများသည် အရေးပေါ်လေ့ကျင့်မှုတွင် ကျွမ်းကျင်မှုကို မပြသနိုင်ခဲ့ ကြောင်း   PSC စစ်ဆေးရေးမှ တွေ့ရှိပြီးနောက် bulk carrier သင်္ဘောတစ်စီးကို ထိန်းသိမ်းခဲ့သည်။

Analysis: Examination of the ship’s maintenance records and crew training logs. Discussion on the importance of regular maintenance and crew familiarization with emergency procedures. သင်္ဘောထိန်းသိမ်းမှုမှတ်တမ်းများနှင့် သင်္ဘောသားလေ့ကျင့်ရေးမှတ်တမ်းများကို စစ်ဆေးခြင်း။ ပုံမှန်ထိန်းသိမ်းခြင်း၏ အရေးပါမှုနှင့် အရေးပေါ်လုပ်ထုံးလုပ်နည်းများနှင့် သင်္ဘောသားများအား ရင်းနှီးကျွမ်းဝင်စေရန်အတွက် ဆွေးနွေးခြင်း။

Learning Outcome: Emphasizing the critical nature of life-saving equipment maintenance and the necessity for regular crew training in emergency response.

 အသက်ကယ်ကိရိယာများ ပြုပြင်ထိန်းသိမ်းမှု၏ အရေးကြီးသောသဘောသဘာဝနှင့် အရေးပေါ်တုံ့ပြန်မှုတွင် ပုံမှန်သင်္ဘောသားလေ့ကျင့်မှုများအတွက် လိုအပ်သောအချက်ကို အလေးပေးထားသည်။

Case Study 2:

MARPOL Compliance Violation

Scenario: A tanker was detained for non-compliance with MARPOL Annex I regulations due to improper oil record book entries and malfunctioning oil-water separator equipment.

MARPOL Annex I regulations စည်းမျဉ်းများကို မလိုက်နာဘဲ ဆီမှတ်တမ်းစာအုပ်တွင် ထည့်သွင်းမှုများနှင့် ဆီ-ရေခွဲစက် ကိရိယာများ ချွတ်ယွင်းမှုကြောင့် ရေနံတင်သင်္ဘောတစ်စီးကို ဖမ်းဆီးခဲ့သည်။

Analysis: Review of the oil record book and inspection findings. Discussion on the impact of such violations on the marine environment and the importance of accurate record keeping.

ဆီမှတ်တမ်းစာအုပ်နှင့် စစ်ဆေးတွေ့ရှိချက်များကို ပြန်လည်သုံးသပ်ခြင်း။ အဏ္ဏဝါပတ်ဝန်းကျင်အပေါ် ချိုးဖောက်မှုများ၏ အကျိုးသက်ရောက်မှုနှင့် တိကျသော မှတ်တမ်းထားရှိခြင်း၏ အရေးပါမှုတို့ကို ဆွေးနွေးခြင်း။

Learning Outcome: Understanding the importance of pollution prevention equipment and the legal and environmental consequences of non-compliance with MARPOL regulations.

 ရေထုညစ်ညမ်းမှု ကာကွယ်ရေး ကိရိယာများ၏ အရေးပါမှုနှင့် MARPOL စည်းမျဉ်းများကို မလိုက်နာခြင်း၏ တရားဥပဒေနှင့် သဘာဝပတ်ဝန်းကျင်ဆိုင်ရာ အကျိုးဆက်များကို နားလည်ခြင်း။

 

Case Study 3:

Structural Integrity Issues

Scenario: A container ship was detained due to significant corrosion and structural weaknesses in critical areas, identified during a more detailed inspection.

ပိုမိုအသေးစိတ်စစ်ဆေးစဉ်(a more detailed inspection) အတွင်း ဖော်ထုတ်တွေ့ရှိခဲ့သည့် အရေးကြီးသောနေရာများတွင် သိသိသာသာ သံချေးတက်မှုနှင့် ဖွဲ့စည်းတည်ဆောက်ပုံဆိုင်ရာ အားနည်းချက်များကြောင့် ကွန်တိန်နာသင်္ဘောတစ်စင်းကို ထိန်းသိမ်းခဲ့သည်။

Analysis: Discussion on the inspection process, the critical nature of structural integrity, and the potential risks associated with structural failures.

စစ်ဆေးရေးလုပ်ငန်းစဉ်၊ ဖွဲ့စည်းတည်ဆောက်ပုံဆိုင်ရာ ခိုင်မာမှု၏ အရေးကြီးသော သဘောသဘာဝနှင့် တည်ဆောက်ပုံဆိုင်ရာ ချို့ယွင်းမှုများနှင့်ဆက်စပ်သော ဖြစ်နိုင်ခြေအန္တရာယ်များကို ဆွေးနွေးခြင်း။

Learning Outcome: Highlighting the importance of regular hull and structural inspections and timely repairs to ensure vessel safety.

 သင်္ဘောကိုယ်ထည် ဘေးကင်းစေရန်အတွက် ပုံမှန်ကိုယ်ထည်နှင့် ဖွဲ့စည်းတည်ဆောက်ပုံဆိုင်ရာ စစ်ဆေးခြင်းနှင့် အချိန်မီ ပြုပြင်ခြင်း၏ အရေးပါမှုကို မီးမောင်းထိုးပြခြင်း။

Case Study 4:

Crew Welfare and MLC Non-Compliance

Scenario: A cruise ship faced detention due to violations of the Maritime Labour Convention, including inadequate living conditions and excessive working hours for the crew.

အပျော်စီးသင်္ဘောတစ်စင်းသည် ပင်လယ်ရေကြောင်းအလုပ်သမားဆိုင်ရာ သဘောတူညီချက်ကို ချိုးဖောက်ခြင်းကြောင့် သင်္ဘောသားများအတွက် နေထိုင်မှုမလုံလောက်မှုနှင့် အလုပ်ချိန်လွန်ကဲမှုတို့အပါအဝင် ဖမ်းဆီးထိန်းသိမ်းခံခဲ့ရသည်။

Analysis: Examination of crew working hours, living conditions, and MLC compliance.

အမှုထမ်းအလုပ်ချိန်၊ နေထိုင်မှုအခြေအနေနှင့် MLC လိုက်နာမှုတို့ကို စစ်ဆေးခြင်း။

Learning Outcome: Understanding the MLC requirements and the importance of ensuring decent working and living conditions for crew welfare.

 MLC လိုအပ်ချက်များကို နားလည်ခြင်းနှင့် သင်္ဘောသားများ၏ သက်သာချောင်ချိရေးအတွက် လျောက်ပတ်သောအလုပ်နှင့် နေထိုင်မှုအခြေအနေများကို သေချာစေခြင်း၏ အရေးပါမှု။

Case Study 5:

Inadequate Navigation Safety Practices

Scenario: A cargo ship was detained after an inspection revealed inadequate navigation practices, including outdated nautical charts and a lack of proper voyage planning.

Analysis: Review of the ship’s navigation procedures and equipment.

Learning Outcome: Stressing the importance of proper voyage planning, the use of updated navigational aids, and adherence to safe navigation practices.

 

Lessons Learned from Detention Cases

Learning from detention cases in maritime operations offers insights into compliance failures and consequences

The importance of Regular Maintenance and Inspections

Adherence to International Regulations

Crew Training and Competency

Effective Safety Management Systems

Accurate Record Keeping

Proactive Communication and Reporting

Learning from Industry Best Practices