Entry & progression
Your certificate of competency says what you may do. The vessel's certificates say what she may do. A master who knows only the first half of that sentence will eventually sail an uncertificated ship, and will find that his own ticket was the least of the problems.
Australia runs two legal universes — know which one you are in
| Domestic | International | |
|---|---|---|
| Act | Marine Safety (Domestic Commercial Vessel) National Law Act 2012 | Navigation Act 2012 |
| Vessels | Domestic commercial vessels (DCVs) | Regulated Australian vessels |
| Certification instrument | Marine Order 505 | Marine Orders 70, 71, 72, 74 |
| Crew scoped by | Length in metres and kilowatts | Gross tonnage (deck) / kilowatts (engineering) |
| STCW? | No | Yes |
MO74 — and therefore your certificate — lives entirely in the right-hand column. It is an STCW instrument, made under the Navigation Act, and it applies to a regulated Australian vessel that is a yacht. Conflating the two universes is the single easiest way to get Australian maritime law wrong, and people do it constantly.
The certificates the vessel carries
The exact set depends on her flag, her tonnage, her trade and her class. Broadly you are looking for evidence that the hull and machinery have been surveyed, that the safety equipment has been inspected, that the radio installation is certificated, that her pollution prevention arrangements have been approved, that her load line has been assigned, and that her tonnage has been measured.
CAUTION — Which certificates YOUR yacht must carry is not in this course's source base The statutory certificate set for a particular yacht turns on her flag, her tonnage, her trade and the conventions her flag applies to her. We are not going to list them here and pretend the list is authoritative. Get it from your flag administration, your classification society and your DOC holder — and get it in writing. Then check every expiry date yourself, on your first day aboard, and diary them.
The master's actual job with the folder
- Know what is aboard. Physically. A certificate that exists in the office and not in the folder does not exist at a port state inspection.
- Know every expiry date, and every survey window. Annual, intermediate, renewal. Class surveys have windows, and windows close.
- Know the conditions of assignment. A load line certificate is conditional on the closing appliances, guard rails, freeing ports and ventilators that were there on survey day. Change them and you may have invalidated it.
- Never sail on an expired certificate. Not for one day. Not to reposition. Not because the surveyor is coming on Tuesday.
Port state control
A PSC officer boards, looks at the paperwork, and then goes to see whether the paperwork is true. Clear deficiencies get rectified. Serious ones get the vessel detained. The best defence is not charm; it is a vessel whose certificates match her condition, and a master who can produce any document within two minutes.
Note where your own certificate sits in all this. A Certificate of Recognition issued against an AMSA yacht CoC is valid only for service on Australian registered vessels that meet MO74's definition of yacht. Your ticket travels less freely than you do. Check, before you accept the job, that the certificate you hold is one the vessel's flag will accept for the position you are being offered.