Entry & progression
Three parties have a claim on your vessel: the flag state that certificated her, the port state that lets her in, and the coastal state whose water she is in. Knowing which is which saves an enormous amount of trouble.
What SOLAS covers
- Chapter II-1 — construction: subdivision, stability, machinery, electrical.
- Chapter II-2 — fire protection, detection and extinction.
- Chapter III — life-saving appliances and arrangements.
- Chapter IV — radiocommunications (GMDSS).
- Chapter V — safety of navigation: passage planning, voyage data recording, the master's obligation to render assistance, the master's discretion.
- Chapter IX — management for the safe operation of ships: this is where the ISM Code is made mandatory.
- Chapter XI-2 — special measures to enhance maritime security: this is where the ISPS Code is made mandatory.
Chapter V is the one a master lives inside. It is where passage planning stops being good practice and becomes a requirement, and it is where the obligation to proceed to the assistance of persons in distress at sea is written down.
Flag state
The flag state is the vessel's nationality. It issues the certificates, sets the minimum safe manning, accepts or refuses your certificates of competency, and investigates casualties. In practice most of its work is delegated to a recognised organisation — a classification society acting on the flag's behalf.
Know your flag. Know who audits for it. Know its interpretation of the codes your vessel is built to, because flags differ, and "the surveyor said it was fine" is not a defence if the surveyor was acting for a different flag.
Port state control
A port state may inspect a foreign vessel in its ports to verify that she meets the requirements of the international conventions. That is the whole doctrine. It exists because flag states vary in rigour and a port state that took a flag's word for everything would eventually receive a substandard ship.
AMSA is Australia's port state control authority. Port state control regimes operate regionally through memoranda of understanding, they target vessels using risk profiles, and a serious deficiency can result in detention — the vessel does not sail until it is rectified.
TIP — How PSC inspections are actually failed Rarely by a hull defect. Overwhelmingly by the boring things: fire doors wedged open, emergency lighting that does not light, out-of-date charts and publications, a life raft past its service date, hours-of-rest records that do not reconcile with the deck log, crew who cannot find the muster list, a drill that is logged but never happened.
None of that is expensive to fix. All of it is expensive to be caught with.
The first ten minutes
When a PSC officer steps aboard, they form a view very quickly. The vessel that is clean, the crew that knows where things are, the certificates that are in a folder in order, the master who is calm and present — that vessel gets a different inspection to the one where nobody can find the DoC.
Receiving a PSC inspection
- Meet the officer yourself. Do not send the mate.
- Produce the certificates, unasked, in order.
- Answer what is asked. Do not volunteer, do not embellish, do not guess.
- If something is deficient, say so, and say what you have already done about it.
- Read the report before you sign it. Sign it. Send it to the DPA the same day.
You cannot make a bad ship pass. You can very easily make a good ship fail.