Launch of concentrated inspection campaing on structural safety and Load Lines

The 45 Maritime Authorities of the Paris and the Tokyo Memoranda on PortState Control will begin a joint concentrated inspection campaign with the purpose to ensure compliance

with structural safety and the Load Line Convention. This inspection campaign will be held for 3 months, ending on 30 November 2011.
The States party of the Viña del Mar Agreement, the Indian Ocean MOU, the Mediterranean MOU and the Black Sea MOU will follow the same routine during the campaign. The background for this CIC is that, as an average for the last 8 years, deficiencies related to structural safety and load lines account, for 15% of the total number of deficiencies.
Furthermore, structural safety for ship types other than bulk carrier and compliance with the Load Line Convention in general have never been addressed with the special attention typical for a CIC. During this campaign Port State Control Officers (PSCOs) will verify applicable documents and aspects as loading instruments, the protection of hatch openings,the vessel’s hull, bulkheads and deck and other features of the Load Line Convention and structural integrity in more detail.
For this purpose PSCOs will be guided by a questionnaire listing a number of items to be covered during this concentrated inspection. The questionnaires will be published on the websites of Paris MoU and Tokyo MoU in the beginning of August. When deficiencies are found, actions by the port State may vary from recording a deficiency and instructing the master to rectify within a certain period to detention of the ship until deficiencies have been rectified.
In case of detention, publication in the monthly list of detentions available on the Paris MoU and Tokyo MoU web pages will take place. The results of the campaign will be analysed and findings will be presented to the governing bodies of the MoUs’ for submission to the IMO.
Source: Paris MoU