From July 10 to August 9, 2023, the Paris Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on Port State Management performed a Centered Inspection Marketing campaign on pilot switch preparations.
The marketing campaign was a part of a trial of another method to the common Concentrated Inspection Campaigns by conducting a number of quick, focused inspection campaigns known as Centered Inspection Campaigns. Within the coming months extra such campaigns are scheduled. After completion of the trials, the outcomes, ease of implementation and effectiveness can be assessed and, on this foundation, additional choices can be made on inspection campaigns and their format. A part of the trial additionally entails assessing with whether or not or to not pre-announce the inspection marketing campaign.
The primary Centered Inspection Marketing campaign was carried out on pilot switch preparations. This topic was chosen as a number of incidents throughout pilot switch, inside the Paris MoU area and past, occurred which warranted finishing up this marketing campaign. More often than not pilot transfers are carried out safely, however the potential penalties of an individual falling from a ladder may be deadly, and the high-risk embarkation and disembarkation of the pilot by ladder requires fixed administration and supervision.
The aim of the marketing campaign was to confirm whether or not the preparations on board the ships inspected had been fulfilling the SOLAS necessities. 1,262 Port State Management inspections had been carried out, throughout which 100 ships had been discovered with a number of deficiencies. The inspections discovered that:
• when requested by Port State Management Officers to exhibit, pilot ladders weren’t correctly rigged to permit pilots to embark and disembark safely. On a number of events it was discovered that the burden of the ladder was not taken by its strongest level however, for instance, by the steps;
• pilot ladders had been broken and/or not correctly maintained;
• identification of ladders and document conserving of surveys and repairs had been lacking. Because the switch through an embarkation ladder is a high-risk operation, flag States, ship administration corporations and ship crews ought to pay attention to the related dangers and pilot switch preparations ought to be rigged in step with the SOLAS necessities.
Actions by the port State might differ from recording a deficiency and instructing the grasp to rectify it inside a sure time frame to detaining the ship till the intense deficiencies have been rectified. Within the case of detention, publication within the month-to-month detention lists of the Paris MoU web site will happen.
