Ships which don't comply will be detained
FOR ANY readers discomfited by the poor state of some of the grey-bearded ships plying SA and neighbouring waters - and all the human life and pollution threats they can offer - July 1 might be a good day to diarise.
Because, from that date, according to Captain Brian Watts, (at date of talking, just about to physically move desk from chief director (shipping) at the Department of Transport (DoT), to provisional c.e.o. at the April 1 birth of the SA Maritime Safety Authority), operators of old, unsafe ships beware!
The ISM (International Ship Management) system will be applicable to all ships fitting the bulker, oil-tanker and passenger vessel categories.
These vessels will all have to carry ISM certificates of compliance, and the operator must have a certificate for his shore-side management service. Remaining ship categories will all be phased in by July, 2002.
As around the world, the SA DoT has issued an appropriate marine notice to the local industry; and class societies have informed their global operator listings.
A lot of management principles - on-board management; safety systems and on-board casualty investigation, are three - have now been applied to ship operating, said Watt. And most of them are common-sense.
The hope for the new system is that aged vessels (particularly bulkers and oil tankers of the now accident-prone; life threatening; pollution potential variety) will either be sorted out to ISM standards or sold for scrap.
First, Portnet will ask ships if they have a certificate, said Watt.
A further check will then be fitted into the normal control rounds of the DoT staff.
They will check, and - if they (the ships) don't have one - we have two main options, said Watt. Stop them loading cargo, and detain them until they can comply.
With luck, this threat alone will keep away the rogues.
But the main thrust of the regulations is to eventually have them off the ocean trades - if they can't manage themselves safely on the seven seas.
