Marine Engineering, Navigation and Maritime Law Developments
In the 1950s, the concept of an universal identification document was brought up before the ILO and accordingly the International Labour Organisation (ILO) put forward the ILO Convention C108 on the seafarers Identity Document. India is a signatory to this convention and accordingly issues a Continuous Discharge Certificate (CDC) – cum – Seafarers Identity Document to its seafarers.
Continue reading “What is the Seafarer Identity Document?”
In the backdrop of the JWC Marine Academy from Bhubaneshwar, Odisha in India facing a scrutiny into what is being said as deficiencies in training for the MCA approved STCW short courses, a list of seafaring officers who completed their courses from this institute during the time period in question had been contacted via email and a written letter and asked to complete an online assessment test within the next 12 months.
The concerned officers have been asked to undertake their assessment during their leave and not to do this assessment during active watchkeeping duties or during controlled rest periods.
For the list of CoCs of the affected seafarers click here.
The seafarers will not have to pay for this assessment and those who clear this test will be issued with a new certificate clearing the validity of their CoC.
For those that do not clear the assessment, some have been asked to redo the course. The question being raised by many of the affected seafarers now is whether JWC Marine Academy will refund the course fees for them. While this is a setback, it also calls into question the standard of training being provided by the myriad institutes that have sprung up and how the quality is being monitored over time. Some of the institutes do provide quality training and it is a sad fact that instances like this will put all institutes under scrutiny.
Over the last couple of day an image of a notification purportedly by the Mercantile Marine Department, India made the rounds on Whatsapp titled ‘Age Limitation in Merchant Ships’, wherein it was mentioned that most of the injuries/accidents/deaths onboard happened to seafarers above the age of 50 yrs and as such there would be a block on seafarers above the age of 50 yrs from sailing with effect from 20.02.2018. Continue reading “Clarification by MMD regarding FAKE Age Limitation letter”
Barely had the news of the Iranian tanker Sanchi being ablaze for a week, and then sinking after being rocked by an explosion, died down, then reports come in of 3 different incidents of fires onboard vessels within the last 30 hours in Brazil, UK and India. Continue reading “30 hrs, 3 fires onboard in Brazil, UK and India”
Maritime Outlook 