Merchant Shipping (Certification of Deck Officers) Regulations, 1981

• Jurisdiction: Ireland
• Citation: IR SI 13/1981
• Year: 1981

S.I. No. 13 of 1981.
MERCHANT SHIPPING (CERTIFICATION OF DECK OFFICERS) REGULATIONS, 1981.
I, ALBERT REYNOLDS, Minister for Transport, in exercise of the powers conferred on me by sections 3 and 8 of the Merchant Shipping (Certification of Seamen) Act, 1979 (No. 37 of 1979), and the Tourism and Transport (Alteration of Name of Department and Title of Minister) Order, 1980 ( S.I. No. 11 of 1980 ) hereby make the following Regulations:—
PART I Preliminary and General
	1 Citation and commencement.	1. These Regulations may be cited as the Merchant Shipping (Certification of Deck Officers) Regulations, 1981 and shall come into operation on the 1st day of September, 1981.
	2 Interpretation.	2. (1) In these Regulations—
"the Act of 1894" means the Merchant shipping Act, 1894;
"the Act of 1979" means the Merchant Shipping (Certification of Seamen) Act, 1979 ;
"certificate of competency" means a certificate of competency as a deck officer granted in accordance with these Regulations;
"certificate of service (deck officer)" means a certificate of service (deck officer) granted in accordance with these Regulations;
"command endorsement" means a command endorsement endorsed on a certificate of competency by virtue of these Regulations;
"examination" means an examination for a certificate of competency conducted by an examiner appointed for that purpose by the Minister;
"fishing boat" has the same meaning as in section 370 of the Act of 1894;
"GRT" in relation to a ship, means its gross registered tonnage, the gross tonnage of a ship having alternative gross tonnages being taken to be the larger of those tonnages;
"location" includes any offshore installation, any other installation (whether floating or resting on the sea-bed or the subsoil thereof), or any location at sea defined by reference to its latitude and longitude;
"Marine notice" means a notice so described and issued by the Department of Transport;
"Minister" means the Minister for Transport;
"Offshore installation supply vessel" means a vessel which performs services (including the carriage of supplies or passengers, or supplies and passengers) in respect of an offshore installation;
"partially smooth waters" means, in relation to any period specified in the First Schedule to the Merchant Shipping (Life-Saving Appliances) Rules, 1967 ( S.I. No. 100 of 1967 ), the waters of any of the areas specified in column 3 in relation to the period, weather or ship;
"passenger ship" means a ship carrying more than 12 passengers, but does not include such a ship in respect of which there is or should be in force one of the following certificates—
( a ) Passenger Certificate Class IV, being a certificate for ships engaged only on voyages in partially smooth waters, or in smooth and partially smooth waters;
( b ) Passenger Certificate Class V, being a certificate for ships engaged only on voyages in smooth waters;
( c ) Passenger Certificate Class VI, being a certificate for ships engaged only on voyages with not more than 250 passengers on board, to sea, in smooth or in partially smooth waters, in all cases in fine weather and during restricted periods, in the course of which the ships are at no time more than 15 miles (exclusive of any smooth waters) from their point of departure or more than 3 miles from land;
"petroleum products" means the following substances produced directly or indirectly from crude oil—fuels, lubricants, bitumen, wax, industrial spirits and any wide-range substance, that is to say, a substance whose final boiling point at normal atmospheric pressure is more than 50°C higher than its initial boiling point;
"pleasure craft" means a vessel of less than 80 GRT primarily used for sport or recreation;
"proper officer" means an Irish Consul, a Superintendent of the Mercantile Marine Office or any officer in a port in the State exercising the functions of such a Superintendent;
"qualified deck officer" means an officer of the deck department who is qualified under Regulation 4 (2) of these Regulations;
"restricted period" means a period falling wholly within the following limits—
( a ) from the 1st day of April to the following 31st day of October, and
( b ) (i) in the case of ships fitted with navigation lights which conform to the collision regulations made under section 418 of the Act of 1894, between one hour before sunrise and one hour after sunset, and
(ii) in the case of all other ships, between sunrise and sunset;
"sail training ship" means a ship of 80 GRT or over, which is equipped to be propelled by sail (whether or not provided with a propulsion engine) and which carries to sea (in addition to the trained crew) persons under training or instruction;
"smooth waters" means waters other than the sea or partially smooth waters, and includes waters of any of the areas specified in the second column of the First Schedule to the Merchant Shipping (Life-Saving Appliances) Rules, 1967 ( S.I. No. 100 of 1967 );
"specified by the Minister" means specified in the Department of Transport Merchant Shipping publication entitled "Directions as to the Examination of Deck Officers under the Merchant Shipping Acts'';
"trading area" means an area specified in Schedule 2 to these Regulations;
"tug" means a vessel constructed solely for the purpose of providing external motive power for floating objects or vessels and normally used for that purpose.
(2) In these Regulations—
( a ) references to a certificate of a numbered class are references to a certificate of the class which bears that number as indicated in Regulation 4 (3) (a) of these Regulations;
( b ) references to a certificate with a command endorsement shall be construed in accordance with Regulations 7 and 8 of these Regulations.
	3 Application.	3. (1) These Regulations apply to all ships of the following descriptions, other than fishing boats and pleasure craft, which go to sea beyond the limits of smooth or partially smooth waters—
( a ) ships registered in the State which are—
(i) passengers ships, or
(ii) ships, other than passenger ships, but including tugs and sail training ships;
( b ) ships registered outside the State which carry passengers—
(i) between places in the State, or
(ii) on a voyage which begins and ends at the same place in the State and on which the ships call at no place outside the State.
(2) In respect of ships operating to, from or between locations in such closely defined limits as may be specified in a Marine Notice, the Minister may grant exemptions from all or any of the provisions of these Regulations (as may be specified in the exemption) for classes of cases or individual cases on such terms as he may so specify and may, subject to giving reasonable notice, alter or cancel any such exemptions.
PART II Certification of Deck Officers
	4 Manning of Ships.	4. (1) Every ship to which these Regulations apply shall carry such number of qualified deck officers as is required by Part III of these Regulations.
(2) For the purposes of these Regulations an officer shall be qualified if he is the holder for the time being of a certificate of competency issued under these Regulations, or of a certificate which is to be treated as equivalent to such a certificate by virtue of Regulation 5 of these Regulations, and, at the material time, any such certificate is in force in relation to the person named in it and is of a class appropriate to the deck officer's capacity in the ship.
Classes of Certificates.
(3) ( a ) Certificates of competency shall be issued, in accordance with these Regulations, of the following classes:
Certificate of Competency (Deck Officer) Class 1 (Master Mariner)
Certificate of Competency (Deck Officer) Class 2
Certificate of Competency (Deck Officer) Class 3
Certificate of Competency (Deck Officer) Class 4
Certificate of Competency (Deck Officer) Class 5
( b ) Command endorsements shall be issued, in accordance with these Regulations, as follows:
Master (Middle Trade) Endorsement
Master (Near Continental) Endorsement
Tugmaster Endorsement
Tugmaster (Near Continental) Endorsement.
(4) For the purpose of these Regulations a certificate of competency of a Class set out in the list in paragraph (3) (a) of this Regulation shall be treated as being a certificate of a higher class than a certificate of any class which is set out after it in that list.
(5) Notwithstanding paragraph (4) of this Regulation, a certificate of competency without a command endorsement shall not be treated as being a certificate of a higher class than a certificate of any class which is set out after it in the list in paragraph (3) (a) of this Regulation if the lower class certificate is endorsed with a command endorsement and a certificate of competency endorsed with a command endorsement shall not be treated as a certificate of a higher class than a certificate of competency set out before it in that list.
	5 Certificates equivalent to a Certificate of Competency under these Regulations.	5. (1) ( a ) the Minister may specify that the standard of competence to be attained by deck officers of any description may be the standard of competence required for the issue of a certificate of competency by an authority empowered in that behalf by the laws of another country and that a certificate issued by any such authority shall be treated as evidence of the attainment of a standard of competence equivalent to the standard required for the issue of a specified class of certificate under these Regulations.
( b ) Any certificate issued by any such authority of another country to any such deck officer which is expressed to remain in force for a definite period shall remain in force, unless renewed, only until the expiration of that period.
(2) A certificate of competency granted under section 93 or 414 of the Act of 1894 to which has been added by the...