The Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA) has fined a ‘hire and drive’ operator $3,756 for chartering a domestic commercial vessel (DCV) without the required certification.
The vessel was chartered out as a class 2 (non-passenger) vessel, with a skipper, when it only held certification as a class 4 (hire and drive) vessel.
The operator advertised the vessel ‘for hire’ through an online third-party agency, which exclusively advertises class 1 (passenger) and class 2 vessels.
All vessels that are required to hold a certificate of survey must comply with survey requirements for the relevant service category. Unless otherwise exempted, vessels must also carry a certificate of operation that addresses the safety management of the operations that they are undertaking.
Under the National Law and the National Standards for Commercial Vessels, class 1 and 2 vessels are required to be operated by appropriately qualified crew. These vessels also have higher design, build and safety equipment standards to ensure they are safe for carrying passengers, and will handle the rigours of chartering where passengers have an expectation that they will be in safe hands.
Class 4 certification allows operators to hire vessels out to the public for leisure activities where the hirer drives the vessel themselves. As for any recreational vessel owner, the hirer of a class 4 vessel accepts considerable responsibility for their own safety as the driver of the vessel.
By operating a class 4 vessel as a class 2 vessel, the vessel operator has breached the conditions of the certificate of survey and the certificate of operation. They have operated the vessel for charter without the appropriate crew complement, without a safety management system that addresses the passenger charter operations, and on a vessel that was not approved against the required standards.
This is just one of many instances showing the importance that your Certificate is Survey is reflective of your business and its operation restrictions.
Operators breaching the conditions of their certificate of survey can not only incur a huge fine, and business being closed down – it compromises the safety of those onboard your vessel/s.
AMSA will take strong action again skippers and operators that are dishonest.
Generally, vessels are required to have a certificate of survey to operate as a commercial vessel in Australia.
Surveys check that your domestic commercial vessel is compliant with Australian laws and standards.
If your operations have changed in any way since your last survey, then please contact us for further information or you can click here for more from AMSA.
From July 2018, new survey requirements for domestic commercial vessels apply. This includes changes to marine order 503 to apply the new periodic survey requirements to all vessels required to be in survey—existing, transitional and new vessels.
Survey’s do require to be renewed – and the renewal frequency varies depending whether your vessels are category high, medium or low. Please see the table below and ensure that your Certificate of Survey has been renewed accordingly:
If you require clarification on any of the above, please feel free to contact our office on (07) 4242 1412.
