# International Port of Refuge requirements



## woodend (Nov 23, 2009)

I have two questions which I will ask our learned members under separate threads as they are not related:

1. Where do I find a good description of the up to date requirements for claiming 'International Port of Refuge'? Does every port make up its own mind based on purely on 'health and safety issues'? I retired from the 'decision making position' in 2000 and times seem to have changed a great deal in this regard. There have been several instances recently where ships have been refused this.


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## chadburn (Jun 2, 2008)

The word missing in today's World, Health&Safety aside appears to be Commercial issue's.


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## Varley (Oct 1, 2006)

Everything I have seen about Flaminia so far suggest that it is every nimby for himself.

It may be that there would have been less pass the parcel if the incident had been in territorial waters (or, let us fervently hope, if lives were still at stake).

As I understand it:

Litoral state appoints "on-scene incident commander" and after that very considerably powers (in the UK under the auspices of either the Secretary of State's representative or Queen's Harbour Master depending on jurisdiction) are excercised as necessary to save life, salvage, prevent pollution and remove wreckage. When I say 'considerable power', a medieval Monarch would be hard pressed to match them.

An excellent example of how this worked well was Napoli (commanded by the then SOSRep himself) - the man of that moment has now retired but might be prevailed upon to give a very fine public presentation on the incident (and did for our RINA/IMarEST branch not so long ago).

An excellent example of how the Spanish equivalent did his absolute best to see the vessel wrecked and her crew murdered was Prestige. I doubt there is a presentation on this incident fit for public airing.

Of course Flag, Class, Underwriters and Owners are involved along the way with jurisdiction being returned to them should there still be a tradable vessel at the end of the incident.

If you Google "SOLAS one scene incident Commander" you will see a range of national explanations including the USA's whole manual on policy in their jurisdiction. If there is an IMO function then I think it is only one of 'pointing' to national SAR authorities.

See also News and views Forum Flaminia thread - includes statement from present SOSREP mentioning, but not identifying, IMO and European Union obligations.


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