The Maritime and Coast Guard Agency releases guidance for small commercial vessels

Published on: 06 May 2021

The Maritime and Coast Guard Agency (MCA) has released updates to the marine guidance notes (MGN) 600. This MGN contains guidance on the arrangements in place for inspection for compliance with the Maritime Labour Convention (MLC), 2006 for small commercial vessels.

Amendment 1 includes additional clarification in paragraph 3.6 relating to the statement to be added to the small commercial vessel (SCV) certificate.

Inspection for compliance with the MLC is not required for vessels operating exclusively on domestic voyages and within 60 miles of a UK safe haven in the United Kingdom. However, such vessels are required to comply with the relevant standards. Annexe 1 to this Notice may be used as a checklist of the standards which apply.

Any voyage to or from a port outside the UK is not a domestic voyage.

Substantially equivalent crew accommodation standards are contained in MGN 601(M) for vessels under 200 gross tonnage (GT), and MGN 602(M) for vessels between 200GT and 500GT.

Amendment 2 introduces editorial changes for consistency with other documents. There are no changes in substance.

MGN 600 can be downloaded from the gov.uk website here.

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