A Seminar for BS MoU Port State Control Officers (PSCOs) under the Black and Caspian Sea regions Project (BCSEA Project) was held from 22 to 26 January 2018 at the EMSA premises in Lisbon. It was attended by 15 participants responsible for Port State Control (PSC) from the Project’s beneficiary countries Georgia, Ukraine and Turkey.

The seminar was a very practical, interactive training event based on case scenarios and simulated inspections covering the different aspects of the PSC inspection – pre-boarding preparation, boarding, checking of ship’s and crew certificates, inspection of the bridge, deck and the engine room, identifying and recording ISM related deficiencies. The scenarios were developed in line with the BS MoU PSC procedures with the aim of contributing to harmonised PSC inspections in the ports of the BS MoU member authorities.

To assist further the BS MoU PSCOs to make the best use of EMSA tools in their work, detailed overviews of RuleCheck and of EMSA’s platform for distant learning packages (MaKCs) were made together with practical exercises with both systems to deepen the capacity of the PSCOs to carry out their daily work tasks.

The Black Sea Information System was presented by a guest speaker from the Bulgarian Maritime Administration who also conducted exercises with the participants logging into the System.

The Seminar proved to be an excellent theoretical and practical tool to expand the technical capacity of the BCSEA Project beneficiaries from the BS MoU on port State control. It served also as a good networking environment for the participants to exchange views on the issues tackled.