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GENERAL SURVEY
definitions of them, and, if so, (2) should these definitions be as follows :—
(a) Master or skipper
Any person having command
or charge of a vessel;
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(h) Navigating officer in charge of a watch Any person, not being a pilot, who is navigating a ship;
(c) Chief engineer
Any person permanently respon- sible for the engine-room staff; (d) Engineer officer in charge of a watch
person who is running a ship's engines?
——
Any
1. Except for the German Government, which doubts whether definitions are really indispensable but which, if they are considered necessary, is prepared to accept those contained in the English and French versions of the Questionnaire, the Governments definitely consider it desirable that the forms of employment for which certificates of competency are to be required should be defined in the Draft Convention. As the French Govern- ment indicates, without such definitions the expressions referred to above, especially those containing the word officer might lead to some ambiguity, in view of certain differences in terminology used in different countries1. Further, as this Government observes, the essential object of the Draft Convention is to ensure, not that persons holding a certain rank have all the compe- tency required for whatever responsibilities go with such rank, but that certain duties of primary importance for the sailing of the ship, i.e. certain duties whether on deck or in the engine-room in respect of the con- trolling of the ship's movements, should not be allowed to be performed by persons not possessing a certain minimum standard of competency for their safe and efficient performance, irrespective of whether such persons actually have the rank of officer or not or of any other qualifications they may have to possess in order
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1 As an example of such differences of terminology it may be noted that Rumania proposes that the expression "engineer officer in charge of a watch" should be changed for “engineer in charge of a watch which is the expression used in Rumania.
QUESTION 2
to obtain such a rank. This, it may be added, was the basis on which the definitions put in the Questionnaire were framed at the Thirteenth Session of the Conference, as the definitions themselves show. Thus, the Question- naire asked, for example, whether for the purpose of the Draft Convention a navigating officer in charge of a watch should be defined as any person (not, any officer) who is navigating a ship A person allowed to perform the duties mentioned in the definition would thus be required by the Draft Convention to be certificated for those duties, whether he actually had the rank of an officer or not.
CC
2. The four definitions of the Questionnaire, as cited above, have been approved as they stand by the As there are, great majority of the Governments. however, observations on some of them contained in certain replies, they require to be considered individually.
(a) Master or skipper. The definition here, viz. any person having command or charge of a vessel" is approved in all the replies.
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៩៩
The
(b) Navigating officer in charge of a watch, definition of the Questionnaire any person, not being a pilot, who is navigating a ship" is accepted by the majority of the Governments without special comment. The observations contained in the other replies are considered below.
(i) The Italian Government proposes a formula which would include pilots in the definition.
The necessity for a certain minimum of professional capacity on the part of pilots will hardly be disputed, even though such capacity largely depends on purely local knowledge, and their inclusion in the Draft Convention would no doubt be in accordance with the objects it has in view. It would appear doubtful, however, whether, in view of their special position on board, they could be classified as navigating officers in charge of a watch. In any case, the question of pilots should perhaps be left for the examination of the Conference itself, which will also have to consider whether they are covered by the wording of the item on the Agenda.
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