Annotation on amendments to Turkish port regulations
13 November, 2019
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Some major amendments on Turkish Port Regulation took place in the Official Gazette dated 24th September, 2019. By this article, Mehmet Dogu, Interlegal partner from Turkey (Dogu Law Firm) draws attention of viewers to the important points of amendments.
1) Obligation to Notify Changes About Estimated Time of Arrival:
The 12 hours time limit on notifying the Harbour Master’s Office about the estimated time of arrival was amended with this new regulation. By the amendment, the time of the notification on the estimated time of arrival was increased to 24 hours prior to the port entry. Henceforth, Turkish Port Regulation is more indulgent to delayed arrivals which is an ease for the vessel and related parties.
2) Amendments on Mandatory Salvage:
Before the subject amendments were introduced to Turkish legislation, Harbour Master’s Office was authorized to commence salvage operations to the vessels which are facing the perils of “drifting, grounding, collision and sinking” unless the vessels interested parties did not take any action within 72 hours.
Current regulation dictates if any of these situations have potential to jeopardize any life, navigational safety, any property or the environment, the officials authorized to initiate the salvage operations immediately. It is accurate to state here that the law maker vested Harbour Master’s Office with a great discretion on such occasions that if Harbour Master’s Office considers any of above risks may arise, salvage operation will be initiated regardless the requests of the vessel interests.
3) New Regulations on Reporting Incidents:
By new amendments, marine pollution, major machinery failures that entails a risk to navigational safety and crimes committed on-board must be immediately reported by vessels/offshore interests to Harbour Master’s Office via VHF or other relevant means of communication. Considering the previous legislations which were permitting parties to report incidents within 3 hours, this amendment forces the vessel interests to co-operate or at least inform the authorities at instant.
Also it is vital to emphasize that after the immediate reporting made as above, a written incident report should be presented by vessel and offshore facilities within the first 24 hours after the incident.
