Passing this part of the oral is not about reciting where the ISM Code sits in the SMS index — it is about showing the ship can prove, on demand, that the system it claims to run is the system actually being run.
Every SMS on every ship eventually contains the same skeleton, because the Code lays it out: a safety and environmental policy, defined responsibility and authority, a Designated Person Ashore, resources and personnel, plans for shipboard operations, emergency preparedness, reporting of non-conformities and accidents, maintenance of the ship and equipment, documentation, and — closing the loop — company verification, review and evaluation. Candidates can usually name most of these. What catches people out is treating them as a list of headings to file paperwork under, rather than as a loop that is supposed to feed back on itself.
The element most often missing in practice is the review. A policy that is never re-read against what actually happened, procedures that are never adjusted after a near miss, an accident report that goes into a file and nowhere else — these are a management system running open-loop. The practical test an auditor or examiner applies is simple: when something went wrong, did the system change, or did only the paperwork about it change?
A finding that repeats across audits, with different crew each time, is not evidence that the crew keeps failing — it is evidence that the procedure, the training, or the resourcing behind it was never actually fixed. Answer it as a system question, because that is what it is.
The Document of Compliance is issued to the company, on the strength of an audit of its shore-based management system; a copy of it is kept aboard every ship the company operates, but the ship does not hold the original. The Safety Management Certificate is issued to the ship, on the strength of a verification that the ship is operating in accordance with the approved SMS and that the company's DOC actually covers this type of ship. Losing that distinction in an oral answer — and it happens constantly — is one of the fastest ways to lose marks on this paper.
Both certificates run for a maximum of five years: the DOC subject to an annual verification, the SMC subject to at least one intermediate verification carried out between the second and third anniversary of issue. Interim versions exist so that a new company, or a ship newly joining a fleet, is never trading without cover while the full audit cycle catches up — an Interim DOC for up to 12 months, an Interim SMC for up to 6 months.
The International Ship Security Certificate sits alongside these but follows a different chain: it is issued once the ship's security plan has been approved and a verification carried out, and its validity is tied to that approved plan being kept current, not to the ISPS level in force on any given day.
The three security levels — normal, heightened, exceptional — describe the general threat environment a ship or port facility is operating in, and each one has a pre-agreed set of measures attached to it in the approved plan. What candidates get wrong is not the numbering; it is the authority. The level is set by a Contracting Government — the ship's Administration for the ship, the relevant authority for a port facility — and passed down through the recognised security channel. It is never a decision the ship, the Master, or the Company makes unilaterally, and a verbal instruction from a facility contact is not, by itself, that channel.
The Ship Security Plan is approved on that basis and treated as confidential: it is written so that someone intending harm cannot read it and plan around it, which means it is not shown to a facility, an agent, a charterer, or an insurer as proof of compliance, whatever the reason given. The Ship Security Officer runs the plan day to day and reports to the Company Security Officer ashore, who is the ship's link to the Administration and the one place both external requests and external instructions should be verified through.
A higher level changes what the crew does; it never changes who decides to move to it, and it never justifies opening the plan to someone outside the ship's own security chain.
The Maritime Labour Convention is organised into five titles, and it helps to know roughly what each one is for rather than just that there are five: minimum requirements for seafarers to work on a ship (age, certification, recruitment); conditions of employment (agreements, wages, hours of work and rest, repatriation); accommodation, recreational facilities and food and catering; health protection, medical care, welfare and social security; and compliance and enforcement — the machinery of flag and port State inspection and the on-board complaint procedure that gives the other four titles teeth.
The Declaration of Maritime Labour Compliance is the document that turns those titles into something inspectable on a particular ship. Part I, drawn up by the flag Administration, lists the national requirements implementing the Convention and points to where evidence of each is kept. Part II, drawn up by the shipowner, sets out the measures the company actually takes to meet each of those requirements — rest hour recording systems, catering arrangements, the on-board complaint procedure — and it is Part II an inspector reads first, because it says what should be found aboard.
MLC compliance is inspected in much the same spirit as an ISM audit: an inspector is not there to re-read the Convention, they are there to see whether the ship's own declared measures are actually being followed, with records to show it.
A PSC inspection does not start with a checklist; it starts with an impression. The officer looks at the certificates on file, the apparent condition and cleanliness of the ship, and how the crew respond to routine questions, before deciding whether to go further. That initial look is a genuine professional judgement, and it is why a ship that looks and sounds well run buys itself real credibility before a single compartment is opened.
Moving beyond that initial look requires clear grounds — an expired or missing certificate, visibly poor condition, a pattern of prior deficiencies, or a credible complaint from crew or a third party. Clear grounds justify a more detailed inspection, not an automatic detention; what is found during that inspection is what decides the outcome. Deficiencies are recorded and categorised by nature, and where one of them represents a serious threat to the safety of the ship, the crew, or the environment, the ship is detained until it is rectified, not merely noted for the next port.
The ship's defence in a PSC inspection is never the argument it makes on the day — it is the record trail that already exists. Contemporaneous, honest entries, however imperfect, carry weight; entries that look tidied up after the fact carry the opposite.
The Oil Record Book, Garbage Record Book, Ballast Water Record Book and the official log books exist for the same reason the SMS does: to let someone who was not there reconstruct what happened and when, with enough confidence to rely on it. That only works if each entry is made at or near the time of the event it describes, signed by the person responsible, and left uncorrected in the sense of never being reworked to read better in hindsight — genuine corrections are made as a dated addition, not by altering what was already written.
Agents and charterers sit outside that internal evidence chain, and it is worth being deliberate about what crosses it. They legitimately need operational information — ETA, berth readiness, certificate validity for a vetting inspection, notice of anything affecting the vessel's readiness to perform — and the Master or the Company, not an individual officer under pressure, is the right source for anything with commercial consequences, such as confirming a detention or a delay. What should not cross that line is internal audit material, the security plan, or a record altered to suit a commercial deadline: a detention is expensive, but a falsified record discovered afterwards is far more expensive, and it is the ship's own crew who end up explaining it.
Both scenarios below are written the way the oral examiner will actually put them to you: a situation, pressure to take the easy route, and a requirement to state not just what the rule is but what you would actually do next.
You are Chief Mate on a bulk carrier alongside in a foreign port. A port State control officer reviewing the Oil Record Book Part I stops at an entry describing a bilge water transfer said to have taken place 3 days ago — the ink and handwriting match today's entries exactly, and the officer asks you to explain. While she waits, she also notices that a non-conformity raised at last year's internal audit — "lifeboat launching drill not carried out" — was marked closed on paper within the week, yet this year's drill log still shows no completed launch. The Master, watching the clock on a tide that closes in 6 hours, tells you to just date the ORB entry back to the day of the transfer and let the vessel sail.
ORB entry for a bilge transfer 3 days ago appears to have been written today Internal audit NC on the lifeboat drill was closed on paper last year with no drill evidence since Master wants the ORB entry re-dated to the original transfer date Vessel due to sail in 6 hours
Two separate problems are sitting on the same clipboard.
Need separating before either is answered. One is a record that looks written after the fact; the other is a non-conformity that was declared closed without the corrective action actually happening.
On the record.
An entry made today about an event 3 days ago is not itself an offence — a late entry, explained and dated as written, is an ordinary deficiency. Re-dating it to look contemporaneous is a different act: it converts an honest gap into a falsified official record, which PSC treats far more seriously and will normally hold the ship for.
On the drill.
The same non-conformity reappearing after being signed off as closed means the corrective action never reached the root cause — most likely a procedure or a training gap that outlives any one crew change. That makes it a major non-conformity: it needs the Company's attention, not another line in the drill log.
The two findings point to the same response: put the truth on paper and escalate.
Rather than paper over the gap.
AnswerI will not re-date the entry. I write it now, dated today, noting the transfer date and the reason for the delay in the remarks; I report both findings to the DPA today, including the recurring drill non-conformity, and open a corrective action against the root cause, not just the paperwork; and I accept that the ship may be held until the PSC officer is satisfied the records and the corrective action are genuine — that costs less than a detention for a falsified record.
The trap: treating the Master's request as a shortcut that only affects one line in a logbook, when re-dating it is the one act most likely to turn a manageable deficiency into a detention.
You are Chief Mate and Ship Security Officer on a container ship loading at a port where, an hour ago, a security incident was reported at a nearby terminal. The Port Facility Security Officer telephones to say the facility is now "treating this as Level 2" and asks you to fax over your ship security plan so his office can check your measures match. Ten minutes later the ship's agent forwards a message from the charterers: their insurers want a copy of the plan too, "to justify the war-risk premium", and the charterers are asking whether the ship will need extra security time added to the laycan. The Master is ashore at the port authority and cannot be reached for 20 minutes.
PFSO verbally declares the facility is at Level 2 following a nearby incident PFSO requests a copy of the ship security plan Charterers, via the agent, separately request the plan for their insurers Master ashore and unreachable for 20 minutes
The security level the ship operates at is set by the ship's own Administration.
Or accepted from the port's Contracting Government through the recognised channel — not simply announced by a facility contact on the phone, however credible the reason sounds.
That does not mean doing nothing for 20 minutes.
As SSO I can and should put in place the precautionary measures the ship's own plan allows at my discretion — restricting access points, logging visitors and deliveries more closely, increasing deck rounds — while I confirm the instruction through the proper route.
On the plan itself.
The approved ship security plan is confidential by design; it is written to keep an attacker from reading it, not to reassure a facility, an insurer, or a charterer. Handing over extracts, however well-intentioned the request, is a breach of that confidentiality regardless of who is asking or why.
The right channel for both requests is the same: contact the CSO ashore.
Who confirms the level through the recognised authority and who alone is positioned to decide what, if anything, is shared outside the ship — typically no more than confirmation that the ISSC is valid and the ship is operating appropriately for the level in force.
AnswerI acknowledge the PFSO's report, but I tell him the ship's declared security level will be confirmed through the Company Security Officer and the Administration, not changed on a phone call; I implement the precautionary measures available to me now; I decline to send the plan to either the PFSO or the charterers' insurers, and refer both requests to the CSO; and I tell the agent that any laycan or timing question is a commercial matter for the Master and charterers once the security position is confirmed.
The trap: assuming that because the request sounds reasonable — a facility checking compliance, an insurer wanting evidence — sharing the plan is a harmless courtesy rather than a breach of the one document that most needs to stay confidential.
DOC — company / SMC — shipSame audit system, two different certificate holdersDOC / SMC validityMaximum 5 years; DOC needs annual verification, SMC an intermediate oneInterim DOC / SMC12 months / 6 months — bridges a new company or new ship into full certificationISPS levels 1 / 2 / 3Normal / heightened / exceptional — set by the Contracting Government, not the shipSSPApproved and confidential; the SSO on board reports to the CSO ashoreMLC Titles 1–5Minimum requirements, employment conditions, accommodation & food, health & welfare, complianceDMLC Part I / Part IIFlag's requirements / owner's measures for meeting themPSC triggerClear grounds — expired certificate, poor condition, prior deficiencies, a credible complaintNon-conformity vs major NCMajor = serious threat to safety or environment, needs immediate corrective actionRecordsORB, GRB, BWRB, official log book — contemporaneous, signed, never backdated