Minimum Safe Manning Document
The minimum safe manning document required by SOLAS V/14.2: who issues it, what it records and how it relates to STCW watchkeeping.
The minimum safe manning document is the certificate that SOLAS regulation V/14.2 requires every ship to which chapter I applies to carry, issued by the flag Administration as evidence of the minimum safe manning it considers necessary. It sits beside the general duty in V/14.1 that every ship be sufficiently and efficiently manned from the point of view of safety of life at sea.
The document fixes numbers and grades, not watch composition. The look-out and watchkeeping arrangements are set by the STCW Code, section A-VIII/2, and hours of rest by A-VIII/1. The full article will cover the IMO principles of minimum safe manning, how Administrations assess a ship’s manning, and how port State control checks the document against the crew list. See SOLAS Chapter V and STCW Chapter VIII .