(see Section 8 of Annex 3 of SDM Circular 24/2015)
The Company should ensure that, for its entire fleet, a ship to shore exercise is carried out involving one (1) ship (under Cyprus flag) or more if so wished, at least once every calendar year, with no more than eighteen (18) months between exercises.
Each year, a different ship (if one ship is chosen to conduct the exercise every year) must be selected when conducting the ISPS exercises.
Furthermore, the scenario of the exercise must be different each year as per the relevant provisions of the approved SSP and paragraph 8.9 of Part B of the ISPS Code.
Prior the conduct of any exercise, the DMS must be notified in writing by the CSO or the alternate CSO, at least three (3) working days in advance using the Reporting the Conduct of an ISPS Exercise form. All notifications must be transmitted to maritime.security@dms.gov.cy.
The involvement of the DMS at any security exercise will be limited to the testing of efficient communication with the CSO and or alternate CSO and the successful transmission in real mode of a Ship Security Alert (SSA) (if this is included in the exercise scenario), during normal working hours of the DMS. The DMS will confirm the reception of SSA provided that the activation in real mode was announced and requested prior to the conduct of the exercise.
Upon completion of every exercise, the CSO or alternate CSO must submit a brief evaluation report regarding the conduct of the exercise using the Reporting the evaluation of an ISPS Exercise form.
Exercises conducted with ships flying other than Cyprus Flag do not fall under the provisions of the present Circular as the DMS has no access to the ship security plans of the ships and cannot be involved in the process of establishing and confirming proper communication with the ship using the SSAS.
The SDM wishes to limit the documentation and the required information only to the two above-mentioned forms and will only request the submission of additional documents when deemed necessary.
Any internal communication, carried out between the ship and the shore based personnel of the company, is not necessary to be submitted or communicated to the Deputy Ministry.
If exercises are not communicated to DMS, these cases will be treated as failure of the ship and the company in question to comply with the provisions of this Circular and might result to an additional investigation by the DMS (i.e. additional shipboard verification may be requested to be carried out by the DMS or RSO or additional shore based verification may be requested to be conducted by either the DMS or the RO issuing the Document of Compliance of the company).
The records of exercises, including information to be submitted to the DMS, must be available for examination during shore-based verifications of the safety management system of the Company by the RO issuing the DoC of the Company as per the provisions of the ISM Code.
Finally, the CSO’s and / or alternate CSO’s are reminded that all findings and lessons must be communicated to the entire fleet of the company (if more than one ship under Cyprus flag exists in the fleet).