Is it mandatory for oil tankers above 15 year old to undergo CAP surveys every 2.5 years?
Hi @Paraschos.Liadis ,
Interesting question! CAP Certificates (i.e. both Hull and Cargo/Machinery) do not have an expiration date. As CAP is rather a commercial (driven by the OM mainly) than class requirement the relevant certificates do not fall under class certificates and hence there is no due date or expiration date. In a sense a ship owner/technical manager can easily carry out CAP survey only once in a vessel’s lifetime.
However, as indicated above, since CAP is a commercial requirement, the vetting departments of oil majors might have their own interpretation of the CAP certificates validity. In that respect, there have been cases were charterers’ have tried to place vessel’s off-hire, because the CAP Machinery and Cargo certificate was “overdue” for a month. Unfortunately, an OM vetting department can allegedly consider the CAP “overdue” and reject the vessel for any other reason and ultimately claim that CAP is “overdue” and hence the rejection. Quite often, as the CAP is rather a demanding survey and usually coincides with vessel’s docking (as the associated repairs might be extensive, mainly on the hull part), hence the industry considers that the CAP should be done every 2.5 years.
In that respect, in order to avoid any “unfair” rejections I would suggest the CAP survey to be done every 2.5 years and the issue date (especially for the MC CAP, which could be done before docking) to be at least the last date of the intermediate/special survey window.
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@AndreasTravlos thank you for the useful insight!