Maritime Captaincies celebrate their 30th anniversary

General Management of the Merchant Marine, from the Transports and Sustainable Mobility Ministry, is celebrating its birthday, since today, August 1st, it’s the 30th anniversary of entry into force of the Royal Decree that fixed the structure and competences of the Maritime Captaincies, symbol of the descentralization of maritime Administration in Spain and Europe.

This anniversary is celebrated right in the eves of the entry into activity of an electronic platform that will agilize bureaucratic office processes and merchant, fishing, recreational and interior transport vessels’s roles and also the enrollment and disenrollment of crews with the objective of this procedures being in person, to be more efficient for the users and to reduce the work load of the Maritime Captaincies

In these 30 years, according to the directorate general of the Marine Merchant,  Ana  Núñez Velasco, of Maritime Captaincies “they have been configured as an impeccable model of territorial management and services decentralization and also as an example of versatility, facing challenges such as the pandemic, in which international maritime commerce was guaranteed.”

Nuñez has recognized the work carried out in fight against marine pollution, originary from vessels that, luckily, has been considerably reduced in the last decades, and in saving human lives, with the support of services lent by Maritime Rescue, also depending on the Directorate General of the Marine Merchant. “The Maritime Captaincies show every day with their labor that prevention and surveillance are the best way to avoid tragedies at sea”, she added.

In addition, she had indicated that the Captancies will be essential in the actions led forward decarbonization and modernization of the Spanish maritime field that suggest the 2025-2050 Spanish Maritime Strategy, recently approved. 

Spain has 30 Maritime Captaincies and 78 maritime districts with competences regarding general ordination of maritime sailing and of civil fleet, without damage of the competences that belong to other ministries. The Maritime Captaincies exercise supervision and direction of the maritime districts that they have adscribed. They direct emergencies related with rescue of human lives at sea and of the fight against marine pollution that are of their competence, in coordination with Maritime Rescue and they look after the application of the norms upon role and vessels’s offices, enrollment and disenrollment of crews and ones related to passengers or people who are not crew or passengers; also of the management, organization and administration of the vessels and maritime companies in the outskirts, as well as the processing of professional or recreational titles.

Another of their main functions are technical inspections of vessels in construction and operative inspections to vessels that are doing commercial scales in Spanish ports. These security inspections aboard of the vessels, in occasions long and complex, guarantee that the maritime transport that sails the waters in which Spain exercises, sovereignty, sovereign rights or jurisdiction fulfill with the current law in terms of security and pollution prevention. They also inspect dangerous goods. On the other hand, they authorize and forbid entry and departure of vessels in Spanish waters.

The Captaincies are directed by the maritime captain and they have expert technical  staff in security (inspectors) and in general and legal matters (sanctioning reports) supported by administrative staff. 

In addition, they work together with portuary authorities in maritime and pollution emergencies that are produced in the portuary field and in the emission of reports and resolutions that are crucial to guarantee the maritime security and sailing and easing the vessels’s work in the portuary areas.

Captaincies and maritime districts collaborate in addition with other administrations of the territory to which they are ascribed and with social entities of the environment.