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Notice to Research Vessel Operators No. 87

Subject: Research Vessel Clearances for Japan.
Released by the Department of State, Bureau of Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs, May 8, 1989.

Department of State has compiled several non-routine requirements which have been requested by the Japanese ministry of Foreign Affairs for research vessel clearances over the past few years. Under normal circumstances they are not onerous and appear to be necessary for the Japanese government to cope with increasing maritime traffic and conflicts between commercial and research vessels. Our Embassy expects that adherence to the requirements will expedite clearances and limit problems.

The following list of requirements should be considered when compiling your clearance requests, in addition to those identified in the UNOLS Handbook for International Operations of U.S. Scientific Research Vessels, Appendix D (NTRVO No. 67):

1) Letter of clearance request (the cover letter usually submitted to State should be sufficient to satisfy this requirement).

2) Ship's scheduled track on a chart (GOJ usually insists on a much more detailed chart than that usually submitted for clearance requests. Additional care must be taken to assure the entire ship's track is depicted on nothing smaller than a one to 5 million scale chart, including all transits, stations and survey lines).

3) Estimated schedule with locations, dates and times. This requires a table listing each station, site or turning point location (lat and long) with ETA and ETD dates and times.

4) Lists of scientific staff and ship's crew (submit the best available lists with clearance request and then update later during the clearance period when changes are not likely to occur).

5) Information about the research vessel and the institution. (Standardized brochures are useful).

6) Explanation of research methods and equipment (the narrative normally supplied with requests will often satisfy this requirement; however, care should be taken to supply ample information).

7) Information regarding wireless receivers (this includes the entire list of radio, telemetry, telephone, navigation and radar equipment aboard the vessel, and the manufacturer, model, power output and frequency must be supplied).

In addition to the above additional information, U.S. research vessels should take special care in navigating Japanese waters. Also it is helpful if vessels will make contact with Japanese coastal radio stations to supply information when entering 200- and 12 mile limits. Japan has also requested and State recommends vessels to report position at 1200 GMT on a daily basis while operating in Japanese waters. Copies of charts showing locations of Regional Maritime Safety Headquarters and lists of designated coastal radio stations may be obtained by contacting the Research Vessel Clearance Officer at the Department of State.

Providing daily position reports is especially helpful in eliminating problems which result from vessel departures from scheduled tracks and times for unavoidable reasons such as bad weather or mechanical difficulties.

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