Classification society

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article may be confusing or unclear to readers. Please help clarify the article; suggestions may
be found on the talk page. (November 2008)

A classification society is a non-governmental organization that establishes and maintains technical

standards for the construction and operation of ships and offshore structures. The society will also validate that
construction is according to these standards and carry out regular surveys in service to ensure compliance with
the standards.

To avoid liability, they explicitly take no responsibility for the safety, fitness for purpose, or seaworthiness of the
ship.[1][2]

Contents
[hide]

 1 Responsibilities

 2 History

 3 Flags of convenience

 4 Today

 5 List of classification societies

 6 See also

 7 References

 8 External links

[edit]Responsibilities

Classification societies set technical rules, confirm that designs and calculations meet these rules, survey ships
and structures during the process of construction and commissioning, and periodically survey vessels to ensure
that they continue to meet the rules. Classification societies are also responsible for classing oil platforms,
other offshore structures, and submarines. This survey process covers diesel engines, important shipboard
pumps and other vital machinery.

Classification surveyors inspect ships to make sure that the ship, its components and machinery are built and
maintained according to the standards required for their class

[edit]History

In the second half of the 18th century, London merchants, shipowners, and captains often gathered at Edward
Lloyds’ coffee house to gossip and make deals including sharing the risks and rewards of individual voyages.
This became known as underwriting after the practice of signing one's name to the bottom of a document
pledging to make good a portion of the losses if the ship didn’t make it in return for a portion of the profits. It did
not take long to realize that the underwriters needed a way of assessing the quality of the ships that they were
being asked to insure. In 1760, the Register Society was formed — the first classification society and which
would subsequently become Lloyd's Register — to publish an annual register of ships. This publication
attempted to classify the condition of the ship’s hull and equipment. At that time, an attempt was made to
classify the condition of each ship on an annual basis. The condition of the hull was classified A, E, I, O or U,
according to the state of its construction and its adjudged continuing soundness (or lack thereof). Equipment
was G, M, or B: simply, good, middling or bad. In time, G, M and B were replaced by 1, 2 and 3, which is the
origin of the well-known expression 'A1', meaning 'first or highest class'. The purpose of this system was not to
assess safety, fitness for purpose or seaworthiness of the ship. It was to evaluate risk.

Samuel Plimsoll pointed out the obvious downside of insurance:

The ability of shipowners to insure themselves against the risks they take not only with their property,
but with other peoples’ lives, is itself the greatest threat to the safe operation of ships. [3]

The first edition of the Register of Ships was published by Lloyd's Register in 1764 and was for use in the
years 1764 to 1766.

Bureau Veritas (BV) was founded in Antwerp in 1828, moving to Paris in 1832. Lloyd's Register
reconstituted in 1834 to become 'Lloyd's Register of British and Foreign Shipping'. Where previously
surveys had been undertaken by retired sea captains, from this time surveyors started to be employed and
Lloyd's Register formed a General Committee for the running of the Society and for the Rules regarding
ship construction and maintenance, which began to be published from this time.

In 1834, the Register Society published the first Rules for the survey and classification of vessels, and
changed its name to Lloyds Register of Shipping. A full time bureaucracy of surveyors (inspectors) and
support people was put in place. Similar developments were taking place in the other major maritime
nations.

Adoption of common rules for ship construction by Norwegian insurance societies in the late 1850s led to
the establishment of Det Norske Veritas (DNV) in 1864. Then after RINA was founded in Genoa, Italy in
1861 under the name Registro Italiano, to meet the needs of Italian maritime operators. Six years
later Germanischer Lloyd (GL) was formed in 1867 and Nippon Kaiji Kyokai (ClassNK) in 1899.
The Russian Maritime Register of Shipping (RS) was an early offshoot of the River Register of 1913.

As the classification profession evolved, the practice of assigning different classifications has been
superseded, with some exceptions. Today a ship either meets the relevant class society’s rules or it does
not. As a consequence it is either 'in' or 'out' of 'class'. Classification societies do not issue statements or
certifications that a vessel is 'fit to sail' or 'unfit to sail', merely that the vessel is in compliance with the
required codes. This is in part related to legal liability of the classification society.

However, each of the classification societies has developed a series of notations that may be granted to a
vessel to indicate that it is in compliance with some additional criteria that may be either specific to that
vessel type or that are in excess of the standard classification requirements. See Ice class as an example.

[edit]Flags of convenience

For more details on this topic, see Flag of convenience.

The advent of open registers, or flags of convenience, has led to competition between classification
societies and to a relaxation of their standards.

The first open register was Panama in 1916. Fear for political instability and high and excessive consular
fees led the president of Liberia,William Tubman, in 1948 to start an open register with the help of Edward
Stettinius, Jr.. The World Peace of Stavros Niarchos was the first ship in that register. In 1967 Liberia
passed the United Kingdom as the largest register. Nowadays, Panama, currently the largest register, and
Liberia have one third of the world fleet under their flag.

Flags of convenience have lower standards for vessel, equipment, and crew than traditional maritime
countries and often have classification societies certify and inspect the vessels in their registry, instead of
by their own shipping authority. This made it attractive for ship owners to change flag, whereby the ship
lost the economic link and the country of registry. With this, also the link between classification society and
traditional maritime country became less obvious - for instance Lloyd's with the United Kingdom
and ABS with the United States. This made it easier to change class and introduced a new
phenomenon; class hopping. A ship owner that is dissatisfied with class can change to a different class
relatively easily. This has led to more competition between classes and a relaxation of the standards. In
July of 1960, Lloyds Register published a new set of rules. Not only were scantlings relaxed, but the
restrictions on tank size were just about eliminated. The other classification Societies quickly followed
suit.[4] This has led to the shipping industry losing confidence in the classification societies, and also to
similar concerns by the European Commission.[5]

To counteract class hopping, the IACS has established TOCA (Transfer Of Class Agreement).

In 1978, a number of European countries agreed in The Hague on memorandum that agreed to audit
whether the labour conditions on board vessels were according the rules of the ILO. After the Amoco
Cadiz sank that year, it was decided to also audit on safety and pollution. To this end, in 1982 the Paris
Memorandum of Understanding (Paris MoU) was agreed upon, establishing Port State Control, nowadays
24 European countries and Canada. In practice, this was a reaction on the failure of the flag states -
especially flags of convenience that have delegated their task to classification societies - to comply with
their inspection duties.

[edit]Today

Today there are a number of classification societies, the largest of which are Det Norske Veritas, Lloyd's
Register, Bureau Veritas and theAmerican Bureau of Shipping.

Classification societies employ ship surveyors, material engineers, piping engineers, mechanical
engineers, chemical engineers andelectrical engineers, often located at ports and office buildings around
the world.

Marine vessels and structures are classified according to the soundness of their structure and design for
the purpose of the vessel. The classification rules are designed to ensure an acceptable degree of
stability, safety, environmental impact, etc.

In particular, classification societies may be authorised to inspect ships, oil rigs, submarines, and other
marine structures and issue certificates on behalf of the state under whose flag the ships are registered.

As well as providing classification and certification services, the larger societies also conduct research at
their own research facilities in order to improve the effectiveness of their rules and to investigate the safety
of new innovations in shipbuilding.

There are more than 50 marine classification organizations worldwide, some of which are listed below.

[edit]List of classification societies

Name Abbreviation Date Head office IACS member?

Lloyd's Register of Shipping LR 1760 London [6] Yes

Bureau Veritas BV 1828 Paris Yes

Registro Italiano Navale RINA 1861 Genoa Yes

American Bureau of Shipping ABS 1862 Houston Yes

Det Norske Veritas DNV 1864 Oslo Yes

Germanischer Lloyd GL 1867 Hamburg Yes

Nippon Kaiji Kyokai NKK 1899 Tokyo Yes

Russian Maritime Register of Shipping

RS 1913 Saint Petersburg Yes
(Российский морской регистр судоходства)

Hellenic Register of Shipping HR 1919 Piraeus No

Polish Register of Shipping PRS 1936 Gdansk Yes

Croatian Register of Shipping CRS 1949 Split Yes

China Corporation Register of Shipping CR 1951 Taipei No

China Classification Society CCS 1956 Beijing Yes

Korean Register of Shipping KR 1960 Daejeon Yes

Turk Loydu TL 1962 Istanbul No

Biro Klasifikasi Indonesia BKI 1964 Jakarta No

Registo Internacional Naval[7] RINAVE 1973 Lisbon No

Indian Register of Shipping IRS 1975 Mumbai Yes

International Naval Surveys Bureau INSB 1977 Piraeus No

Asia Classification Society ACS 1980 Tehran No

Brazilian Register of Shipping RBNA 1982 Rio de Janeiro No

International Register of Shipping IROS 1993 Miami No

Ships Classification Malaysia SCM 1994 Shah Alam No

Isthmus Bureau of Shipping IBS 1995 Panama No

Dromon Bureau of Shipping DBS 2003 Limassol No

Intermaritime Certification Services ICS Class 2005 Panama No

Iranian Classification Society ICS 2007 Tehran No

[edit]See also

 International Association of Classification Societies

 Prestige oil spill, an incident and following lawsuit that could have radically changed the role of class
societies.

 European Maritime Safety Agency

[edit]References

1. ^ Such a certificate does not imply, and should not be construed as an express warranty of safety,

fitness for purpose or seaworthiness of the ship. It is an attestation only that the vessel is in compliance

with the standards that have been developed and published by the society issuing the classification
certificate. IACS, What are classification societies?, p. 2

2. ^ Put simply, the purpose of the classification certificate is not to guarantee safety, but merely to permit

Sundance to take advantage of the insurance rates available to a classed vessel. The Sundancer (7

F.301 1077) per George C Pratt, Circuit Judge

3. ^ JACK DEVANNEY (2006): The Tankship Tromedy, The Impending Disasters in Tankers, CTX Press,

Tavernier, Florida, ISBN 0-9776479-0-0, p. 9-11

4. ^ JACK DEVANNEY (2006): The Tankship Tromedy, The Impending Disasters in Tankers, CTX Press,

Tavernier, Florida, ISBN 0-9776479-0-0, p. 21-23

5. ^ The Commission shares the concerns often expressed in various sectors of the maritime industry

that the performance of classification societies does not always meet the standards

required. COM(2000) 142 final, Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament and

the Council on the Safety of the Seaborne Oil Trade, p. 19

However, largely due to the commercial pressure exercised on the classification societies, and to the

growing number of organisations operating in the field without having sufficient expertise and

professionalism, the confidence of the shipping community in these organisations has declined in the
recent decades. p. 23

6. ^ LR plans to move its head office to Southampton in 2011

7. ^ Since 2004 in Bureau Veritas