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New IACS chairman sets out his agenda

New IACS chairman sets out his agenda
Incoming chairman of the International Association of Classification Societies Philippe Donche-Gay outlined the priorities for IACS during his coming year in office at a press conference in London yesterday.

As announced at the time of his election last week, IACS’ main priorities remain preparing for effective implementation of its harmonised Common Structural Rules for bulk carriers and tankers from 1 July 2015 onwards, and looking into more stringent safety requirements for post-panamax containerships following recent high-profile casualties.

But Donche-Gay disclosed that three further areas have been identified by IACS as suitable for additional focus over the coming year.

First is Passenger Ship Safety, where besides continuing work to improve the safety of large cruise ships following the Concordia sinking IACS now plans to place emphasis on domestic ferries as well. Such an effort presents problems, he admitted, since many of these ferries were not covered by IMO Solas regulations and therefore not classed by IACS members. However, Donche-Gay shares IMO’s belief that “this should not prevent us from becoming involved,” since domestic ferries have accounted for more than 1,500 fatalities over the last 10 years, an unacceptably high number.

Second area of additional focus for IACS over the coming year will be LNG bunkering safety guidelines, informed Donche-Gay, where IACS will work to: “facilitate the development of clean fuel and to develop common procedures for LNG bunkers.” Several IACS members were already producing their own individual guidelines but now all 12 member societies have agreed to launch a project team to work with the shipping industry to “come up with something safe, covering truck-to-ship, ship-to-ship and terminal-to-ship operations,” he said.

Thirdly IACS is to address the increasing trend towards greater use of Complex Onboard Systems. Donche-Gay, who is also evp of the Offshore and Marine Division of Bureau Veritas, said this was already the case with many offshore vessels, which are heavily reliant on highly sophisticated Dynamic Positioning systems. ‘The next step for IACS is to define and/or specify the methodology used to identify such systems and the way to address this dependability,” he said.

During questions the chairman was quizzed as to whether IACS might start working on Common Structural Rules for containerships. “We don’t have enough data,” he replied, alluding to the spiralling size of ultra large container carriers. “It took 12 years to develop CSR for bulkers and tankers even if we started now it would take at least five years for containerships, but that would require uniform requirements from IMO first and I think the target is moving too fast. One day maybe.”