IACS adopts new large containership rules after MOL Comfort investigation

The requirements will make more consistent the existing rules of individual member class societies, with three new additional safety measures.

Japan's Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism played a significant role in informing the new rules by publishing its investigation into the sinking of the MOL Comfort which split in two and sank in July 2013.

In 2014 an IACS expert group began reviewing the available information on the MOL Comfort and other similar casualties. Their work resulted in the new unified requirements, which set out rules to account for external pressure on the bottom shell, the whipping effect on hull girders and a revised wave bending magnitude and longitudinal distribution.

The unified requirements, named S11A will come into force on 1 July 2016.