On December 25, 2018, classification society ClassNK announced a partial revision of ‘Rules and Guidance for the Survey and Construction of Steel Ships’ in order to upgrade the rules to include the latest developments and requirements of the shipping industry.
The classification society regularly revise technical rules based on the latest results from relevant research and development projects, feedback from damage investigations, requests from industry as well as changes made to relevant international conventions, IACS unified requirements (UR), national regulations, etc.
The main revisions made public this time are:
- Revisions related to the clarification of strength requirements for hatch covers of cargo holds also used as ballast holds, the adoption of Approval of Use to verify the conformance of computer systems, and the application of the industry standard testing for FRP grating and clarification of testing procedure for approval of its manufacturing process (in response to industry requests, etc.)
- Revisions related to the incorporation of MARPOL Annex VI amendment to designate nitrogen oxide emission control areas as well as 2017 Finnish-Swedish Ice Class Rules and IGF Code which specifies the requirements for ships using gases or other low-flashpoint fuels.
- Revisions related to IACS Unified Requirements regarding the addition of requirements for classification survey using remote inspection techniques and requirements for approval of firms engaged in survey using remote inspection techniques.
