IMO’s DSC Sub-Committee 18th Session
At last week’s meeting in the IMO, it was decided that now the weight of containers is to be verified before it is possible to carry them by sea. This was proposed in order to prevent ship accidents and prevent the loss of containers into the sea.
The IMO Sub-Committee on Dangerous Goods, Solid Cargoes and Containers (DSC) recommends new international (SOLAS) regulations stipulating that containers must not be carried by sea until their weight has been verified and the shipper has informed the ship about the correct weight.
The background of this initiative was repeated collapses of container stacks, containers lost over board and a number of ship accidents where it subsequently became clear that there were great differences between the reported and the actual weight of the containers on board,according to Danish Maritime Authority (DMA). Since container ships become larger and larger, the ability to calculate the overall weight of the cargo is of great importance to the stability of the ships and, consequently, also to safety.
It is expected that the proposed new SOLAS regulations will be approved by the IMO Maritime Safety Committee (MSC) in 2014.
It is possible to establish the correct weight in two ways:
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As it was reported in the Safety4Sea article regarding theOutcome of IMO DSC 18, a draft amendment to SOLAS regulation V1 / 2 and the relevant Guidelines will be submitted to MSC93 for approval.
This stipulates that gross mass shall be verified by the shipper, either by:
I. weighing the packed container using calibrated and certified equipment; or
II. weighing all packages and cargo items and adding the tare mass of the container
Also, the shipping document shall be:
I. signed by a person duly authorized by the shipper; and
II. submitted sufficiently in advance to facilitate preparation of the ship stowage plan.
Learn more about how shipping industry considers container weighing in the Safety4Sea articles:
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