INSTITUTO DE TECNOLOGÍA NUCLEAR DAN BENINSON

In 1948 the United Nations Maritime Conference at Geneva drew up the convention which created the Intergovernmental Maritime Consultative Organisation (IMCO) as an Agency of the United Nations. The purpose of the organisation was to provide for co-

operation between governments on the whole field of sea transport with particular reference to technical matters affecting international merchant shipping, especially the Safety of Life at Sea and the efficiency of navigation. The IMCO Convention required the formal approval of 21 states before the organisation could begin to function This was achieved in March 1958 and on 6th January 1959 the IMCO Assembly met in London where the headquarters were set up. The first permanent international maritime body had come into being. In 1982 the name was changed to International Maritime Organisation (IMO).

Before detailing the activities of IMO over the past decade or so, it may be of interest to examine the background to sea transport - one of mankind's oldest callings. Due to its essentially international character, sea transport has for ages demanded a high standard of co- operation between the maritime countries of the world, but lacked a central organisation to co- ordinate activities. In spite of the extensive practical co-operation of governments where the saving of life was concerned, it was not until 1881 that the first international conference on maritime affairs took place. This conference, held in Washington discussed such matters as: -

- Regulations for Preventing Collisions a Sea - Saving of Life and Property from Shipwreck - Qualifications for Officers and Seamen - Lanes for Vessels on Frequented Routes

- Establishment of a Permanent International Maritime Commission

In 1897 the International Maritime Committee was formed to cope with the legal aspects of Merchant Shipping. This body also assisted in the work of several International conferences, including that called in 1914 as a direct result of the loss of the Titanic in 1912. A draft document was prepared - The 1914 Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea - but never came into effect because of the outbreak of the First World War.

After that war the British Government saw the need to prepare up-to-date

requirements and as a result a conference was held in London in 1929 leading to the 1929 Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea. In 1930 a further International Conference drew up regulations for determining the freeboard of merchant ships engaged in international trade - the 1930 International Load Line Convention.

Following the Second World War, the founding of the United Nations in 1945 marked a significant advance in Inter-governmental co-operation and led to the formation of IMCO.

The principal role of IMO is the preparation and maintenance of international

conventions related to maritime affairs. Naval Architects are normally most interested in those conventions with an impact on the technical aspects of ship design but much valuable work is also done in the area of legal liability. IMO is the international forum in which problems are aired and solutions thrashed out. Once a new convention has been agreed by IMO it must be ratified by the member states and then embodied in national law. Only then can the new requirements be enforced.

Originally, the same procedure had to be followed for amendments to Conventions but this was later modified to allow amendments approved by IMO to be implemented a fixed period of time after their approval. Given that it took 25 years for the full implementation of the 1969 Convention on Tonnage Measurement the change of approach for amendments was clearly much needed!

The governing body of IMO is the Assembly, which meets once every two years and comprises all the member states. In the period between sessions of the Assembly a Council runs the affairs of the Organisation. The Council consists of 32 member states elected by the Assembly for two-year terms.

The organisation’s technical work is carried out by a number of committees, the most senior of which is the Maritime Safety Committee (MSC). This has ten sub-committees whose titles reflect their areas of interest (See figure). The other committees are the Marine Environment Protection Committee (MEPC) which has two sub-committees (one is shared with MSC), the Legal Committee, the Facilitation Committee and the Committee on Technical Co-operation.

International Conventions

The IMO has been responsible for instigating and introducing the following International Conventions: -

- For the Safety of Life at Sea 1960 (SOLAS 1960) - For the Safety of Life at Sea 1974 (SOLAS 1974) - SOLAS Protocol 1978

- SOLAS Protocol 1988

- For the Safety of Life at Sea 1990 (SOLAS 1990) - For the Safety of Life at Sea 1995 (SOLAS 1995)

- For the Prevention of Pollution of the Sea by Oil 1973 (MARPOL 1973) - MARPOL Protocol 1978

- On Facilitation of International Maritime Traffic 1965 - International Load Line Convention 1966 (LL 1966) - Load Line Protocol 1988

- On Tonnage Measurement of Ships 1969

- On Intervention on the High Seas in cases of Oil Pollution Casualties 1969 - On Civil Liability for Oil Pollution Damage 1969

- On Civil Liability in the Field of Maritime Carriage of Nuclear Material 1971 - Establishment of an International Fund for compensation for Oil Pollution

Damage 1971

- Special Trade Passenger Ships Agreement 1971 - Safe Containers 1972

- On Regulations for Preventing Collisions at Sea (COLREG 1972) - International Maritime Satellite Organisation 1976 (INMARSAT 1976) - Safety of Fishing Vessels 1977

- Standards of Training, Certification and Watchkeeping for Seafarers 1978 (STCW78)

- Standards of Training, Certification and Watchkeeping for Seafarers 1995 (STCW95)

___________________________________________________________________________ - Salvage 1989

(Note: - A Convention on the Carriage of Passengers and Their Luggage by Sea was agreed in 1974 but has not yet come into force - again demonstrating one of the weaknesses of IMO - the length of time it can take for a sufficient number of governments to ratify a convention.)

While the Conventions are negotiated and approved at specially convened

Conferences, the Assembly approves Codes and Resolutions which provide guidance and technical criteria on a wide range of topics, some of which are mentioned briefly below. Safety of Navigation

IMO has put in a great deal of effort into introducing measures and policies designed to improve the safety of navigation. Among the most important are those which concern the compulsory carriage of navigational equipment and the principle of ship routing and

separation of traffic at sea.

Navigational equipment such as: -

- Radar

- Echo Sounder - Gyro Compass

- Radio Direction Finder - Satellite Navigation

which until recently were carried at the discretion of the owner are now mandatory in ships above a certain size.

Considerable effort has been concentrated on two further aspects of safety of navigation: -

- Measures for regulating traffic in confined waters

- Revised International Regulations for the Prevention of Collisions at Sea Radio Communications

A wide range of operational initiatives designed to improve or reshape the existing Maritime Distress System was studied. By making use of the INMARSAT network of orbiting satellites in space to give global surveillance of the maritime broadcast bands a Global Maritime Distress and Safety System (GMDSS) was introduced in 1992 and takes full effect from February 1999 for ships of over 300 tons.

Life Saving Appliances

IMCO & IMO in turn have developed standards for the testing and approval of life- jackets and requirements concerning the life-saving appliances to be carried on air cushion vehicles and on mobile offshore units engaged in exploration for hydrocarbons, as well as those traditionally associated with ships.

Search and Rescue Manual

As a guide for masters and others involved in incidents of distress at sea, IMO has prepared the Merchant Ship Search and Rescue Manual (MERSAR). This contains specific instructions on the actions to be taken by the vessel in distress, by those participating in the search and general guidelines on the organisation and conduct of such search and rescue operations.

Guidance on Training

The training of masters, officers and seamen is an integral part of assuring safety at sea. In 1983 the IMO Committee on Training issued a "Document for Guidance", proposing syllabi on various topics which should be included in maritime training programmes.

Subdivision and Stability of Ships

This is an area of constant interest to both the maritime community and the general public in the light of the loss of vessels such as Herald of Free Enterprise and Estonia.

Proposals for new subdivision regulations for Passenger Ships based on the probability of the ship surviving a variety of damage conditions were developed many years ago but had to await the development of computer power before the calculations involved could be tackled on a regular basis. These proposals took into account the longitudinal subdivision commonly found in passenger ships and were alternatives to the existing requirements in SOLAS 1960.

From 1992 these proposals apply to cargo ships of over 100 m in length which are not required to comply with any other subdivision and damage stability requirements.

Considerably enhanced requirements for the stability and subdivision of passenger ships were introduced by SOLAS 1995 following the loss of the Estonia.

Safety of Fishing Vessels

IMO has developed simplified Stability Criteria for fishing vessels from 12 m

registered length upwards. It has also co-operated with two other UN Agencies - the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and the International Labour Organisation (ILO) - to develop a Code covering the Health and Safety of Fishermen.

Tanker Construction and Equipment

Studies into the construction and equipment of oil tankers from the point of view of preventing or minimising pollution by oil in the event of stranding or collision were begun in 1968 following the catastrophic effects of the grounding and break-up of the Torrey Canyon. These studies not only considered the problem of oil outflow in the event of damage but also embraced comprehensive investigations into the economic implications of tank size

limitation. The technical factors involved in outflow limitation include the use of double bottom or double skin construction, the arrangement of tanks and the use of segregated ballast tanks.

___________________________________________________________________________ The IMO Maritime Safety Committee has recommended that the maximum¡ size of tank in the largest tankers should be limited to 50000 m3

for centre tanks and 30000 m3

for wing tanks. This would limit the hypothetical oil outflow in the event of collision or stranding to 30000 m3

. In the case of normal tankers with two longitudinal bulkheads, the capacity of a centre tank and of a wing tank will be limited to 30000 m3

and 15000 m3

respectively. Further international debate on tanker safety followed the grounding of the Exxon Valdez on the coast of Alaska in 1989 and the resulting oil spill. The United States of

America unilaterally imposed its Oil Pollution Act 1990, demanding double skin construction for all tankers trading to U.S. ports. IMO has conducted a wide-ranging enquiry into

alternative means but has not settled on one ideal arrangement. The Carriage of Chemicals in Bulk

In view of the increase in the sea transportation of hazardous or noxious chemicals in bulk it became apparent that there was a need for international measures to ensure their safe carriage. The Maritime Safety Committee approved an interim recommendation for existing ships of the tanker type carrying dangerous chemicals in bulk liquid form.

Fire Safety in Ships

Fire is one of the most serious hazards facing ships at sea, especially passenger ships. IMO has recommended a series of amendments to the 1960 SOLAS convention for existing passenger ships and a further series which would apply to new ships only.

Marine Pollution

The British government convened an International Conference which resulted in the International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution of the Sea by Oil 1954.

Responsibility for this convention was transferred to IMCO when it came into being. The 1954 convention dealt only with the deliberate or operational discharge of oil from ships and did not relate to pollution arising from maritime accidents.

The 1954 convention was extensively amended in 1969 to cover the following topics: -

- Prohibition of deliberate discharge - Prevention of accidental discharge

- Powers given to states for dealing with pollution - Provisions for redress for damage caused

- Methods for dealing with spillages

At the 1973 IMO Conference on Marine Pollution the main objective was the complete elimination of wilful and intentional marine pollution by oil and other noxious pollutants coupled with the minimisation of accidental spills.

Administration and Enforcement

While it is clear that IMO does a tremendous amount of good work it is also clear that obtaining agreement to all its decisions from all its member governments is a major problem. In addition, even when agreement is reached, implementation of the decisions is a matter for legislation by the individual governments and may be delayed in many ways.

IMO has no executive authority to police the operation of its conventions. Again it is in the hands of the individual governments and their maritime administrators to provide the determination and the financial and human resources to inspect ships and detain the

unsatisfactory ones until they are made seaworthy. The most effective means of enforcing the conventions is for ships to be systematically inspected before they leave port by a

representative of the national authority - Port State Control. This has, however, been made less effective because of the lack of a mechanism for the ready international exchange of the outcomes of Port State Inspections. Thus if defects are noted at one port it is not easy for another port to find out (a) that they exist and (b) if they have been remedied. The shipowner can easily deny that any faults existed in his ship and it is difficult to prove that a defect may have been present for a long period of time.

International action to enforce standards of ship safety is presently heading in two different directions: -

i) Increasing survey activity by individual cargo owners and ship charterers to allow them to select the ships they are prepared to employ.

ii) The formation of regional or continental groupings of maritime administrations to make a concerted effort to find and detain sub-standard ships through

efficient Port State Inspections coupled with an internationally organised database detailing when and where a ship was last inspected, what defects were found (if any) and what action (if any) the shipowner promised. Such

groupings now exist over a wide area of Western Europe and around the Pacific Rim.

___________________________________________________________________________

13 Tonnage

13.1 Introduction

Tonnage is a measure of the internal volume of a ship and was originally introduced to represent its size or its earning capacity in assessing port or harbour dues and the charges for certain services rendered to the ship. It then became convenient to use a scale of tonnage to set requirements for manning levels, provision of safety and lifesaving equipment, etc.

Shipowners usually consider it an advantage to obtain the minimum tonnage for a given ship. The word ton originally came from tun which was a wine cask and, in some cases, the cargo capacity of a ship was measured by the number of wine casks it could carry. In the 13th Century when tonnage measurement first arose the most valuable cargo and the most

profitable trade for England was wine shipment across the Channel from France.

The system of tonnage measurement used in the UK until 1982 derived from that enacted in the Merchant Shipping Act of 1854 and is associated with the name of George Moorsom. The rest of the world then based their schemes for tonnage measurement to a greater or lesser extent on the Moorsom system.

Initially the Moorsom system was quite simple. Gross tonnage based on the total enclosed volume of the ship represented its size and Net or Register tonnage based on the volume of the cargo and/or passenger spaces represented its earning capacity. The unit of tonnage was a volume of 100 cubic feet and although called a ton bore no direct relationship to the weight of cargo which would occupy that volume. However, through time, it lost its simplicity. Complex rules developed to determine whether particular spaces were included in the gross tonnage or exempt (not included) or deductable (in the gross but not in the net). Some of these rules encouraged the building of inherently unsafe ships – the “Open” Shelter Decker – which had no permanent means of making watertight the transverse bulkheads above the tonnage deck. The spaces bounded by these bulkheads were “open” and thus “exempt” and not included in the gross tonnage. Unfortunately they were unlikely to contribute to keeping the ship afloat after it was damaged.