Ministers approve four new national commercial vessel standards

Ministers approve four new national commercial vessel standards

The Australian Transport Council of Ministers (ATC) has endorsed four significant marine safety standards in the design and construction section of the National Standard for Commercial Vessels (NSCV).

The new standards, developed by the National Marine Safety Committee (NMSC) in consultation with industry, are Construction (NSCV C3), Intact Stability Requirements (NSCV C6A), Stability Tests and Information (NSCV C6C), and Anchoring Systems (NSCV C7D).

NMSC’s CEO, Maurene Horder said the ATC approval marks an important step in progressing modern standards for new vessels around Australia.

“Each of the four new standards was achieved after a lengthy process of consultation with stakeholders to modernise our standards and to assess the impact on the industry,” Ms Horder said.

“The construction standard is particularly broad in its reference as it was developed in conjunction with Lloyds Register after they successfully tendered to assist NMSC.”

Key outcomes include:

• The new Construction standard (NSCV C3) recognises new or replaceable construction materials and the adoption – where at all possible – of existing national or international standards.
• The Intact Stability Requirements standard (NSCV C6A) aims to reduce the risk of capsize or excessive heel of a vessel. The standard also provides a consistent and auditable benchmark for determining initial and ongoing compliance to the standards.
• The Stability Tests and Information standard (NSCV C6C) fine-tunes stability information under the whole range of operating conditions. For instance, it updates information on draft marks and the presentation of information includes comprehensive diagrams.
• The new standard for Anchoring Systems (NSCV C7D) features innovation in testing requirements and consideration for all types of hulls such as catamarans and trimarans. The method for calculating anchor mass has also been simplified.

The new approved standards are available for application now and are expected to be made mandatory for new vessels – i.e. introduced into national legislation – in approximately 12 months time.

The documents can be viewed and downloaded from the NMSC website www.nmsc.gov.au– click on ‘Publications’ then ‘National standards’.

The NMSC aims to achieve nationally uniform marine safety practices and is made up of the CEOs of state and NT marine safety agencies