Bureau Veritas leads response on safety

Citation

(2000), "Bureau Veritas leads response on safety", Disaster Prevention and Management, Vol. 9 No. 4. https://doi.org/10.1108/dpm.2000.07309dab.002

Bureau Veritas leads response on safety

Bureau Veritas leads response on safety

Bureau Veritas appears to have led the response of the ship classification sector to more stringent safety procedures announced by Cyprus' maritime administration, which effectively threw down the gauntlet to societies.

A high-ranking delegation from the French classification body has been in Cyprus to discuss technical issues and closer co-operation with the Limassol based Department of Merchant Shipping. Department sources state that talks included cases of specific ships, among them a Greek-operated bulker under Cypriot colours which BV has put on watch.

"This should not be portrayed as BV being scared into action," a department source said. "The meeting was held at their behest and they seemed to welcome our approach. They were very serious and constructive."

Topics

It has been decided that officials from the department and the society will meet twice yearly to discuss bilateral topics, starting with a meeting next February.

Cypriot officials described this as "a very welcome move". Meanwhile, the department has pencilled in next May to sit down with all leading class societies under the auspices of the International Association of Classification Societies.

The aim is to sign a global agreement covering the role of societies recognised by the flag state, codifying the procedures in detail.

"Partly this reflects IACS' intention to have such agreements we will have an annex to the agreement which covers our own instructions to societies," the department spokesman said.

Two months ago, Cyprus signalled its intention to tackle class survey standards when it publicly took a major society to task for the state of two Cyprus flagged bulk carriers which fell victim to port state control checks in separate incidents in the United States and The Netherlands.

The society involved swiftly identified itself as Nippon Kaiji Kyokai, although the Cypriots hinted heavily that it had identified other cases where societies had failed to be stringent enough in issuing certificates.

Maintenance

This was followed by a department circular stating, "In cases where it is proved that serious deficiencies reported on Cyprus vessels were due not only to the lack of maintenance on the part of ship-owners, but also to the negligence of the attending surveyors of the classification societies, strong representations are made to the latter.

"Whenever the department is not satisfied by the follow-up action, it is requested that sanctions are imposed against the surveyors concerned." The flurry of activity landed the department in hot water with one of the Cyprus flag's most loyal operators, Athens based Transmed Shipping.

It managed the Polmar, one of the two ships which sparked the Class NK affair, as well as the Cathy, a bulker which at the same time appeared on a list of vessels the department claimed to have "pressurised" out of the registry at the start of 1999.

Transmed has filed a $10million lawsuit for alleged defamation against the republic of Cyprus and several individual officers of the department. It is thought that Transmed has since scrapped the Cathy. Meanwhile, the Polmar was allowed to leave the USA for a single voyage to undergo repairs.

Since then, the bulker has been deleted from the Cypriot register at the owner's request and, under the new name Olma, has raised the flag of Togo. She was inspected by the Polish Register of Shipping in Aruba.

The Poles issued her with conditional statutory certificates for a single ballast voyage to a scrap yard, although the vessel's present position could not be established yesterday.

Lloyd's Casualty Week, Vol. 317, No. 3, July 16, 1999.