Survey History !

Introduction

British Shipping is not very different from any other shipping. However, historically a lot of the worlds shipping practices were developed in Britain, often as a result of major accidents.

Shipping is obviously very important for an island state. Before the construction of the channel tunnel and the advent of air transport, it was even more important. At one time the British Merchant Fleet was the largest in the world.

Web sites obviously give a great quantity of information and will be mentioned in these notes. Web sites tend to stress positive aspects and not mention problems, disadvantages, competitors or other ways of looking at things. Hopefully these notes will give a balanced and practical view.

The British government authority for Merchant ships is the Marine and Coastguard Agency. They publish M. Notices which give guidance and regulations for various things. These are divided into Merchant Shipping Notices (MSNs), Marine Guidance Notices (MGNs) and Marine Information Notices (MINs). From time to time these may be mentioned in these notes. To find the original notice: Go to http://www.mcga.gov.uk/ . Click on Guidance and Regulations. Click on M Notices then which ever of the types is required and find it by number.

British Shipping (1750 – 1912)

Several groups of people with different, often conflicting, interests were involved in shipping including:
Ship owners
Shippers and Merchants (Who send cargo by sea)
Underwriters (Who insure ships and cargo)
Captain and Crew
The Government.

Ship owners wanted to insure ships with underwriters to minimize or spread the risk of loss. Most were not interested in spending a lot of money to make their ships perfect. Some few ran ships in a dangerous condition, overloaded them with cheap cargo and then claimed from the underwriters when they sank. They considered this a profitable way of getting rid of old ships. This was still sometimes being done about 20 or 30 years ago. Not by overloading but by deliberate grounding.

Shippers and Merchants wanted their cargo to arrive in reasonable condition but often could not tell a reasonable ship from a dangerous one.

Underwriters did not want ships sinking, because they would then have to pay money to the ship owners.

The government wanted the economy to grow but did not want to do too much about shipping. They though the best way was to let ship owners do what they wanted.

Edward Lloyd owned a coffee house in the City of London. Ship owners, shippers and underwriters used to gather there and do business while drinking coffee.
In 1760 they developed an idea. They would start a register (a large book. The same word is used for a book with a running list of students attending classes) They would engage Senior Captains who would inspect ships and enter a report, of the condition of the ships hull graded A,E,I,O or U and of the ships equipment graded G,M or B in the register. These Captains would be called Surveyors and would be paid a set survey fee by the ship owner whatever the results. The book would be kept in Lloyds coffee house and anybody could check the survey results before insuring a ship or sending cargo in it. This was the start of the first classification society; Lloyds Register of Shipping.

There is also a different group of people known as Lloyds Underwriters.

The system depends on the Surveyors being totally honest and professionally competent.

The Classification Society and the Surveyor is not responsible for anything that happens to the ship or equipment afterwards. They just say what they think the condition was when they inspected it.

Since that time the system has developed a great deal but the basic idea is still the same. Surveyors tend to be engineers rather than captains now.

The system of AEIOU / GMB (good middling bad) changed first to AEIOU/123 then to either A1 (highest Grade) or nothing. Construction rules were worked out and published. Some additional classifications such as “ice class 1” and “UMS” (unmanned machinery space) were added

In 1835 rules were made, mostly for how deeply a ship could be loaded. (Load line rules).

Ships, and all equipment on them, which is essential to safe operation, are checked by class surveyors, while the ship is being built. There is then a series of surveys done during the life of the ship. Some things are checked every year, some every 5 years, some every 2,5 years. Some of the surveys get stricter as the ship gets older. It is not necessary to do all the 5 yearly items at the same time. They can be spread out over the 5 years doing about a fifth every year but no item can go more than 5 years without survey. This is known as “Continuous Survey of Machinery” (CSM) or continuous Survey of Hull (CSH). There are huge books of rules. The whole system is computerized and ship operators get regular printouts relevant to their ships. A computer program has even been developed to help ship operators find which of the great number of rules apply to them.

In the past it was required to open every item up for inspection by a surveyor. This has changed a bit now. Evidence and, records of a properly operated maintenance and inspection program may be presented, by approved chief engineers. The surveyor may then accept these, for items that are due, as evidence of good condition..

According to international agreement “…ships shall be classified with a society approved by the flag state OR comply with national standards that provide an equivalent level of safety”.

The class. society is not responsible for anything it has surveyed and passed. The checks and repairs required by class societies are nowhere near enough to keep the ship in good condition and ships regularly have serious problems “with all certificates up to date”. It does however ensure a certain sort of standard of construction and maintenance.

The Lloyds system was copied in various other countries and now there are some 50 classification societies in the world. At one time there was a problem of ship owners thinking that; if one class society was too strict they knew one that was not. One societies rules were different from another and they were in competition with each other for business. This problem was solved, by setting up the International Association of Classification Societies (IACS). This is an association of the 10 main class societies in the world, which between them cover about 94% of the world merchant ship tonnage.

If a ship does not come up to the required standard for some reason there are 3 things the class society can do:

Impose a Condition of Class
This means that there is a defect which is not immediately dangerous and can not reasonably be repaired immediately. Details will be in the data base and printed on the certificate and could be for example something like:“ Pump to be permanently repaired when spare parts received but anyway before the end of March 2007”.

Suspend the Certificate of Classification.
This means the ship is not classed until some specified things are put right and checked by a class surveyor.

Withdraw the Certificate of Classification
This means that the ship is no longer classed with that society.

Suspension could be because a survey is overdue or a condition of class has not been dealt with.

The Class. Society can not stop the ship sailing but if they have suspended or withdrawn the Certificate of Classification they post it on their web site, and inform the Marine Authority of the ships Flag State, also often the Port State Control Office of the port where the ship is and perhaps of the next scheduled port as well. The Flag State will then usually cancel some other certificates. The ship will get a visit from Port State Inspectors who will detain it until the certificates are in order.

Class. Societies check the hull and equipment necessary for good operation. (For some reason they do not consider purifiers necessary for good operation.) They do not check safety equipment such as lifeboats, firefighting equipment etc. Safety equipment and passenger safety are the responsibility of the Flag State Administration. Often however a Flag State Administration will contract a Class. Society, to do these checks for them.

Relevant web sites;

Lloyds Register: http://www.lr.org/
IACS: http://www.iacs.org.uk/





Load line rules & Merchant Shipping Acts

A problem before 1914 was that it was not compulsory for ships to be classified and before 1876 there was no compulsory regulation of British Ships. Many ships were in a very dangerous condition

There was a big conflict of interest between ship owners, captains and crews.
The ship owners wanted good cheap labour and did not want crews walking off ships, especially somewhere on the other side of the world. The crew wanted to be reasonably sure the ship was not going to sink and to have reasonable conditions on it.

Ship owners had a lot of influence and in 1871 persuaded Parliament to pass a Merchant Shipping Act which made it illegal for seamen to leave a ship for any reason once they had signed an agreement until the end of the agreement time. This could be some years.

Samuel Plimsol worked in various jobs and had some hard times but eventually became a coal merchant. He saw what was happening to seamen and ships. He got himself elected as a Member of Parliament, wrote a book called “Our Seamen” and started agitating for the safety of ships to be legally controlled. He had a seriously difficult time but in 1876 got another Merchant Shipping Act passed which regulated conditions on ships and made load lines compulsory. To this day the load line marking is often called the Plimsol Mark.

The 1876 Merchant Shipping Act was not very strict and Samuel Plimsol was not happy with it but accepted it (half a sandwich being better than no sandwich). It was left to the ship owner to decide where the load line should be.

There is a story that one ship owner put the load line mark on the funnel. True or not in 1894 parliament realized that it had to be defined and so made sure it was defined. This was done basically according to the rules already developed by Lloyds Register.

Surveyors

Nowadays any qualified person inspecting a ship or something on it is loosely called a surveyor. It can be quite important to know what sort of surveyor you are dealing with. They have a habit of turning up and saying something like “ I am the Surveyor and I need to see ……”. The answer should be something like “Glad to see you. Who do you represent and do you have any sort of identification and a business card?”

Surveyors could include:
Class Society Surveyors
Government Surveyors
Underwriters Surveyors (Checking insurance claims)
Cargo Surveyors (Checking condition & quantity)