Ship Safety Design And Freak Waves

EDM number 77 in 2002-03, proposed by Edward O'Hara on 13/11/2002.

That this House views with concern the regular loss of between 100 and 200 ships together with 700 seafarers at sea each year; regrets that there is no adequate system for determining the causes of the loss of ships at sea; notes however that an estimated 40 per cent. of bulk carrier losses are caused by water ingress; welcomes the decision of the International Association of Classification Societies to adopt URS21 as an increased requirement for hatch cover strength of bulk carriers built since 1998 but has concerns both about the failure to impose this standard on older vessels and about the fact that URS21 does not take account of freak, steep elevated waves which often hit ships off the beam and which are estimated to cause 30 per cent. of shipping losses; notes that the velocity of such waves, which can increase by a factor of two at the breaking crest, is such as to indicate the need for considerable further strengthening of superstructures, bridge windows, deck fittings and covers and coamings of forward, midships and aft deck hatches; welcomes therefore the initiation of MAXWAVE, an EU research project involving the Meteorological Office and 10 European research organisations to study and identify the sea conditions in which such rogue waves develop; and calls upon Her Majesty's Government to press the IACS to enforce ship safety standards, including survival design, adequate to withstand conditions identified by this research, and to impose stringent docking conditions in UK ports against vessels which do not meet these standards.

This motion has been signed by a total of 49 MPs.