Yacht Code, helicopter landing areas and passenger vessels.


The consultation was launched during London International Shipping Week in November 2017 and thrown open to all those working in the sector.


Groups were held across a wide geographic area – from Southampton to Pisa, London to Amsterdam. People who couldn’t get to the sessions were still able to take part in the consultation and send in their comments. One consultation alone brought in more than 700 comments as part of that active discussion with those involved with large yachts.


Peter Southgate, is a Principal Consultant with the Cayman Islands Shipping Registry, which is part of the REG. He said it was important to allow innovation while making sure construction was in accordance with the safety principles of the Conventions.


He said: ‘We wanted to make the Code more usable and wrote in greater


flexibility so that naval architects, designers and owners can get what they want out of a superyacht. Times have changed and what people want from their superyacht has changed considerably in line with what is possible to include through current design work.


‘When we looked at the Code and how it might be revised, we had to make sure we would be regulating for today and not for how yachts were being built when this Code first came out in 1997.’


Peter said that while the REG Yacht Code provides the industry with a new improved tool for the assessment of equivalence, it is not a complete reinvention of the wheel.


‘It is a major refinement, rather than a new code,’ he added. ‘This is important as the industry has been using the Code in its previous formats for many years and has adjusted its shipbuilding practices accordingly.’


‘We did not start with a blank page. The Codes in their previous formats


were working well on the whole but we wanted to bring the best of both into one place.’


One of the key parts of creating the new Code was to bring in the many interpretations that had evolved over the years to make sure they now appeared directly within the Code. It means that they no longer have to be discussed on a project by project basis.


Peter Southgate said this was undoubtedly one of the biggest advantages for surveyors.


‘Over the years there have been myriad interpretations. When you think about how things were in 1997 to how they are now, it was inevitable that there would have to be interpretations over the years the two separate Codes were in place.


‘What we’ve done with this new Code is – where we can and where it was appropriate – written those interpretations directly into it, together with the circumstances where they can be applied. This


The Report • June 2018 • Issue 84 | 45


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