THE POLAR CODE, ONE YEAR ON...
Despite its shortcomings, the Code has been a huge step forward in safeguarding the world’s oceans writes Mia Bennett.
On January 1, 2017, the International Maritime Organization’s (IMO) Polar Code came into effect. The functional, risk-based Code establishes mandatory regulations and standards for vessels operating in ice-covered waters to, in its own words, “Provide for safe ship operation and the protection of the polar environment by addressing risks present in polar waters and not adequately mitigated by other instruments of the Organization.”
One year into the Code’s implementation, now is a good time to take stock of how its regulations on issues ranging from vessel design to search-and-rescue are playing out.
Although polar shipping may seem to be a 21st-century phenomenon, the Polar Code has been in the making for decades. Lawson Brigham, Professor at the University of Alaska Fairbanks and former Coast Guard officer and Captain of the USCG Polar Sea, one of America’s two heavy icebreakers, recalls attending the first meeting of a specially established IMO Outside Working Group in 1993. Over the next five years, the
Canada-led group drafted the first framework for the Code.
Brigham speaks admirably of what it accomplished: “It’s truly a seminal advance in governance to get the whole of the maritime states to agree.” Yet he feels the Code’s value has not yet been adequately appreciated: “The global maritime community, if not the global community, should be satisfied, but I don’t get that sense because it’s very technical.”
Too Technical? Brigham does not exaggerate the Code’s level of technicality. When demonstrating compliance, for instance, ice damage is limited to a longitudinal extent that is “4.5% of the upper ice waterline length if centred forward of the maximum breadth on the upper ice waterline.”
To make sense of these regulations, Lloyd’s Register (LR), a global engineering firm and maritime classification society, helps shipowners identify compliance gaps between their vessels and Code standards. Alicia Nash, LR’s Polar Code Implementation Project Manager, explains that this involves “undertaking a gap analysis comparing the prescriptive
requirements from the Polar Code and the actual vessel’s equipment provision by reviewing vessel drawings and the contractual technical specification.”
This analysis helps ships set a baseline for Code preparation so they know what additional equipment they might need. LR also facilitates operational assessments ranging from Category C yachts to Category A icebreakers to identify appropriate risk-mitigation measures. The company’s Arctic Technology Knowledge Network comprises key approval surveyors around the world who know what’s required for a successful initial Polar Code survey.
Once a ship is compliant, the owner can obtain Polar Code certification from a classification society like LR or DNV GL. Oslo-based DNV GL has already issued a number of certificates, and an additional 20 vessels are at different stages of the certification process. More are likely forthcoming since DNV GL has over 4,400 ice-class vessels.
Says Morten Mejlænder- Larsen, Discipline Leader, Arctic Technology & Operation at DNV GL-Maritime, “Many of them
BY MIA BENNETT
The Report • June 2018 • Issue 84 | 57
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