Classification Societies

 Public presentation of the José Antonio Reyero's book

 The Maritime Administration School of the Transport Department from the Basque Government held on 25 January an event entitled "The Classification Societies", whose central theme was the presentation of the book with the same name by author José Antonio Reyero, with a second part by Juan José Alonso Berástegui, which related a few brief memories of his experiences as a naval architect and as a director in Bilbao shipyards, where he met professionally with such a kind of organizations, and finally the meeting was closed by Luis Cañada Vicinay, President of the Basque Maritime Forum. The event was held at the auditorium of the Bilbao Maritime Museum.

Presentation: José Luis Trueba

The event began with an opening by the School of Maritime Administration Director, José Luis Trueba, followed by a welcome greeting by Bernabé Unda, Director of the Industry, Innovation, Trade and Tourism  Department in the Basque Government, and then the speakers proceed to present their respective contributions.

Greetings and Welcome: Bernabé Unda

Bernabé Unda addressed a kind words to the book's author, in the context of the recent history of Bilbao river shipbuilding and wanted to put a note of humor at the end of his greeting by citing these quoted words in his prologue to the book just presented: "A Classification Society doesn't design, nor calculates, nor builds, nor owns nor operates, nor manages, nor maintains, nor repair, nor finances, nor purchase, nor assurances, nor charters ships. " Then, added a smiling Unda, I hope that today the author explains us what does a Classification Society make.

José Antonio Reyero's exposure 

J.A. Reyero, who was a Director of Lloyd's Register of Shipping, presented his book (Ref.1) making a small history of the origins of this Classification Society and emphasizing the complete independence from classification society and  insurance company, although they share the same name, Loyd's, and are often confused. 

José Antonio then quickly toured the main chapters of the book, all within the limited available time, and commenting some curious or anecdotic points. I will only highlight two interesting and not very well known issues.

The first is the "Ship emergency response service (SERS)" (book´s page 145 and Ref.4) that Lloyd's Register and other class companies, provide for urgent analysis of a ship breakdown (24/365) with a diagnosis and recommendations for immediate action, what is nowadays required by Marpol for vessels over 5000 tons. He cited the well known case of the "Prestige" tanker sinking that should this procedure had been applied (then nonexistent), which is also available under her Classification Society ABS, this disaster would likely had been avoided .

The second issue is the establishment in 1968 of the so-called IACS (International Association of Classification Societies) (p.147), that includes 11 of the +60 Classification Societies  in the world, and is devoted to harmonize and coordinate efforts for enhancing ships safety and technology. In 1969 IACS got the status of IMO's consulting organ.

In my blog (Ref.2), post "Lloyd's Register's 250th anniversary", I picked up very briefly some aspects in the history of this Classification Society, taken from a paper that J.A. Reyero published in the magazine "Ingeniería Naval" (Naval Architecture) before the publication of his book. So I will not repeat here the comments I made there, but I recall that I raised a question about the lack of classification of the Titanic passenger liner, from White Star Line, requesting that if anyone knew the reason for this absence be so kind to tell me. In the introduction to his book Reyero clearly states that the Titanic was never classified by anyone, but he didn't indicate the causes or reasons for it. Before the start of the conference Reyero told me that within a few minutes he would give a briefing on this point, and he did so, but the most interesting thing he told me after finishing the event, was the following. The Titanic was not classified by any society, whereas other contemporary British liners, such as Cunard's, did by Lloyd's Register, and, apparently, the reason given at the time by J. Bruce Ismay, President / Director of the White Star Line, was that Cunard received government's subsidies to grant them to prepare their vessels for military transport in case of war, while the White Star did not get such subsidies and so making it difficult to meet the extra cost of classification fees. It seems that the real cause was not as mentioned, since the economic value of the classification was negligible, but in reality it was the supposed arrogance of the owners or their management, who believed that the classification would not add any technological or safety improvement as granted by the high level they believed their company had about it. 

For those who are curious about information on Titanic's history I refer to the article Ref.3

Juan José Alonso's exposure

J.J. Alonso recalled a series of his memories as a naval architect in the missing Euskalduna Shipyard repairs department and as Manager in the also missing Celaya Shipyard, referring to so many contacts he got with Lloyd's members and citing a lot of interesting facts about the history of those shipyards in the Bilbao river, such as: 

* The first ship built by Euskalduna was the hopper "Portu" in 1902, and presently lays in a dry dock owned by the Bilbao Maritime Museum.

* In 1905 Euskalduna delivered the first ship built in Spain with Lloyd's Register classification.

* Also a curious and little fact known was that in 1905  Euskalduna performed a side launching, a system that much later was normally used by the Ruiz de Velasco shipyard, also in the Bilbao river.

I can not get into the many anecdotes and additional data that Alonso delighted us with, before ending his speech, that would deserve to be included in a book on the history of the Bilbao river, which we all so much miss. But I do want to mention the names of some Lloyd's surveyors and directors, that were recalled  by Juanjo and several of whom I also met at my shipyards times. I regret that the list will not be complete. They were these: 

Pollock, the first inspector L.R. in Bilbao, Stock, McIntosh, Rasmussen, Ruiz, A. Saez, McNear, Raff, Rennie, Jarozinsky

Closing down the act: Luis Cañada

Luis Cañada finally delivered some interesting words with a mixture of technical and historical concepts and even poetic ones, emphasizing the importance of the maritime industry, technically and culturally, and expressing his confidence that despite the current difficulties, our shipyards will not die.

The event ended with an invitation to wine and snacks by courtesy of the organizers.

Book summary

My personal opinion is that this book is a very important contribution to the technical literature on shipbuilding and navigation, from the classification societies point of view, and it is fair to remark its being the first Spanish-language book telling the story of a society classification as important as the Lloyd's Register of Shipping. It has got the guaranty of having been written by a former director of Lloyd's, with the experience of a working life dedicated to this area from a privileged position.

Although the book's title refers to classification societies in general, it is clear that the text corresponds mainly to Lloyd's Register of Shipping, but the conceptual aspects are applicable to all others or at least to the most important ones. Furthermore I note that reading this book informs us not only about classification societies but also about the most important milestones in shipbuilding development.

The book consists of 5 chapters and some annexes, whose titles are:

Introduction
Glossary
1 - Classification Societies
2 - Classification Rules and Lloyd's Register, witnessed 250 years of shipbuilding history
3 - International Association of Classification Societies (IACS)
4 - In conclusion
5 - References
Annexes

Chapter 4 summarizes the action areas of Classification Societies:

* As organizations for Ship Classification, conducting tests and surveys according to their quality standards
* As organizations recognized by many countries to check international maritime regulations
* As technologically advanced organizations, working with agencies such as IMO, ILO and providing technical assistance etc.

... and always prevailing honesty, integrity, independence and professional competence.

References
Ref.1: "Las Sociedades de Clasificación" ("Classification societies"), by José Antonio Reyero. 245 pages. Basque Goverment's Central Publishing Service, Vitoria-Gasteiz, 2010
Ref.2: "Lloyd's Register's 250th anniversary".  Blog "Getxoship" http://getxoship.blogspot.com/2010/09/lloyds-registers-250th-anniversary.html#more
Ref.3: 101 Answers to the most asked questions about the RMS Titanic. http://www.belfast-titanic.com/facts101.html
Ref.4: Ship emergency response service (SERS) http://www.lr.org/sectors/marine/Services/Consultancy/SERS/