USCG Rates Classification Societies

The U.S. Coast Guard (USCG) has created a new rating system to monitor the performance of the world's classification socieites. The initiative, launched at the request of the Senate Transportation Appropriations Subcommittee, is to focus on those organizations which may pose an increased risk to crew safety, the marine environment or U.S. ports. Points were assigned to each performance grouping to be used in conjunction with the USCG's Boarding Priority Matrix. This matrix allows the USCG to calculate the risk of substandard conditions aboard a foreign vessel and assign inspection resources accordingly. The classification societies with the best performance were given zero points; those with exceedingly low performance were given five points. In addition, classification societies not demonstrating compliance with IMO Resolution A.739(18) automatically received five points. The 1996 rankings from the USCG are as follows: Classification Society Ratings Assigned Zero (O) Points American Bureau of Shipping (ABS) DetNorske Veritas (DNV) Lloyd's Register (LR) Nippon Kaiji Kokai (NKK) Assigned One (1) Point Bureau Veritas (BV) . China Classification Society (CCS) Germanischer Uoyd (GL) Korean Register of Shipping (KR) Registro Italiano Navale (RINA) Assigned Three (3) Points Polski Rejestr Statkow (PRS) Russian Register of Shipping (RS) Assigned Five (5) Points Indian Register of Shipping (IRS) Hellenic Register of Shipping (HR) *AII other classification societies received five points