Representatives of the leading worldwide Associations of Shipbuilders, Classification Societies and Shipowners met in Busan, Korea for their annual Tripartite meeting hosted by the Korean Register of Shipping and KOSHIPA, the national shipbuilders association. The meeting was united in expressing its serious concern with the obstacles that all three parties face as the Ballast Water Management Convention moves closer to ratification, eight years after its text was adopted. It was always going to be challenging to fit ballast water treatment equipment to all of the world’s 70,000 ships.