Safe Return to Port 2010–2025, the Revolution in Passenger Ship Design

Abstract

The International Maritime Organization (IMO) initiated in 2000 a comprehensive review of passenger ship safety provisions aimed at assessing whether the regulations were still adequate for passenger ships - cruise and ferries - continuously growing in size and complexity. This activity emphasized the prevention of casualties and the design for improved survivability, so that passengers and crew could stay safely on board as the ship proceeds to port after a casualty. Goal-based amendments of SOLAS chapters II-1 and II-2 entered into force on 1 July 2010, stipulating only goals and functional requirements rather than prescriptive provisions, allowing some flexibility for ship designers to meet future safety challenges. This paved the way for reconsidering a variety of design issues, such as ship systems' capabilities after a fire or flooding casualty, the definition of safe areas, the implementation of alternative designs, the effective availability of propulsion and steering in degraded conditions – and much more. Safe Return to Port (SRtP) provisions were the sparks that ignited a revolution in passenger ship design, despite many different interpretations developed by the industry over the past fifteen years. This paper lends a fresh perspective of the matter, based upon the direct experience gained by a Classification Society in implementing SRtP provisions in design, construction, inspection and operation of passenger ships, presenting what’s going on at IMO to revise initial requirements, introduce new considerations and harmonize the compliance process. In this context, automatic restoration of ship capabilities, introduction of alternative fuels, minimum propulsion performance in adverse weather, unavailability of ship systems due to maintenance or damage, testing and lifecycle compliance, crew training and familiarization are just some of the challenges for designers and operators to continuously raise the bar of safety, which is - and must remain - the highest priority.