The Maritime Safety Committee
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The Maritime Safety Committee

  1 The Maritime Safety Committee, at its sixty-ninth session (11 to 22 May 1998), noted that on some ships the position of the forward perpendicular had been altered by the addition of a steel plate or very light steel structure between the stem and the bulbous bow, which altered the position of the intersection of the stem with the waterline thereby altering the position of the forward measuring point. In the case of such ships, it resulted in bulkheads and bow ramps, which in the first instance would appear to be wrongly located according to SOLAS regulation II-1/10 before these modifications, being deemed by Administrations to be correctly located. The Committee considered that such a practice was not within the spirit of SOLAS regulation II-1/10 and agreed to the following interpretation of the position of the forward perpendicular for the purpose of SOLAS regulation II-1/10:

  • "The forward perpendicular should be coincident with the foreside of the stem on the deepest subdivision load line, where the stem is the contour of the outer surface of the hull at the forward end and excludes any appendages except a bulbous bow."

  2 Member Governments are invited to use the above interpretation when applying SOLAS regulation II-1/10 and to bring this interpretation to the attention of parties concerned.

Parent topic: MSC/Circular.855 – International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea, 1974, as amended – (Adopted on 12 June 1998)Interpretation of the position of the forward perpendicular for the purpose of SOLAS regulation II-1/10
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