Talk:Ship classification society

Ship Register
While wikifing Farley Mowat (Sea Shepherd vessel) I was looking for information on Ship Registers. Not to much was forthcoming, so I have redirected Ship Register here. I don't know that much about the function of registers (such as naming, legal requirements etc). The Farley Mowat article mentioned that about a registration being struck and the ship losing their registration flag some more information about that would be usefull here. Fosnez 08:46, 1 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Ship registers in that sense should redirect to Flag_State. Classification societies may have the word "register" in their name (such as Lloyds Register or Hellenic Register) but they are not ship registers. That authority is only with national administrations such as the US Coast Guard, Liberia Registry, Panama Registry, etc.Offshore1 20:56, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

Confusing
This article seems to be the victim of some rather poor wording, which leads to some rather unclear statements throughout. The Flags of convenience section in particular is difficult to understand and really should be reworded. &mdash;/M endaliv /2¢/Δ's/ 17:31, 21 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Can you be more specific? BoH (talk) 21:20, 21 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Alright, here's a few points...
 * "Included in the survey process is the survey and certification of diesel engines, large or critical pumps such as fire or main bilge pumps, and other machinery vital to the function of the ship. This is frequently done at the manufacturer's plant, which may be hundreds of miles from the shipyard or drydock." The first sentence could do with some rewording. Something like "This survey process covers diesel engines, important shipboard pumps and other vital machinery." In the second sentence, it isn't clear to me what the significance of the surveying being done at the manufacturer is, though this may have to do with my unfamiliarity with maritime topics.
 * "In the second half of the 18th century, merchants, marine underwriters, and others, all connected with shipping often gathered at Edward Lloyd's coffee house in London. In 1760, customers of that coffee house formed the Register Society, the first authentic classification society and which would subsequently become Lloyd's Register. Their purpose was to develop a system for the independent inspection of the hull and equipment of ships presented to them to be insured." For a section's introductory paragraph, it should be immediately clear what we're talking about. Something like "In 1760 the first authentic classification society, Lloyd's Register, was formed by (whomever), who would frequently gather at Edward Lloyd's coffeehouse in London." Additionally, as the sentence says "authentic" there should be some groundwork to explain why previous attempts (if any) to have maritime classification were not classification societies in the sense of Lloyd's Register.
 * "The first open register was Panama in 1916." Again, for a first sentence of a section, this is problematic. It isn't clear what an "open register" is to the uninitiated. Nor is it clear what the significance this has to the section's topic, Flags of convenience, until the second paragraph. The prose is written almost as a continuation of a chronological history section, when the organization of sections makes it apparent that this is a subtopic of "Classification society".
 * "A ship owner that is dissatisfied with class can change to a different class relatively easily." It isn't readily clear what a class is here. While this might seem like a no-brainer to someone familiar with the topic, or perhaps to someone who has closely read the entire article and some related articles, an important goal of writing better articles is to make an article accessible to not only people who want in-depth information, but people who just want to skim over the topic and pick up a few tidbits of information. I think this is an example of a frequent problem in this article.
 * The lead section should better-summarize the article, especially for those people just looking for a basic understanding of this topic.
 * I hope this helps! &mdash;/M endaliv /2¢/Δ's/ 21:37, 26 November 2008 (UTC)


 * A good suggestion for the first sentence. The second one is not entirely clear to me either, it may have to do with surveying before installation. But that should not be a problem, since commissioning is still done in a later phase. I will remove this.
 * I think most is already said, but I'll try to rephrase it.
 * Class is short for classification society. I'll state that in the intro, you're right, that's ship-speak, sorry, I sometimes forget.
 * I'll try to rephrase the intro. Thanks for the suggestions! BoH (talk) 18:23, 27 November 2008 (UTC)
 * I have made some changes, I hope this clarifies most things. If not, please let me know! Regards, BoH (talk) 19:02, 27 November 2008 (UTC)
 * It's improved somewhat- I think I can understand what's going on a bit better to help directly, though not quite at this point as I've other commitments at the moment. &mdash;/M endaliv /2¢/Δ's/ 20:14, 29 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Ok, if you can find the time later to make more suggestions, I would appreciate it, so we can get rid of the template :) . BoH (talk) 00:39, 30 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Sorry for the delay, but here are some suggestions. First, the lead section needs some improvement (with support in later sections per WP:LEDE). For example, it should state in very clear language the purpose of classification societies and the classes they define (according to reference 2, the purpose is to provide a standard method for insurers to look at ships). That's the main concern as to the confusing tag at the moment. However, the article definitely needs more inline citations and could use a restructuring for ease of reading. The editors at WikiProject Maritime Trades might be a good bet, as might a Peer review... I feel most of the trouble was really structural to begin with. &mdash;/M endaliv /2¢/Δ's/ 20:38, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

I have linked to this page from 'Yacht Delivery'. I will wait until this page is settled before I change the link. Ossito (talk) 21:12, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

Important article
I have used this article as input to the development of business rules for a computer system with the maritime domain as the subject matter. I found the article helpful, well written and of a quality to render it reliable. How does one get the importance and quality rating for an article updated these days in the Wikipedia??

Fidelia 01:58, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

Updates from EMSA
Based on feedback from colleagues in EMSA's Assessment of Classification Society cell (B.1.2), some editing has been done to ensure that inaccurate information about EU-recognised organisations was not published on this page.

More information on this subject can be found on the EMSA website at: http://www.emsa.europa.eu/implementation-tasks/visits-and-inspections/assessment-of-classification-societies.html

Peter Thomas/Louis Baumard, EMSA external communication cell 06 October 2010 (UTC)

Flags of Convenience
This section in particular seems more polemic than encyclopedic, and I have added a couple of. Also deleted one para which was only related to the origin of FoCs and made no mention of Classification Societies (the linked flag of convenience page provides the background). I'll try to come back to this.Davidships (talk) 22:24, 30 December 2012 (UTC)

Are there lists of Classification societies?
I'm wondering if I saw a ship in a harbor marked with a classification society abbreviation that I did not recognize if there are official references I could use to see who classified the vessel and what their standards were. Classification society is not a complete list. For example:
 * CM is on File:733 how-deep.jpg
 * DT
 * PC
 * SB
 * TD

Also, it seems the abbreviations seen on Plimsoll lines are not the same as the ones used in this article. For example:
 * File:Plimsoll line of American Bureau of Shipping.jpg is marked "AB" but this article claims the abbreviation is "ABS."
 * Ships are marked "HR" but the article has "HR" in the table and "HRS" in the external links list.
 * Ships are marked "IR" but this article claims "IRS."
 * Ships are marked "NK" but the article has "NKK" in the table and "NK" in the external links list.
 * Ships are marked "NV" but this article claims "DNV."
 * Ships are marked "RI" but this article claims "RINA."

The list of "External links" should be merged into "List of classification societies." I've just completed a round of edits to make the lists the same in terms of the spelling of the names etc. other than. --Marc Kupper&#124;talk 00:35, 22 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Hellenic Register of Shipping is listed as "HR" in the table and "HRS" in external links. This needs to be resolved.
 * Nippon Kaiji Kyokai (ClassNK) is listed as "NKK" in the table and as "NK" in the external links. I believe "NK" is the classification code. Entering NKK in the search box in the upper-right corner of http://www.classnk.or.jp/hp/en/about/aboutNK/index.html gets hits. A casual scan of the search results shows they seem to use NKK as the abbreviation for the company. This image shows "NK" over "Nippon Kaiji Kyokai." This needs more research to see if we need "NKK" on this article or if just "NK" will do.
 * "Intermaritime Certification Services" is not listed in external links.
 * "International Naval Surveys Bureau" is not listed in external links.

Redirect from "Safety rating"?
I came here looking for information about safety rating systems for motor vehicles and found this instead. Has anyone else come here expecting something else? --Greenbreen (talk) 10:30, 4 June 2013 (UTC)
 * It should probably be a disambig page, but for now I redirected it to Safety. --jnkyrdsprkl (talk) 19:53, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 4 external links on Classification society. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20121129090049/http://www.rdsh.gov.al/ to http://www.rdsh.gov.al/
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20070906080052/http://www.klasifikasiindonesia.com/ to http://www.klasifikasiindonesia.com/
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20100420050118/http://www.dromonbs.com/ to http://www.dromonbs.com/
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20130815033001/http://www.vr.org.vn/ to http://www.vr.org.vn/

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot  (Report bug) 00:47, 9 August 2017 (UTC)

Added Vietnam Register
The "Vietnam Register" fulfills for sea and river going ships a double role: Classification society as well as national registry.

http://www.vr.org.vn/gioi-thieu/Pages/gioi-thieu-chung.aspx?ItemID=4645 gives 1964 as the founding year of the Vietnam Register. Unfortunately that site has much more info in Vietnamese than in English.

--Stefanhanoi (talk) 22:25, 15 January 2021 (UTC)