22nd May 2014 – The International Naval Safety Association (INSA) is pleased to announce that Edition E of the Naval Ship Code, developed to provide a naval alternative to the commercial ship safety standard SOLAS, has now been published by NATO as ANEP-77.
Edition E of the Code supersedes Edition 4 and is a further development of this naval safety standard which is the result of the continued collaborative efforts of the navies and classification societies involved in INSA. The standard is not mandatory and any nation, in or outside of NATO or INSA, is free to implement all or part of the Code in their national regulation for naval ships. Edition E includes comprehensively updated Chapters on Navigation and Dangerous Goods.
It is INSA’s intention for the Naval Ship Code to become established as a common goal-based standard for naval ship safety. The Association was created from a NATO group specialist team in December 2008 to develop, maintain and promote adoption and application of the Naval Ship Code, and to capture feedback from the Code’s application. INSA now has 17 members; 10 Navies and 7 Classification Societies.
The benchmarking of the Code against SOLAS is an important feature of the Code and in many areas the links back to originating SOLAS text are maintained. This allows the Code to demonstrate equivalency with statutory safety regulation and conventions.
At the INSA’s Annual General Meeting in October of each year, study groups are formed to address areas of the Code which require substantial review and development. The Naval Ship Code is revised annually to incorporate the work of the study groups and to maintain equivalence to SOLAS. Edition F of the Code has already been agreed by INSA, and includes a new 3 part format and updates to the Navigation and Communications Chapters. Edition F has now been passed to NATO for agreement and publication and is available as a draft on the INSA website until it is formally released by NATO. Participation in INSA is open to all nations interested in contributing to the future development of the Code.
The Naval Ship Code is freely available and Edition E can be downloaded from the NATO website e-library at www.nato.int under standardisation agreements. Further details on the work of INSA and Draft Edition F are available on the INSA website: www.navalshipcode.org.
