BV published the rule note on the Emergency Response Service

Classification Society Bureau Veritas published the rule note on the Emergency Response Service (ERS).

This document was published on April 1st, 2023.

General

1.1 Aim of Service

1.1.1 The aim of the ERS is to provide technical assistance to units in case of a maritime accident at sea, by providing information on their residual strength, stability and/or mooring system capacities in the resulting damaged condition.

This Service, requested as mentioned in [1.3], can be provided by various organizations involved in the maritime sector, including Classification Societies.

The present Rule Note describes the three different types of Services that can be provided by BV: ERS-S (Strength), ERS-H (Hydrodynamic), and ERS-M (Mooring).

1.2 Additional class notations

1.2.1 The additional class notations ERS-S, ERS-H, and ERS-M can be assigned in the particular case of BV classed units for which the ERS is also contracted with BV.

1.3 International Regulations

1.3.1 ERS-S is intended to ensure compliance with the provisions of:

MARPOL Annex I, Regulation 37.4, regarding the prevention of pollution arising from an oil pollution incident and requiring access to computerized damaged stability and residual structural strength calculation programs for oil tankers above 5000 tons deadweight.
ISM Code Article 1.3 and Regulation 8.3.
SOLAS Chapter II-1, Regulation 8-1.3 and IMO Circulars MSC.1/Circ.1400, MSC.1/Circ.1532 rev.1 and MSC.1/Circ.1589, regarding operational information after a flooding casualty for safe return to port of passenger ships.

Application

2.1 Type of units concerned

2.1.1 ERS can be contracted for any existing unit, either classed by BV or by another classification society; however the additional class notations can only be assigned to BV classed units.

In general, ERS cannot be contracted for cargo ships less than 65m in length and non-cargo ships less than 90m in length.

However, ERS may be contracted in other cases provided that longitudinal strength documentation specified in [3.2.2] is available.

ERS-M is solely intended for permanently moored units, such as F(P)SO and buoys; ERS-S and ERS-H are intended for ships and barges only.

Note 1: For the definition of cargo ships and non-cargo ships, reference is made to NR600, Chapter 1, Section 1.

2.2 Type of Services

2.2.1 As mentioned above, ERS can be contracted for three different types of Services.

2.2.2 ERS-S

ERS-S corresponds to damage longitudinal strength and damage stability analyses.

It aims at providing information on the remaining hull strength and stability after the accident.

2.2.3 ERS-H

ERS-H aims at providing limits of navigation, based on VWBM and VWSF direct calculations for the accidental site sea-states, instead of empirical Rules formulae.

ERS-H is only applied in complement to ERS-S.

It aims at providing maximum environmental conditions (Hs), heading restriction, or speed limit. These limits of navigation are given for hull girder strength only.

2.2.4 ERS-M

ERS-M corresponds to damaged mooring analyses for permanently moored units. It aims at providing information on the remaining capacities of the mooring system after the failure of one or several mooring lines and the potential failure of an additional mooring line.