IACS has published Recommendation No.145 for the operation of shore-based emergency response services that provide technical assistance to ship casualties by assessing damage stability and residual longitudinal strength.

The recommendation aims to assist shipowners and managers in choosing an emergency response service provider and achieving compliance with relevant national and international regulations and guidelines*.

It establishes the minimum level of support that emergency response service providers are expected to deliver, setting out goals and objectives and providing recommendations for operation, software and ship modelling. 

Key recommendations
The key recommendations from IACS are that emergency response service providers should:

• be available 24 hours a day, all year round
• be available within two hours of being activated to input details of the conditions of the ship; and within one hour for passenger ships (in accordance with MSC.1 /Circ. 1400)
• have a dedicated means of initiating a response such as an emergency phone number
• have a dedicated response facility and back-up location capable of carrying out stability and global strength calculations at all times
• have at least two team members responding to any emergency who are qualified to undertake stability and ship strength calculations
• provide team member training and carry out regular drills and exercises
• have pre-prepared ship models that are validated against the supplied ship information
• have stable and rigorously-tested software capable of calculating stability and strength for flooding, oil outflow, grounding and time and tide
• have additional 2D section modelling software.

Ship Emergency Response Service (SERS) from Lloyd’s Register
We can confirm that Lloyd‘s Register’s Ship Emergency Response Service (SERS) exceeds the IACS recommendation and continues to develop to meet the needs of its clients. SERS is the largest and most experienced emergency response service, covering more than 3,600 vessels. Our arrangements and procedures have been developed over 30 years and align closely not only with the IACS recommendation, but with other industry guidelines, such as those from OCIMF (see Class News 32/2013). Our experience has also contributed to the development of this industry guidance.

Both LR and non-LR classed vessels can enrol with SERS. For more information, contact Wijendra Peiris on +44 33 041 40586 or at sers@lr.org
 
*Relevant legislation and guidelines include:
MARPOL Annex I and Oil Pollution Act (OPA 90) for oil tankers. 
SOLAS Chapter II-1, Part B for passenger ships.
MSC.1/Circ. 1400 for passenger ships (see also Class News 39/2013)
OPA 90 for ‘non-tank’ vessels over 400 gt. (see also Class News 04/2014)
MARPOL Annex II for chemical/oil tankers
ISM code for all ship types.