Ship&Offshore | Ausgabe 06/2017
SOLAS-compliant container weighing
Directive The SOLAS directive stipulating that the total weight of all containers must be verified before they are loaded onto a ship has been in force since July 2016. However, there is still uncertainty about the simplest, quickest and most cost-effective way to implement the prescribed container weight determination, writes Thomas Hilbig, force product manager at Germany’s tecsis GmbH, a specialist for high-quality force measuring technology.
The Maritime Safety Committee of the International Marine Organization that is currently responsible for the International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS) made an addition to the directive in 2014, according to which the overall weight of a container has to be verified before loading. The goal of this regulation is to avoid accidents during container handling in port and at sea caused by overloaded containers, for example. It is particularly critical if the planning of a container ship load is based on erroneous weights. Incorrectly or unevenly loaded containers can also be hazardous.