Spotlight on Germanischer Lloyd

• Continued Growth: More than 70 Mio GT

Hamburg/Piraeus, 11 September 2007 - Over 6,300 vessels with 70 million gross tonnages (GT) are under the regular technical supervision of Germanischer Lloyd. The ship crossing the 70 million GT yardstick is the bulk carrier "John F" of Greek owner Fairsky Shipping and Trading. In only one year Germanischer Lloyd's fleet in service has grown by 10 million GT.

"This is a milestone in the history of the classification society," said Dr. Hermann J. Klein, Member of the Germanischer Lloyd Executive Board, at the classification society's Hellas Committee Meeting in Piraeus today. "Based on the incoming orders we expect a sustained growth rate again." The current orderbook contains more than 1,400 vessels with 24 million GT under construction worldwide.

Accordingly, Germanischer Lloyd has increased its staff level particularly in East Asia. In 2006 alone, a total of 312 employees were hired worldwide. Since the beginning of the year again more than 300 international positions were filled. Today the workforce counts more than 4,100 employees worldwide.

The 24,606 GT bulk carrier "John F" was built by Hyundai Heavy Industries and delivered in 1991. It flies the Cypriote flag, carries the class notation "100 A5 E1 ESP Bulk Carrier" and is ice-strengthened.
Fairsky Shipping and Trading S.A. in Athens is a global operator of 13 bulk carriers; they have an average age of only 13.9 years. The business is run by C. Fostiropoulos and his family.

Growth for 140 years

Since its founding in the year 1867, Germanischer Lloyd has experienced several phases of strong growth. When the first ship classification register was published in October 1868, it counted 272 sailing ships of wood and one of steel. Only five years later, the GL Register reflected 1,870 ships sailing under 19 different flags. In 1914, there were 2,922 ships with 5,503,923 gross register tonnes (GRT) in class. However, the world economic crisis and the First and Second World War took their toll. It was only at the beginning of the sixties that the Register again listed more ships than in 1914. The expansion of the merchant fleet and the introduction of computer technology in shipbuilding led to a continuous rise in the fleet under attendance. At the 125 year jubilee of the classification society in 1992, there were 4,200 seagoing ships with 18 million GT in class. Dynamic growth, fuelled by the triumphant advance of the containership and the international distribution of labour, resulted in a rise in the classified tonnage to the latest all-time high.

• Germanischer Lloyd at Canadian Ferry Operators' Association Conference: Ship-shape - from Start to Finish

Hamburg, 11 September 2007 - To ensure long lives and technical safety for vessels - such is the aim of the Hull Lifecycle Programme (HLP). How this software tool helps to plan audits and how it allows shipowners to prepare and carry out internal audits, will be presented by Germanischer Lloyd at the General Meeting of the Canadian Ferry Operators'Association (CFOA), taking place from 11 to 14 September 2007. At the annual event international experts team up to discuss latest developments in shipping concerning technical advancements, ship efficiency and safety aspects. This year's host is British Columbia Ferry Services Inc. (BC Ferries).

Speaker Dirk Kannenberg, Head of Department Assessment Surveys at Germanischer Lloyd, will show the functions of the Hull Lifecycle Program (HLP), Condition Assessment Surveys and GL Pegasus, GL's software service tool to facilitate thickness measurements.

First, the Hull Lifecycle Program (HLP) generates a 3D-computer model of the ship's hull to evaluate the longitudinal strength, fatigue and buckling. With the results of this calculation an in-depth survey of both the vessel's hull and machinery is conducted. Thickness measurements as well as extensive tests of relevant machinery elements will be taken to support the survey. The results will be used to monitor the ship's condition throughout the lifetime and help to immediately react on variations in the measurement results.

One module of the Hull Lifecycle Programme is GL Pegasus. From the first on-site inspection to production of the survey report, a thickness measurement inspection can take up to four weeks depending on ship size and age. This process is still largely conducted without computerised support. Germanischer Lloyd's GL Pegasus software reduces the time required for report generation to a mere few hours.

GL Pegasus also employs the three-dimensional computer model of the ship, each structural component being recorded both in tabular and in visual form. The tables and graphics correspond at all times, eliminating duplicate data entry. Once the survey team completes on-site ultrasound measurements, GL Pegasus automatically references the data using the computer model. Areas of potential weakness due to corrosion are designated with different colours depicting various degrees of rusting. Photographs, text and voice recordings can also be attached in reference to a given survey section.

The advantage of the software is the rapid and automated generation of the findings report in the format mandated by the International Association of Classification Societies (IACS). Ship operators have direct, worldwide access to the written report and the updated 3D model via the GL online platform fleet online, enabling them to identify early on potential repairs necessary and perform such work immediately and on the spot.

The Hull Lifecycle Programme allows monitoring the technical condition of a ship throughout its entire life cycle. For example, it offers surveying tools for identifying necessary repairs and maintenance, such as coating conditions. HLP modelling is additionally useful for vetting company documentation and with prospective buyers.

The HLP also facilitates inspection planning, allowing ship operators to prepare and conduct their own inspections. Once the initial model is generated, the Programme can be run until sale or disposal of the vessel, any changes in ship structure such as replaced plates being updated in the model on an ongoing basis. The Hull Lifecycle Programme is available for all vessel types.

Canada has long been known as an innovative and quality minded producer of industrial components, not least in the Canadian maritime sector. In this context, GL's Pegasus and Hull Lifecycle Programme have particular significance in Canada, as many of the country's vessels are now in the latter years of their lives. To maintain their safety and continued longevity, additional and particular care must be given to ensure that corrosion does not unduly shorten structural lives.

In Canada, Germanischer Lloyd is serving its customers from three stations in Montreal, Vancouver and Halifax. Present projects include developments within Canadian Fisheries and Oceans as well as a possible cooperation with the Canadian Navy concerning their Midshore Patrol Vessels and Arctic Patrol Vessels programmes.

About CFOA

For twenty years the Canadian Ferry Operators' Association (CFOA) has been promoting professional and technical excellence in the operation of passenger and vehicle marine transportation in Canada. Among its members are all of the country's major ferry operators.

• Germanischer Lloyd Welcomed into USCG's Alternate Compliance Program

Hamburg/Washington, 10 September 2007 - Germanischer Lloyd has been authorized to participate in the U.S. Coast Guard's (USCG) Alternate Compliance Program (ACP). In a formal event at the USCG headquarters in Washington, representatives from both sides celebrated the agreement signing on Friday. Now, U.S. shipowners can choose Germanischer Lloyd as their recognized organization, acting on behalf of USCG, and thus, profit from its longtime expertise in the maritime industry. GL is one of only three non-American classification societies to have ACP authorization from USCG.

The approval marks the result of a lengthy and intensive cooperation: As an authorized classification society (ACS), Germanischer Lloyd has already carried out numerous statutory functions on behalf of USCG since 1992.

Earlier ACS Agreements were signed in 2001 and 2003, comprising International Load Line Certificate, International Tonnage Certificate, MARPOL 73/78 Annex I, International Oil Pollution Prevention Certificate and International Safety Management Certificate. During the admission process, Germanischer Lloyd was supported by the German ministry of transport. Now, as ACP recognized organization, U.S. shipowners may choose Germanischer Lloyd to carry out statutory plan approval, survey and certification.

The ACP is a voluntary alternate process for a U.S. registered vessel to obtain a Coast Guard Certificate of inspection by complying with the standards of a delegated classification society, including its ACP Supplement and International Conventions.

Safety at sea, quality, economic efficiency and environmental protection are some of the key aspects Germanischer Lloyd focuses on - in the U.S. and worldwide. Germanischer Lloyd is represented in the U.S. with six stations: New York, Jacksonville, Miami, New Orleans, Houston and Los Angeles. The spectrum of services across the U.S. includes newbuilding supervision, ship in service inspections, ISM, ISO and ISPS certification, quality management certification and approval of workshops / shipyards as well as training activities.

• 5th GL Scandinavian Committee Meeting in Reykjavik: Safe winter operations require training

Hamburg/Reykjavik, 10 September 2007 - Broken or deformed propeller blades, dented or ruptured shell plating and framing, ship-to-ship collisions, damaged rudder blades, steering machinery or groundings could be the costly results of inappropriate navigation in Arctic Sea.
Safe winter operations require intensive trainings of the crew to avoid costly damages and off-hire. Due to the enormous increase in vessel traffic in the Baltic Sea and the lack of ship officers with experience in ice navigation, new training courses have been introduced to meet the demand for practical training.

"Icetrain", a new four day training course for ships operating in ice, is certified by Germanischer Lloyd. New courses start on 2 October in Helsinki, Finland at the Maritime Safety Training Centre (MERITURVA).

The "Icetrain" courses are produced and conducted jointly by major Finnish Maritime Academies and the world's leading ice navigation specialists Kymenlaakso University of Applied Sciences/Maritime Faculty, Deltamarin Contracting Ltd, Finstaship and Ice Advisors Ltd.

The course includes practical training sessions for deck officers covering the use of radar, simulator training, and even onboard training. The modules of the course are subdivided into ship-ice-interaction, ship design for ice operations, icebreaker operations, management issues, navigation and ship handling, voyage planning as well as preparations and watch keeping during passage.

Furthermore, cargo handling, deck machinery, operation, maintenance and protection of deck machinery as well as deck piping, valves and fittings are covered. Safety, emergency, survival, icing and ship stability, occupational health and medical first aid, fire fighting, evacuation and survival round off the topics.

Apart from safe operation in hazardous conditions the agenda of the 5th GL Scandinavian Committee covered a large number of factual topics relating to the booming maritime industries. Dr Hermann J. Klein, Member of the Executive Board Germanischer Lloyd, highlighted the implications of the large number of new mega carriers with a capacity of more than 11.000 TEU for maritime insurance. While the design of these "MegaBoxers" require careful calculations, overall safety increases due to an even better ratio between cargo storage below deck and on deck. In respect to cargo, containers and vessel the value reaches sums well beyond 1 billion US-Dollars. The 5th Scandinavian Committee meeting of Germanischer Lloyd took place in Reykjavik from 6 to 9 September.

• Sure: Safe Ship Stability -- 9th International Ship Stability Workshop at Germanischer Lloyd

Hamburg, 7 September 2007 - More than 70 experts from the international maritime industry met at Germanischer Lloyd headquarters to discuss the current status of the development and research in ship stability. The two day workshop dealt with the probabilistic assessment of intact stability, showed trends in progressive flooding prediction, presented new cognitions of investigations on severe stability incidents like the MV Estonia and informed about the simulation of parametric rolling. Surf-riding, broaching and capsizing in following/quartering seas, numerical prediction of intact stability as well as probabilistic approach to damage stability and survivability assessment plus intact capsize investigations rounded off the program of 28 presentations.

"We offered the participants a comprehensive mixture of topics and room for intensive discussions about ship stability and improving maritime safety", said Hendrik Bruhns, Chairman of the Local Organizing Committee of the 9th International Ship Stability Workshop and Head of Department Stability at Germanischer Lloyd.

Under the topic "goal based stability standards" Lech Kobyli?ski, Foundation for Safety of Navigation and Environment Protection, gave a speech about this IMO-concept. Kobyli?ski said it is time to consider a holistic and risk based approach to stability standards as an alternative to the existing prescriptive criteria used in daily work. This should be done in order to enhance safety and not to hinder the development of novel ship types. He pointed out that the risk of capsizing could be minimized by more detailed considerations of the procedure and special identification systems of hazards as well as a methodology of risk assessment.

"Benchmark study of numerical codes for the prediction of time to flood of
ships: Phase I" was the title of a presentation held by Frans van Walree, Maritime Research Institute Netherlands (MARIN), and Apostolos Papanikolaou, National Technical University of Athens (NTUA). The two experts presented a summary of the progress of an International Towing Tank Conference (ITTC) benchmark study on numerical codes for the prediction of time-to-flood of damaged passenger ships. For this study simulation data for the flooding of a vessel has been provided by developers of several numerical codes and compared with relevant model experimental data. The steady state flooding condition is reasonably well predicted by the codes. According to the speakers, the calculation of the flooding rates and transient phenomena is less satisfactory and urges on increased research effort in the future.

In a further presentation first results of the on-going investigation of the MV Estonia case were shown by Petri Valanto, Hamburg Ship Model Basin HSVA.

Since March 2006 a consortium consisting of the HSVA, the Technical University of Hamburg-Harburg (TUHH) and TraffGo HT, is investigating the accident for the Swedish Governmental Agency for Innovation Systems (VINNOVA). The results mainly base on the motion simulation of the damaged ship in seaway carried out in the HSVA, including the simulation of the water sloshing on the vehicle deck. Relating to the studies and results, the participants of the workshop were able to get an idea of the early phases of the accident.

Claudio A. Rodríguez, Department of Naval Architecture and Ocean Engineering, LabOceano/COPPE, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro informed in his speech about the "Validation of a Container Ship Model for Parametric Rolling". The aim of the presented study: to formulate a nonlinear, coupled model of a container ship during parametric roll resonance, and to validate the model using experimental data. The model agreed with the experimental and numerical results.

Dr Ould M. El Moctar, Head of Department Fluid Dynamics at Germanischer Lloyd, held a presentation about the "Prediction of Extreme Ship Responses Using Potential Flow and RANSE Codes". He unveiled numerical procedures to simulate ship sea keeping responses involving extreme motions and loads for different ship types. For statistic and probabilistic long-term analysis of a ship's operation, potential-flow codes are needed to define representative environmental conditions. El Moctar made reference to the Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes equation (RANSE) which can offer superior simulation capability for extreme ship motions like capsizing, slamming and green water on deck.

The 10th International Ship Stability Workshop will take place in Daejeon, Korea in March 2008.

• Germanischer Lloyd acquires Advantica and extends range of services in oil and gas business

Hamburg, 4 September 2007 - Germanischer Lloyd acquires the British Advantica Holding, based in Loughborough, with 660 employees worldwide from National Grid plc. With this acquisition, Germanischer Lloyd will double its turnover in the oil and gas industry and significantly strengthen its position in the UK, Middle East and US markets. "The acquisition of Advantica will considerably extend our service portfolio as a full-line provider for the lifecycle of oil and gas installations," says Lutz Wittenberg, Managing Director Germanischer Lloyd Industrial Services.

Advantica concentrates on oil and gas installations and pipeline networks and is therefore an expert for risk and safety analyses, offering consulting services for installation design and the optimisation of operations. To date, the Germanischer Lloyd Industrial Services unit has focused on asset and process safety, production know-how and inspections as well as evaluation of structures and safety related components. Advantica offers project consulting services for oil and gas production, storage, LNG terminals, pipeline engineering as well as gas, electricity and water distribution networks combined with the corresponding software solutions and consulting services for installation performance, maintenance and process control.

Currently, GL's Industrial Services unit has focused on Third Party certification and inspection, independent design verification, production monitoring of components and installations as well as risk-based inspections and condition surveys of production facilities both onshore and offshore.

With the complementary services offered by Advantica, the GL range of services now extends across the asset life cycle. Advantica's specific strengths in safety and risk studies, asset performance optimisation, asset integrity management, planning and design solutions and software products enable the new, expanded group to offer a one stop solution for clients throughout the oil and gas sector.

Advantica's geographical presence in important international markets is, apart from its expertise, highly qualified staff, research based approach and market knowledge, another key reason for the acquisition. Advantica holds a strong position in the market especially in Great Britain, the Middle East and the United States.

Following the acquisition, Germanischer Lloyd will double the turnover in the industrial services unit to more than 200 million Euros. It is currently the fastest growing operating area of the Germanischer Lloyd Group based in Hamburg. Its international network will be expanded to more than 50 offices in 32 countries. The overall service spectrum comprises testing, certification and consulting services focusing on the oil and gas, wind energy, management systems and materials testing sectors.

In 2006, with 364.4 million Euros Germanischer Lloyd accomplished the most substantial sales revenue in the company's history. The GL Group currently employs 3,400 people - 1,000 of them in the Industrial Services division.

• About Germanischer Lloyd

Technical competence, uncompromising quality and first-class service are the prime assets of the classification society Germanischer Lloyd (GL). From the foundation in 1867, the core competence has been to set standards in technology, safety and quality for the maritime and industrial sector.

Germanischer Lloyd is the market leader in the classification of container ships. Every second container ship is built according to GL Rules. Devoted to promoting innovation, sustainability and environmental protection, Germanischer Lloyd also covers all other ship types such as tanker, bulker, multi purpose vessels, high speed ferries and cruise ships. The current newbuilding orderbook contains more than 1,400 vessels with 24 Mio GT.

While headquartered in Hamburg, Germany, Germanischer Lloyd has established a global network of 176 offices in 76 countries. 4,100 employees, engineers and other experts, create value for the customers in a consistent manner worldwide.