Reducing onboard noise and vibration is a topical issue for passenger ship owners – while reducing ship underwater radiated noise is a rapidly growing focus, says Bureau Veritas head of measurement department Eric Baudin
Like tourism as a whole, the cruise sector has been deeply affected by the Covid-19 pandemic in the last 18 months. Despite this turbulence, the sector remains dedicated to ensuring the comfort of passengers and crew by limiting the levels of noise and vibrations on board.
Bureau Veritas Marine & Offshore (M&O) notes that several companies have recently renewed comfort class notations on vessels aged five years or older.
This assessment is essential on two fronts. For crew members, being exposed to excessive noise and vibration levels can affect their working and resting time, which may impact operations. Maintaining compliance with noise and vibration standards is also essential to the wellbeing of passengers, ensuring people feel comfortable, sleep well and enjoy their stay in every public and private area on board. Passenger comfort is at the heart of the work of cruise operators and has a direct commercial impact, as several shipowners have reported a drop in use of spaces where noise and vibration levels were not satisfactory.
In other words, passenger concerns are now much broader than their own well-being on board and include the impact of cruises on the environment.
Growing focus: underwater radiated noise
Beyond onboard noise and vibrations, owners have recently shown growing interests on the ship underwater radiated noise as well as the aerial noise radiated in harbour areas. There are no international regulations yet, only local initiatives, but regulations are expected soon.
Last June, IMO validated Canada’s proposal to revise the 2014 guidelines on underwater noise. Six classification societies including Bureau Veritas Marine & Offshore have developed their own standards based on existing standards and research projects outcomes. Bureau Veritas developed the URN notation defining ship underwater noise limits with the long-term objective of reducing the overall noise from shipping activities in the oceans. The management of the underwater noise allows low noise and vibration levels on board and vice versa: vessels granted with the URN notation are also fulfilling the highest grade of comfort on board.
Nowadays, sustainability is a global commitment and a change of paradigm for the cruise sector, which is encouraged by international, regional and national regulation, supported by technology and demanded by a growing number of shipowners and clients.
Reflecting on these considerations, Bureau Veritas M&O has released new notations: SUSTAINABLE-1 and 2.
The first recognises shipowners that comply with a range of environmental regulations, such as Marpol, the Ballast Water Management Convention and the Hong Kong Convention whereas SUSTAINABLE 2 designates shipowners who go well beyond current statutory requirements to minimise their vessels’ environmental footprints.
It requires shipowners to address underwater radiated noise and ensures that internal combustion engines meet strict standards for NOx and SOx emissions. This notation further includes a wellbeing on board aspect, requiring owners to earn notations for onboard comfort, vibration reduction and vessel habitability.
By developing these two new notations, Bureau Veritas M&O is giving shipowners a simple and direct way to communicate their sustainability efforts and commitment to marine and non-marine stakeholders.
Complying with this framework requires solutions and support. The needs span from global strategies and sustainability action plans that can deliver on shipping company’s decarbonisation goals down to the optimisation of a single vessel.
Verifying the potential benefits of each technology is a key step on the path to decarbonisation. In addition to our classification role, we have expanded our mandate to offer a wide range of services to shipowners, including energy efficiency technology, independent assessment of technology solutions (wind assistance, hull optimisation, air lubrication systems, etc), and operations optimisation through ship energy modelling (evaluation of technologies on a current operating profile or simulation of various operating profiles under several constraints).
BV Solutions Marine & Offshore is proud to support the sector through a myriad of services that are clearly drawing the path to decarbonisation.
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