BASIC STABILITY FOR SMALL VESSELS

Here is one of the most useful volumes of those making the whole Loss Prevention series. The document is dealing with such critically important aspect of ship handling as the stability, applied to the small ships. The book opens with some introduction and the basic information concerning lack of proper understanding of the ship stability criteria together with the possible consequences.

The authors have addressed the key principles that should be observed as necessary - failure to do so would eventually result in the loss of stability. Such principles include but are not limited to the container heights and weights, overloading of the vessel, FSE, standing for the free surface effect, derricks and cranes, pre-load requirements, stability calculations performed by means of the shipboard computers, freeboard reduction etc.

The content of this volume is mainly aimed at the crew members of the dry cargo ships. The main purpose was to provide them with the opportunity to get better understanding of the basics of the ship stability and its determination. Unfortunately, not all crew members of those assigned responsibility for loading operations possess necessary knowledge of the subject. The appendices supplementing the main part of the volume give some additional information.