Successful SEA Europe and EMSA workshop

It was held in Lisbon and was attended by officials from the European Commission, EMSA and industry representatives from European shipyards and maritime equipment manufacturers.

“The workshop offers us a great opportunity to explain our vision for and challenges of our sector,” said Christophe Tytgat, secretary general of SEA Europe.

He added: “We are grateful to EMSA to enable us to do so and we look forward to the next workshop next year.”

It was the right platform to discuss a wide range of technical and regulatory issues of common interest to the industry, EU policy-makers and EMSA experts.

Topics included; damage stability of cruise ships, fire safety of Ro-Ro decks, EDDI implementation and European implementation of the Ship Construction File.

As well as ship recycling, availability of anti-fouling paints in the EU and long-term research projects such as marine autonomous systems.

The workshop paved the way for a number of follow-up actions, including the organisation of a dedicated seminar on ensuring a level playing field for European (SMRC) yards with regard to anti-fouling paints.

In the field of ship safety Henning Luhmann, head of ship design at Meyer Yard, Papenburg, outlined the future research that will be performed within the industry based and self-financed project Cruise Ship Safety Forum (CSSF).

EMSA also welcomed the SEA Europe input on the protection of Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) of innovative European shipbuilders.

By Alice Mason