Benefits of classifying for residential living

I am in the consideration phase of building a 70-80 foot dutch barge in the US. I have the beginnings of a design and such and am beginning to consider classifications.

I've been reading the ABS classification rules and it's obvious that they are good design principles to follow, but to get the piece of paper to hang in the wheel house is going to be quite a premium on my build.

Now the only two Arguments that I have found for doing a certified build are insurance and commercial.

Commercial is obvious. I plan on building this thing very stout, but have Zero plans to do anything commercial with it.

Insurance is interesting. When people say this, does it mean that I wouldn't be able liability insurance or the equivalent if home owners?

Basically, can someone give me a good reason to classify this size of residential boat?

 

As you can see by my post count I do not post here frequently.
I am a Surveyor with ABS and am mainly involved in new construction.
While I would of course recommend that you use our rules to build your barge to, I would caution that the Classification process is an ongoing thing with attendance required by a Surveyor yearly and can be complicated.

If you are only interested in receiving a Class certificate for a new build to lower insurance rates it may take years to recoup the amount spent on the classification process, which is why I woould recommend requiring in the building spec that the barge be built to the ABS Rules you select.

We have multiple rule sets and all are available for free download at our commercial website WWW.eagle.org loo under the RESOURCES tab and again under Rules and Guides and DOWNLOADS.

We have rules for barges specifically for use in rivers (protected) environments and separate Rules for barges to be used on Open (Ocean) waters.

 

That's pretty much what I figured. I took a quick look at the barge docs but it was for a push barge, not a motor barge, can you give me the document name? Besides, this build would probably best be considered a live aboard that happens to look like a barge. I pulled down the 90 feet or less 2014 rules. I've been reading thru that for the time being

 

On the referenced web site the Steel Barge Rules (Publication 10) are primarily for open water service, while the Publication 4, Steel vessels for Service on Rivers and Intracoastal Waterways is for protected waters.

I do not know of any of our rules that explicitly address powered barge style hulls. The closest relation I can think of offhand would be to utilize a rivers style push boat hull since the majority of the river towbaost use a flat headlog, with a flat or minimally v'd hull forward.

 

You might want to scrutinize that title again. ABS has rules for vessels under 90 meters (295 feet), which are intended to be ocean-going.

If you go to www.eagle.org, Resources, Rules and Guides, Downloads, there is a whole page dedicated to rules for classing various floating and non-floating marine structures. If you go down a ways, you can find rules for things like motor pleasure yachts (No. 62) and such.

If you plan to operate your dutch barge only on rivers or other protected waters, the ABS Rules for Steel Vessels for Service on Rivers and Intracoastal Waterways (No. 4) cover a variety of powered and non-powered vessels, like barges and towboats.

Getting a class certificate is one thing, but a lot of owners of commercial vessels choose to build to class rules but not actually submit to survey and get the class certificate. As an owner building a vessel, you have discretion about the design, materials, and manner of construction.

 

Scphantm,
Wildcatfan is correct that if you attempt to get classification, it will be an expensive and never-ending process. You will have to begin by submitting the complete design and construction plans to ABS for a comprensive plan review and approval before construction can begin, and these plans will be used by the ABS surveyor to check against the actual construction during the on-going construction surveys. After the boat is launched, to maintain classification, you will have to undergo annual surveys and make recommended upgrades and repairs accordingly. Finally, ABS will not consider for classification any vessel less than 24 meters long (79'), so if you ultimately decide on a slightly shorter vessel (78' or less) ABS classification is a moot point.

The vast majority of people who build boats like what you envision--a power vessel for personal use--do not go for classification. That does not stop you from building a robust boat, however. If you use care in the design and construction--that means using plans from a qualified naval architect, choosing a quality builder, and hiring your own marine surveyor to monitor and document construction and write a final seaworthiness report at the end, which will be included with the master builder's certificate--you should easily get a favorable insurance rate.

I hope that helps.

Eric

 

Can you provide a source for this statement?

I'm looking at the 2000 edition "ABS Guide for Building and Classing Motor Pleasure Yachts" (No. 62 on the ABS Hit Parade), and its Foreword states,

"This Guide is applicable to motor pleasure craft 24 m (79 ft) or greater in length overall up to 61 m (200 ft) in length, that are not required to be assigned a load line. Application to vessels outside these limits will be specially considered."

 

One thing is that the ABS wants to know nothing of boats less than 24 m in length (which I doubt absolutely) and another very different thing is that these boats do not have to comply with some rules. Therefore, if the ABS does not deal with them, that does not mean that ships can be made either way. Insurers, always charge a much higher premium if the boat project is not supported by any regulation of universal recognition.
I can not show conclusively texts to ensure what I say, but it seems common sense.

 

I worked for ABS briefly in my last year at college as a trainee surveyor. At that time (1980), there were a lot of small vessels being built along the US Gulf Coast: utility boats, OSVs, fishing boats, you name it. Some people would clear off a waterfront lot, buy some steel, and start building a boat.

The ABS surveyor I was assigned to would periodically visit these one-man outfits and check the construction progress of the boats, say once or twice a month. It was not clear to me at the time if he was just lending his expertise to novice builders, or if he was working on behalf of ABSTech, which was the for-profit division of ABS at the time. I don't think any of these vessels were intended to be classed, and the fishing vessels were not required to be inspected by the USCG.

I'm not saying you will find a lot of classed boats under 79 feet, but it would be unusual for ABS to turn down a class fee if offered the opportunity.

 

In my country, I can not speak for others, a boat less than 24 m in length, although it is not certified by a classification society, has to be calculated in accordance with the requirements of a classification society or similar body. Otherwise, it must be a direct calculation of the structure, for example, which is always more difficult than following the guidelines of any regulations.
I do not think my country is more rigorous, in this aspect, that other countries "more advanced".

 

It's similar for US vessels. If you calculate vessel scantlings according to the Rules of ABS even though you don't intend to obtain class, the vessel is accepted by the US Coast Guard, which is the authority charged with issuing certificates of inspection for vessels.

 

Unless the vessel will carry more than 6 paying passengers (12 paying passengers if over 100 gross tons) there is no need for a USCG "certificate of inspection".

 

Yes, talk to ABS. I don't know if they have a written protocol for this policy, perhaps they do. I have been told so in so many words by ABS engineers.

The change in policy, from my perspective, began with the sailing yacht Imagine disaster in which the aluminum open class 60, intended for the 1994-95 BOC Race around the World (as it was then called), had her bottom pounded to death in the Gulf Stream off North Carolina or Virginia some months before the race. I had a client with a 63' aluminum sailboat, for whom I was doing the ABS-compliance design and engineering, who was going to have his boat built by the same builder. My client hired me, with permission from the boat's sponsor, Golden Aluminum, to visit the boat and write an engineering report, copies supplied to Golden Aluminum. Parts of this report were published at the time, but also given to the builder, the skipper, and the boat's designers.

At issue was the idea of "floating frames", the concept of having the transverse web frames not physically touching the shell plating, only the longtudinal frames were welded to the plating. The intent was to make the plating fairer, therefore lighter and not needing fairing putty and paint on the outside. There was about a 1" (25 mm) gap between the web of the transverses and the shell plating. This type of construction was approved by ABS under their sailing yachts rule. In the Gulf Stream, Imagine was hit with a sudden 180° shift in wind at greatly increased velocity, and she found herself in some rather square waves. The resulting pounding through the waves caused the damage. As a result, the skipper did not have enough money to repair the boat and he and the boat never entered the race. The boat was later sold as is, where is, and I soon lost track of it. I don't think it was ever repaired.

ABS took a lot of heat over that incident--how could an ABS-approved structure fail so badly? In the aftermath, ABS decided to limit their exposure on smaller vessels (and I am sure there were many reasons for this change, which I would leave to ABS to clarify if they choose). Coincident at this time, as I recall, the Recreational Craft Directive in Europe started to be formulated, and I think ABS saw that effort as a reliable alternative for owners of smaller vessels to seek some kind of structural standard.

Note that ABS has not rescinded their sailing yacht scantling rule, but they have not republished it either since 1994. The last notice update was No. 3, effective 1 January 2001. In January 1997, ABS published Notice No. 2, effective June 1996, that states a change of rule 1.5.1: "This Guide is applicable to offshore racing yachts 24 m (79 ft.) or greater in length overall...to 30.5 m (100 ft.) in scantling length as defined in 2.1."

As you saw, the same limit applies to the Motorcraft rule, which would be considered in the case of the canal boat proposed by the original poster of this thread. It seems that the High Speed Craft Rule would apply to craft of about any length, subject to the limits stated in paragraph 1/1.5.1, monohulls less than 130 m (427 ft). But, that's high speed craft, which the OP's isn't.

Eric

 

I was just pointing out to TANSL that there is something similar in the US, i.e., using class rules for design without intending to obtain class. I wasn't trying to break down and discuss all 15 categories of inspected vessel in the US.

 

Awesome. That's pretty much what my original plan was. I was going to do enough of the engineering and design to generate a half decent build cost estimate. If that come within range of my sail away price, then hire an architect to get it thru sailaway. But I'm fascinated to learn new things so that's a major part of it too.

This conversation helped me a lot, thank you all very much.