Naming and Classification of Vessel Types and Operations
Domain 1 checks whether you can place a ship in the right regulatory box from a short description - cargo, hull, service or capability - and then name the operations she may legally perform.
The classification axes
- By cargo: dry bulk (SOLAS Ch IX), oil tanker (MARPOL Annex I), chemical tanker (Annex II, IBC Code), gas carrier (IGC Code), container, reefer, breakbulk, Ro-Ro, passenger.
- By statutory definition (SOLAS I/2): a passenger ship carries more than 12 passengers; anything else is a cargo ship. A passenger is everyone on board except the master, crew and children under one year.
- By capability: high-speed craft under the HSC Code, special purpose ships (SPS Code), mobile offshore units (MODU Code), DP Class 1–3 units.
- By operation: towage, dredging, cable-laying, offshore supply, pilotage, lighterage - each attracting extra rules.
Worked example
A 92 m vessel sails with 29 persons on board: the master, 12 crew, and 16 technicians carried as supernumeraries with no shipboard duties. Total 29 minus the 13 master and crew leaves 16 persons who are not crew. Because 16 > 12, she is a passenger ship, even though she carries no fare-paying public. She therefore falls under SOLAS Chapter II-2 passenger fire integrity, Chapter III passenger LSA scales and Chapter II-1 subdivision requirements, not the lighter cargo-ship regime.
Traps
- Counting every person on board as a passenger, or forgetting the under-one-year exclusion.
- Calling any tanker an oil tanker: a parcel chemical tanker is Annex II, not Annex I.
- Missing that a craft fits the HSC or MODU Code because the description sounds like ordinary cargo work.
- Treating a Ro-Pax ferry as a cargo ship; the passenger threshold decides.