A process involving:
(1) establishment of technical standards for ship design, construction and maintenance, published as rules of a classification society; (2) application of those rules to a ship by the shipowner, by requiring the builder to construct the ship to a specific standard, e. g. “100A1 Oil Tanker ESP LMC UMS IGS ICE CLASS 1B; (3) special survey of the ship by the society’s surveyors to confirm that the ship has been constructed to the required standard; (4) issue by the society of its Certificate of Class to attest that the standard was met; and (5) monitoring by periodic class surveys throughout the ship’s service life of the application of the society’s rules.
