Author(s)

L. Kobylinski

Abstract

The earliest requirement related to the safety of ships at sea was probably the requirement to assign freeboard. This requirement was included in the early regulations of the British Board of Trade International requirements were included in the 1930 Load Lines Convention, revised in 1966. The early concept of freeboard was based on the assurance of a sufficient amount of reserve buoyancy. This concept was criticised in the 1966 LL Conference and it was proposed that freeboard should be based on the concept of deck wetness and protection of crew . IMO recently initiated work towards this end and a research programme has been started in Poland. The deck wetness approach to freeboard concept and its implications are discussed in the paper 1 Introduction Freeboard was considered long ago as an important

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