Offshore Construction and Support Vessels
The marine contracting industry relies on a variety of specialist vessels to support operations in every ocean. IMCA helps its members through development of industry guidance, provision of technical briefing, incident analysis and organisation of a variety of events.
Such vessels are purpose-built for specific operations in a demanding environment, from pipe and cable laying through heavy lift to supporting diving and ROV operations. They are crewed with the specialist professionals needed to use a variety of cutting edge technology safely and efficiently. Our industry guide sets out more information on the work these vessels undertake and wide range of operations they support.
Technical reports and guidance
IMCA publishes a range of guidance aimed at helping its members ensure safe and efficient operations. The expertise and experience of companies operating these advanced vessels in all the world's oceans, in its deepest waters and in the full range of conditions is brought together in a comprehensive set of documents that is regularly reviewed and updated to reflect technological advance, operational achievements and any new common issues identified that IMCA can usefully assist with.
IMCA also commissions and produces reports on subjects of interest to specialist vessel operators, including reviews of crucial equipment such as navigation systems and thrusters, including issues such as selection, installation, operation, potential failure modes and more.
More details can be found in our marine publications pages.
Vessel auditing and inspection
A major concern in the past for operators of specialist vessels has been the number, frequency and varying requirements of client audits. Clients obviously wish to place requirements on such contractors and will wish to ensure that those requirements are met, but there are obvious benefits for contractors and clients alike if requirements are at least somewhat standardised.
IMCA has worked for a number of years on documents aimed at providing guidelines, standards formats and templates, all aimed at:
- giving clients a standard document which they can either use 'as-is' or adapt to their own requirements, thereby
- standardising the way in which clients produce their requirements, reducing the variation in the documentation that a contractor is required to produce
- providing industry standards for trials and audits which can be undertaken periodically and, with support from clients and client organisations, can help minimise duplication of such audits and trials.
The Common Marine Inspection Document (the 'CMID') is IMCA's flagship audit template. For more details on IMCA's work in this area, visit out audit templates overview.
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