Voyage Data Recorders for Cargo Ships

June 2006

Amendments (adopted in December 2004) to SOLAS regulation V/20 - Voyage data recorders - give a phased-in carriage requirement for a voyage data recorder (VDR) on cargo ships built before 1 July 2002, allowing for these ships to be fitted with a simplified voyage data recorder (S-VDR). The amendments come into force on 1 July 2006.

The current regulation already required passenger ships, and ships other than passenger ships of 3,000 gross tonnage and upwards, constructed on or after 1 July 2002, to carry VDRs to assist in accident investigations. The amendment adds a new paragraph to require a VDR, which may be an S-VDR, to be fitted on cargo ships as follows:

• in the case of cargo ships of 20,000 gross tonnage and upwards constructed before 1 July 2002, at the first scheduled dry-docking after 1 July 2006 but not later than 1 July 2009;
• in the case of cargo ships of 3,000 gross tonnage and upwards but less than 20,000 gross tonnage constructed before 1 July 2002, at the first scheduled dry-docking after 1 July 2007 but not later than 1 July 2010.

Administrations may exempt cargo ships from the application of such requirements when such ships will be taken permanently out of service within two years after the implementation date specified.

The S-VDR is not required to store the same level of detailed data as a standard VDR, but, nonetheless, should retain, in a secure and retrievable form, information concerning the position, movement, physical status, command and control of a vessel. In accordance with the performance standards for S-VDRs, the time for which all stored data items are retained should be at least 12 hours while data items which are older than this may be overwritten with new data.

Based on information contained in IMO Briefing of 30 June 2006