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The
objectives of Heiwa Co are to assist ship owners
and shipping related companies and administrations
with particular solutions to technical and
operational problems that arise, and that
cannot be handled by the normal office and the ship
staff. |
Ship Management Audits and Inspections
Heiwa Co does audits of ships under management by specialized companies to verify that the contractual agreements are fulfilled. A ship management audit is a very cost effective means to improve safety and, at the same time, reduce running cost.
Heiwa Co inspects ships at the request of buyers, banks and charteres to verify the actual condition, the equipment, and the systems and that the certification are in order.
Heiwa Co acts as project consultant with newbuildings, conversions and repairs working closely with the client's staff. Heiwa Co develops or reviews the specification of the work and can assist with initial design and design development and plan approval. Heiwa Co may assist with the negotiations with the shipyard and can participate in the supervision of the works. Some roro-ships converted to roro-pax ships and some roro-paxships upgraded by Heiwa Co are shown to the right.
Heiwa Co has particular experience of major conversions and repairs executed by a number of subcontractors and can take on the responsibility that the complete work is in compliance with the expectations and rules and regulations (class and IMO). Conversions may affect the safety of the whole ship and Heiwa Co ensures that all aspects are considered.
Heiwa Co has particular experience from Scandinavia, Japan, Middle East, Ukraine and the Mediterranean area.
Heiwa Co has limited in-house capability of computerized stability calculations, drawing (ACAD) and structural analysis using FEM particularly for oil tanker design. Heiwa Co considers that tanker design shall not only consider strength (stresses and buckling) and fatigue but also elastic deformations, which may break down the protective coating, and locations of welding seams and butts.
Most ships can be made safer and more economical by a fresh approach using first principles and FSA. The difficulty is the many variables involved of a floating, intact ship, not to mention a damaged ship, which means that ship safety development work never ends. It is a circle - ships can always become better and safer. Heiwa Co tries to learn as much as possible from past accidents, which explains its independent investigations of the M/S Estonia and M/T Erika accidents. The findings, which do not always concur with the official ones, have nevertheless been used to improve the safety of a number of ships.
Heiwa Co takes pride in trying to achieve the safest and most economical solution of ship design and operation. Heiwa Co used Formal Safety Assessment (FSA), before it was adopted by the IMO, as a guiding principle of its work and one result is the Coulombi Egg tanker, which provides environmental protection exceeding that of Double Hull using much simpler and safer arrangements and which is now fully approved by the IMO.
Collision damage above waterline only for other ships than tankers does not create a big successive risk, as the ship continues to float on the undamaged underwater body, and it was maybe one reason why the IMO had not studied this matter (damage above water line only) in any detail previously. Many IMO rules are thus based on erroneous damage assumptions. To develop the particular Coulombi Egg structure took a long time using FEM, etc. Also intact and damage stability checks of all load condition permutations took a good effort. Heiwa Co considers that Double Hull for very large crude oil tankers was a step backwards, as the concept had not been tested when the rules were established. Double Hull works for small tankers - product carriers - but the risks associated with big ships - crude oil carriers - need still to be resolved.
The work was initially based on the investigation of >200 tanker collisions, which confirmed that most damages were in the exposed, upper side (about 50% of all damage was located above the waterline only, even if this area is only about 25% of the total side) and that this area had to be arranged as a wide damage absorbtion zone with the main deck and mid-deck acting as shock absorbers to protect the cargo tanks.
Heiwa Co will compute the tanker environmental index E for shipyards designing and building Coulombi Egg oil tankers.Heiwa Co has designed, got Class approval, and manufactured and fitted a large number of life boat davits to extremely competetive costs.
Heiwa Co does particular investigations for underwriters and law firms to verify damage claims and suggested proximate causes for accidents. These investigations are always based on first principles and available information to confirm the relationship between cause and damage.
Heiwa Co - Anders Björkman
6, rue Victor Hugo, F 06 240 Beausoleil, France
Tel. +33(0)4 93784590, +33(0)661725424
email: anders.bjorkman@wanadoo.fr
