UAE launches Yacht Code as the First of its Kind in the World

Under the patronage of His Excellency Dr. Abdallah Belhaif Al-Nuaimi, Minister of Public Works and Chairman of the Federal Authority for Land and Maritime Transport, (FTA), the United Arab Emirates have launched a new code to cover the design, construction and operation of private yachts over 24 metres in length.

The FTA has identified a need for yacht regulations that address the larger size segment of the private yachts, i.e. yachts above 24 meters not intended for commercial use, without any restriction with respect to the number of persons onboard, nor to the maximum size of the yacht.

The safety level of private non-commercial yachts in accordance with the UAE Yacht Regulations is to be equivalent or better than existing regulations for other vessels carrying the same number of persons onboard taking into account the size of the yacht and its area of operation. The UAE Yacht Regulations require full compliance with international mandatory statutory instruments that are applicable to any ship on international voyages and also accept compliance with existing prescriptive International Regulations (e.g. SOLAS and the HSC Code). This relates to all aspects of relevant regulations, both safety and environmental issues.

Duncan Swanson of Oceanskies commenting on the new code for an article by www.superyachtnews.com said, "It will be interesting to see how well received this initiative will be. Whilst claiming to be the first code for private yachts over 24 metres, in practice the absence of any coding for such vessels has not been an issue because private owners (and yards) have always been able to voluntarily elect to submit to class as well as having the possibility to go one stage further and voluntarily comply with commercial coding to the standard prescribed by their chosen flag state."

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