Despite its disadvantage of not being an IACS member, Türk Loydu has managed to add 75 ships to its fleet in 2017
Türk Loydu is an “International Classification and Conformity Assessment Body,” providing classification, inspection and certification services since it was established in 1962 by the significant organizations of the Turkish Maritime and Industrial sectors. Türk Loydu plays an important role in shaping and regulating the future in the classification industry by following the technological developments and establishing rules and standards especially in maritime and in several industrial sectors from the formation stages and constantly sharing its knowledge with the stakeholder industries.
Türk Loydu is constantly increasing the number and tonnage of the ships that are classed within the society, while dropping the average age of its fleet. Despite its disadvantage of not being an IACS (International Association of Classification Societies) member, which is an extremely difficult barrier for ship classification and authorization by many flag state administrations, Türk Loydu have continued in growing and added a total of 75 ships to its fleet in 2017, 34 of which are transferred from IACS members, including Gas Carriers, Ro-Ro and mega yachts which have increased the variety of ships in the fleet and increased the expertise of the society in different ship types.
While Türk Loydu constantly increases the number and tonnage of the ships in its fleet, they also continued to focus on the performance of its fleet in port state inspections. Another important success of Türk Loydu was keeping its place in the “High Performance” category of the Paris MoU Recognized Organization Table for the last 11 years after the successful PSC inspection results of its fleet within the Paris MoU region. This performance is deemed very important for the society considering Türk Loydu have performed better than some IACS member organizations. The fact that no ship has been detained due to Türk Loydu’s responsibility since 2014 and High Performance ranking within last 11 years according to Paris MoU were significant developments that strengthened Türk Loydu’s success .
Türk Loydu is continuing to take firm steps forward towards the IACS membership. TL is putting efforts in line with the progress plan prepared in 2016 for membership to IACS, which is one of the biggest strategic objectives of Türk Loydu. They have completed the audits performed until the end of 2017, which were accompanied by the IACS observers, evaluated the audit results and proceed on its way without slowing down to reach its strategic objective by continuing the works in this direction.
The IACS criteria which were well integrated into Türk Loydu systems and implemented since 2011 have become Türk Loydu criteria, and increased the quality of its services. Türk Loydu proceeds on its way by overcoming the so-called impossible obstacles one-by-one. Furthermore, Türk Loydu is the only organization going through the process for new membership to IACS.
But Türk Loydu is challenging IACS about the membership requirements which were changed and made much more difficult towards the end of 2017. In September 2017, in the middle of the auditing process, Türk Loydu was told by IACS that the association would be changing its new membership criterias effective 01 January 2018. Considering that Türk Loydu is the only classifacition society trying to be a member of IACS we can say those changes will cause another unfair delay in their membership process.
Türk Loydu claims that they are good enough to join IACS. They are outperforming some IACS members in port state control rankings. It was also recently authorized by the world’s largest flag state, Panama, after a thorough audit in Türk Loydu offices.
Türk Loydu is also attempting to get EU authorization as a recognized organization under the sponsorship of Slovakia. They have applied for certification from quality assurance body QACE and they are hoping to complete the authorization process within two years. If Türk Loydu is successful in winning EU approval, then that could prove embarrassing for IACS.
At this stage, Türk Loydu see 2017 audits as an important step where they have gained great experiences and they believe that they have approached their target to which Türk Loydu is committed with a forward-looking essential condition.
Naval ships are the chief instruments by which a nation extends its military power onto the seas. Türk Loydu was part of the national organization, where serious steps were taken in respect of building national naval ships in Turkey. One of the most important progress for this organization was the establishment of “Undersecretariat for Defense Industries” and putting the National Ship “MILGEM” project into action and the development of private ship yards capacity to build naval ships.
Türk Loydu have taken part almost in every stage of the process successfully, which was started out in 1996 with the classification, of building of ‘TCG Yarbay Kudret Gungor’ ship that is the first naval ship built in a Turkish private shipyard. Today a wide range of ships such as warships, helicopter ships, platform dock ships, patrol boats, landing ships, special purpose ships (submarine rescue vessel, recovery backup vessel), tankers, training ships can be built in private shipyards within a national design, with a serious domestic contribution and under the classification of Türk Loydu, this is the expected result of the successful policies applied for the last 20 years.
