Existing vessels transitioning to modern safety equipment standards

Wednesday 20 December 2017

From 1 January 2018 owners of Class 1, 2, 3 and 4 domestic commercial vessels that are ‘existing vessels’ will start upgrading to contemporary safety equipment standards, as outlined in the National Standard for Commercial Vessels (NSCV).

Domestic vessel on a a lake facing towards you

These changes do not apply to non-survey vessels that have been required to comply with the Part G equipment requirements since 1 July 2016.

This also applies to existing non-survey vessels under Exemption 02—application for approval of a non-survey vessel. These changes support our commitment to gradually apply modern safety equipment standards to pre-National System vessels.

The new arrangements have been implemented through changes to the following standards:

Class 1, 2 and 3 vessels—new safety equipment requirements in Annex I of NSCV Part C7A.
Class 4 vessels—new leisure craft requirements in NSCV Part F2.
Fast craft—new requirements in NSCV Part F1.

To minimise costs for operators, most safety equipment can meet the NSCV requirements ‘on replacement’ or over a period of 1 to 5 years. In addition, some requirements only apply ‘on replacement’—such as a lifejacket type and standard. Other requirements do not apply at all—such as some water illumination requirements, which could mean significant costs for little benefit.

Other changes include:

a number of existing generic equivalent solutions have been included in the safety equipment standard (NSCV Part C7A)
an error in regards to lifejacket requirements for houseboats in the leisure craft standard (NSCV Part F2) has been corrected.

For more information: