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FOREWARD

High noise levels on board ships can affect seafarers' health and impair the safety of the ship. For this reason, seafaring nations have been considering the matter of noise levels on board ships for some time and a consequence of this concern was the adoption on November 19, 1981 of IMCO Resolution A.468(XII) "CODE ON NOISE LEVELS ON BOARD SHIPS".

The Ship Safety Branch of the Canadian Coast Guard, being aware of the importance of noise levels on board ships, commissioned Messrs. Jackson, Talbot and Associates in August 1972 to prepare a study to ascertain feasible noise levels attainable in the accommodation spaces of both existing and new towboats. The study was published in 1974 under the title "Feasible Noise Levels in Accommodation of Vessels Engaged in Towing".

Based on this study and recommendations in use in other countries, particularly in the United Kingdom, the Ship Safety Branch in November 1979 presented to the Industry for comments, as an initial proposal, recommended Standards respecting noise control and hearing protection in Canadian ships.

As a result of this presentation, the West Coast towboat industry made representations to the Director of the Ship Safety Branch for a separate Code for the towboats. The Branch recognized the special problems inherent in towboats owing to their high power to length ratio and set up a small working group, composed of labour, Towboat Owners from the West Coast and Government representatives, to discuss standards respecting noise control and hearing protection in Canadian towboats over 15 tons, gross tonnage.

These Standards are the result of the work of the members of this group, whom I wish to thank, especially those from Labour and Industry, for their continuous efforts and cooperation. I wish also to thank Dr. Patrick Gannon and Dr. E.A.G. Shaw for their continuous and valuable technical help in the formulation of the Standards.

J. Hornsby,
Director,
Ship Safety.

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