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Just to beat the dead horse one last time. ABYC defines and published, for a price, recommendations. They claim they are standards and they are from their perspective. To the industry they are recommendations. National Marine Manufactures Association (NNMA) is a voluntary certification body. Those that participate must use their standards that are comprised of 33 CFR 183, 159 and 181, as well as several recomendations established by the ABYC. Participating manufactures are subject to certification inspections to ensure their conformance to NNMA's certification requirements. So, for ABYC recommendations called out by the NNMA, they are the standards with respect to the NNMA. Although many manufacutuers participate in the NNMA certification process, most trawler manufactures do not. That doesn't mean some do not participate in similiar certification programs. Some are CE rated, some are certified by Llyods or the American Bureau of Shipping and some are ISO 9001 certified. Interestingly, one of the high end trawler manufacturers doesn't make any reference to being certified to any standards on their web page. I assume their trawlers to be CE certified as it's required for yachts sold in Europe, where they do sell their trawlers. The reason I'm beating this dead horse one last time, is that as good as ABYC's recommendations are, they are just recommendations. As such, no boat that's not certified by the manufacturer to comply with standards that reference the ABYC's recommendations should not be said to not comply with the recommendations of the ABYC, by a surveyors or anyone else. This would be no different than a state's vehicle safety inspection system failing a 1975 Vega for not having air bags. Although air bags are now required, the 1975 Vega was not manufactured to comply with a standard requiring air bags. I had a USCG Auxilliary inspector once tell me I must have an engine room blower and an engine room fire suppression system. Although both would be a good idea, it troubles me that someone can make reference to a standard that I can't verify. Niether are required for diesel propulsion systems. Gil ____________________________________________________________________________________ Be a better friend, newshound, and know-it-all with Yahoo! Mobile. Try it now. http://mobile.yahoo.com/;_ylt=Ahu06i62sR8HDtDypao8Wcj9tAcJ

Gil, Your post raised some very good points, but it also missed two important ones: > -----Original Message----- > The reason I'm beating this dead horse one last time, is that as good > as ABYC's recommendations are, they are just recommendations. Yes, ABYC can only legally 'recommend", but the other side of that coin is that when your insurance company wants a survey before they will continue your coverage, and the surveyor will use the ABYC recommendations as the basis for his survey, those 'recommendations' just became mandatory on you if you want to keep your insurance in force. > -----Original Message----- > I had a USCG Auxilliary inspector once tell me I must have an engine > room blower and an engine room fire suppression system. If you have a gasoline powered main or auxiliary engine (and the boat was built after Aug. 1, 1980), then it is federal law, not a private company's recommendation, that says you need an engine room blower. If you were diesel powered or the boat was built before 1980, that vessel examiner was wrong. As far as the engine room fire suppression system, there is no requirement for that, and the boat will pass a CGAux Vessel Safety Check without it. If the vessel examiner says otherwise - go get someone else to do your VSC because that guy doesn't know the rules! The CGAux/USPS Vessel Safety Check program only checks for items that are required by federal or state laws/regulations. If you meet the minimum requirements of the law, you pass the VSC and get the decal. Additional voluntary recommendations of other agencies such as ABYC have nothing to do with a Vessel Safety Check. For those who want to see what a VSC entails, see: http://www.safetyseal.net/what_is_vsc.asp Kevin