The pilot ladder rules that could send ships back to the yard

New IMO rules will shift the focus of pilot transfer safety from how ladders are rigged to how ships are built, potentially forcing owners into significant modifications as compliance deadlines approach. Alex Byelyavtsev reports.

For years, pilot-transfer safety was read as a rigging question. If the ladder was wrong, the crew had tied it wrong. Retrieval lines, steps off the horizontal and ladders not on a strong point still appear in every campaign. Some unsafe arrangements are not rigging failures. They are design failures. Geometry, strong points, trapdoors, securing arrangements, winch reels and the access itself can make a compliant transfer impossible before anyone goes on deck.

That is what the 2028 rule changes. In June 2025, MSC 110 adopted amendments to SOLAS V/23 (MSC.572(110)) and mandatory Performance standards for pilot transfer arrangements (MSC.576(110)). Resolution A.1045(27) was guidance. The new standard covers the whole arrangement: ladder, accommodation ladder, trapdoor, manropes, winch reels, strong points and the means of securing the ladder at intermediate lengths.

Compliance arrives in steps. From 1 January 2028 the operational parts, inspection, stowage, maintenance, replacement and familiarisation, apply to every arrangement, whatever its installation date. Arrangements installed on or after that date must meet the design and construction parts from day one. Existing SOLAS ships have until the first annual, periodical or renewal survey on or after 1 January 2029. Arrangements installed before 2028 on ships to which SOLAS Chapter I does not apply have until 1 January 2030. “Installed” is the contractual delivery date of the arrangement, or the date it arrives on board, not the ship’s build date. Korean Register has warned that newbuildings delivered in 2026 and 2027, if fitted to the old standard, may need modification within a year or two of delivery. MSC.1/Circ.1690 lets flags apply the new standard early so a new ship does not inherit an old compliance problem.

For existing ships the standard materialises as steel. Strong points, shackles and securing ropes must have a breaking strength of not less than 48 kN, marked and documented. Trapdoor geometry, side openings, deck access and winch reels sit inside the same package. This is not a paperwork transition. It can mean cutting steel. Lloyd’s Register says ships with arrangements fitted before July 2012 will likely need more work, because the 2012 SOLAS geometry now sits inside a mandatory standard. Nothing on board has to have “failed”. The rule around the ship has changed.

Class is not offering a single product. It is offering a survey path. DNV tells owners to run a fleet gap check, test undocumented strong points or demonstrate their strength by approved calculation, and take a statement of compliance once the steel and fittings, except ladders and manropes, are verified. ClassNK wants modification drawings approved before hot work, and wants ships that already have a dry-dock booked before 1 January 2029 to use it. KR wants plan approval for alterations and replacement of trapdoors, securing arrangements, side openings, deck access and winch reels. Owners looking for a catalogue kit are asking the wrong question. Compliance is ship-specific.

The rule is already mature. Parts of the supply chain are not. Spare compliant pilot ladders and manropes must be carried, and ladders leave service within 36 months of manufacture or 30 months of being placed in use, whichever comes first. Industry guidance still reflects a transition in securing ladders at intermediate lengths. UKMPA notes that the new standard requires a type-approved device preventing side-rope slippage and rated to at least 48 kN. Until such devices are demonstrated, it continues to point to tagged 3-metre rope tails with correctly tied rolling hitches. That is not an argument that compliance is impossible. It is an argument for early engineering, yard slots and temporary accepted arrangements where the flag allows them.

From 2028, SOLAS says that a pilot who suspects an arrangement is non-compliant should inform the master and refuse to use it until the deficiency is corrected. The pilot becomes the last operational gate. The purpose of the new regime is almost the reverse: to stop the pilot being the first person to discover that the ship was never designed to comply.

Bad rigging will not disappear. In the 2026 IMPA Safety Campaign, 4,051 observations from 34 countries still showed 13% non-compliance. Familiarisation and maintenance still matter. Crew error still matters. The new rule draws a line: part of the risk has to be removed before the rope is ever rigged. A crew can still rig a ladder badly. From 2028 they cannot be asked to invent a compliant hull.

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