ANEP-77 naval ship code: goals, functional objectives and performance requirements

What it is

ANEP-77 Part 1 is the NATO Naval Ship Code: Goals, Functional Objectives and Performance Requirements, an Allied Naval Engineering Publication published by the NATO Standardization Office. It was developed by the International Naval Safety Association (INSA), which the Code's own Introduction describes as "a group of like-minded navies and Classification Societies", and it gives a navy's own Naval Administration a single goal-based framework for certifying one of its ships, inside that navy's own safety management system, as safe to operate. The Code is derived from the same family of international conventions that underpin commercial ship safety management, adapted for a warship's different operational role: "The Code is applicable to all surface naval craft, coastguard and other vessels operated by a government which are not for commercial purposes." It does not cover everything about a naval vessel. It excludes nuclear propulsion, bulk carriage of low flash point fuel, a vessel's own weapon and combat systems, crew competence, workplace health and safety, living conditions, aircraft operation, manning levels and protection of the environment, all of which a navy's wider safety and environmental policy has to address instead. It also covers only peacetime operations and maritime security roles, excluding Extreme Threat Conditions and Combat Operations, though a Naval Administration can extend a ship's certification to cover those areas if it chooses.

How the Code is structured

Part 1, the document read here, "specifies mandatory requirements. It is separated into Chapters, each addressing a specific functional area." An overall safety Goal for the ship sits at the top (Chapter 0), each of eleven further Chapters (I to XI) carries its own Goal, and under every Chapter Goal sit a set of Functional Objectives and, below those, Performance Requirements that "in greater levels of detail, describe the issues that need to be addressed in order to meet the overall Goal of the Code." Two companion documents, not held in this reading, sit underneath: Part 2 offers non-mandatory INSA Solutions a Naval Administration can accept as meeting a Performance Requirement, and Part 3 is informative justification and guidance only. The eleven technical Chapters are General Requirements, Structure, Buoyancy and Stability, Engineering Systems, Seamanship Systems, Fire Safety, Escape/Evacuation/Rescue, Communications, Navigation, Dangerous Goods and Aviation Systems - covering everything from cyber security and control-station design through watertight integrity, propulsion, mooring and towing, fire detection, survival craft, GMDSS radio equipment, Bridge design, the carriage of explosives, and flight-deck operations.

Who applies it, and how

The Code is not addressed to a company. It speaks to a navy's Naval Administration, the government department of the state responsible for a naval ship's safety regulation, which can delegate survey and audit work to a Recognised Organisation such as a Classification Society. Underneath the Naval Administration sits the Owner (also called Duty Holder) - "normally the nominated Department of Government of the State or industry supplier" - the Designer, and the shipbuilders and their supply chain that construct to the agreed standards, since "Consideration shall be given to the working practices and processes of the build yards, their suppliers and their sub-contractors." Once a ship is in service, its Operators are addressed directly too. A ship becomes subject to the Code only once its own Naval Administration decides so, and it is covered by STANREC 4807, a Standardization Recommendation rather than a ratified STANAG: "The Code may be used by any navy that wishes to apply the process to their ships." It is published by NATO but open to any navy, NATO member or not, that chooses to apply it.

Certification, and what an auditor would look for

Certification runs through a defined process. First, a Concept of Operations Statement (ConOpS) setting out the ship's function, operational areas and characteristics. Second, a Standards Plan that collects the technical standards chosen for the project and justifies each one against the Code's Goals, Functional Objectives and Performance Requirements. Third, a Ship's Technical File recording how the Code's requirements were applied during design and construction, updated throughout the ship's life. Design, construction, materials and equipment are then certified by a competent organisation against the referenced standards, through plan appraisal, survey and testing, and a Naval Ship Safety Certificate (NSSC) is issued confirming the ship meets the applicable Goals, referencing the ConOpS, the Standards Plan and any deviations recorded in the Technical File. The certificate is endorsed and renewed at intervals the Naval Administration sets, and where a non-compliance cannot reasonably be corrected, the Naval Administration can instead accept a justified equivalent solution or grant an exemption. The Code is often compared to civil ship classification and to SOLAS, and it draws on the same underlying safety philosophy - but the comparison stops at influence: this Code certifies naval ships under a Naval Administration's own authority, and the document is explicit that meeting it "does not replace the responsibility to comply with IMO conventions and other international and national treaties, conventions and regulations including UNCLOS."

Standards it references

Within the text, ANEP-77 points to four further NATO publications, all informative rather than binding: AECTP-100, cited for its definition of "Materiel"; [STANAG 1135] (/standards#q=STANAG%201135), which sets the flash points of common NATO fuels the Code's "low flashpoint" threshold depends on; ANEP-26, the ergonomic data publication the Code follows for stair, ladder and stair-ladder acceptance angles; and [ANEP-79] (/standards#q=ANEP-79), given as an example source of collision-avoidance operational information. Outside the catalogue, the Code leans on IMO instruments it neither holds nor supersedes, including SOLAS, the IMDG Code, COLREGS, the FTP Code, the LSA Code and the FSS Code, and on the ITU Radio Regulations for GMDSS equipment.

ANEP-77 is published by the NATO Standardization Office and listed free of charge in the NATO Standardization Document Database. NATO's documents are not sold by ComplyTrain and we host no copies of them.

Standards it references

• AECTP-100Background
• STANAG 1135Background
• ANEP-26Background
• ANEP-79Background