What the IHM lists
The IHM lists all the hazardous materials named in Appendix I of the Hong Kong Convention that are found in the ship’s construction, equipment and machinery.
International Ship Registry prepares the IHM following its own guidelines, covering all hazardous materials in a ship’s life cycle. For existing ships we combine visits on board with a review of the ship’s plans and documents.
Five steps
- Collect the necessary information
- Assess the collected information
- Prepare the visual/sampling check plan
- Carry out the visual/sampling check on board
- Prepare Part I of the Inventory and the related documents
Step 1: Collect the information
The plans we need to identify hazardous materials:
- Ship’s specification
- General arrangement
- Machinery arrangement
- Spare parts and tools list
- Piping arrangement
- Accommodation plan
- Fire control plan
- Fire protection plan
- Insulation plan (hull and machinery)
- International Anti-fouling System Certificate
- Related manuals and drawings
- Information from other inventories and/or sister or similar ships, machinery, equipment, materials and coatings
- Results of previous visual/sampling checks and other analysis
We then prepare an indicative list. The full list of hazardous materials can run to thousands of items, so the indicative list shows the possible locations of each hazardous material named in Appendix I.
Step 2: Assess the information
We assess everything collected in step 1 and prepare a checklist for the ship showing which hazardous materials are present and in what volume.
Step 3: Prepare the visual/sampling check plan
Each item from step 2 is marked for checking or not. For items marked for checking, we make a plan for the visual check and for sampling if required.
Step 4: Visual/sampling check on board
We carry out the visual/sampling check according to the plan from step 3.
Step 5: Prepare the IHM
We combine all the information from the previous steps to develop:
- The IHM
- Location diagrams of the hazardous materials