Rahola Criterion and the Development of the Intact Stability Code

Abstract

The Criterion for Intact Ship Stability proposed by Rahola (The judging of the stability of ships and the determination of the minimum amount of stability—especially considering the vessels navigating Finnish waters, Doctoral thesis 1939) spread around different countries after the World War. It constituted the basis for the first international provision on intact stability adopted in 1968 in the frame of the recently created International Maritime Organization. This Criterion, although heavily criticized since the beginning for its semi-empirical nature, was included in both the Intact Stability Code, IMO Res. A. 749 and, with some modifications, got mandatory status in the International Intact Stability Code 2008. It is quite easy to foresee that it will survive in the near future too, at least until the Second Generation Intact Stability Criteria, recently approved as Interim Guidelines, will undergo thorough testing and tuning.