RINA’s Hellenic Technical Committee meeting, organised by RINA Hellas, on Thursday March 15th at the Yacht Club of Greece, gathered its members to facilitate marine industry discussion and provide an update on RINA’s developments and growth.

Spyros Zolotas, RINA Marine Greece & Black Sea Area Director, welcomed the members and thanked them for their continuous support. “The Greek and Cypriot owned RINA fleet significantly increased in 2017 and the expectations for 2018 are very positive as well. This is the way the industry gives us recognition for making a difference with our people and quality of services”, Zolotas said.

The Co-Chairmen of the Committee, Mr. Theo Baltatzis, General Manager of Technomar Shipping Inc. and Mr. Akis Tsirigakis, General Manager of Nautilus Marine Acquisition Corp., welcomed the new members and explained RINA’s achievements in the last year and the challenges that our industry is facing.

According to Clarksons, RINA’s classed fleet had a growth rate of +7.1% in 2017, the highest among all classification societies, and now is composed of 6000 ships for about 41 million GT. Its marine international network has been growing constantly and currently counts over 170 Offices worldwide. With a newbuildings portfolio of over 4.5 million GT and some very sophisticated projects in progress worldwide, like the dual fuel cruise vessels for Carnival Group or other hybrid propulsion projects, RINA is today at the forefront of technology. The yachting business continues to be very active and RINA’s fleet counts about 1300 classed yachts with another 250 yachting projects ongoing worldwide.

An overview of RINA, its financial results of 2017, as well as its new organization dedicated to five sectors (Marine, Energy, T&I, Industry, Certification) was presented by Stefano Bertilone, RINA EMEA & Italy Marine Business Development Director, with his presentation “Results and future Strategies”.

The technical part of the meetingincluded information on all the new Rules and Regulations from IACS and IMO presentedby Michael Markogiannis, RINA Greece Plan Approval Head. His presentation on “Rule Updates” was highly appreciated by all technical members of the committee and it’s not a surprise considering the high number of regulations entering into force presently and in the near future and their impact on the decisions taken by shipping executives.

RINA’s focus for 2018 and the years to come is on digitalization, so Giampiero Soncini, RINA Marine Innovation Senior Advisor, was the appropriate executive to give the big picture of the relevant challenges for the Marine Industry.

Alessandro Pescetto, RINA Marine Innovation Sector Head, continued with more details on RINA’s services and strategies in the digital sector by offering a presentation on “State of the art of the digitalization process / RINA’s ideas for the future”.

The technical part of the meeting was concluded with an interesting presentation by Panagiotis Kitsakis, SKF Services & Solutions Engineer, who informed RINA’s HTC members about latest developments regarding “Predictive maintenance: old idea, new technologies”.

The issues presented and discussed raised a lot of interest and ignited an exchange of views among the members that continued in a lively atmosphere during the dinner in the beautiful environment of the Club.