Mr. Jakob Pinkster:

Sure. I will be pleased to do that. When designing a vessel one makes the best calculations one can especially with regard to the light ship weight, which means the ship's weight without any cargo, fuel or consumables on board like that. The designers make the best estimation they can about these weights. It is very important to get that right. The plan of the ship is made so that we know more or less where the centres of gravity are for all the weights. One gets the total weight and the centre of gravity of the whole thing. This is what is calculated. Then the calculation is made on the form of the ship to calculate what the stability of the ship will be with weights and the ship form. This is to make sure that when the ship inclines she comes back again into the upright position. That is stability and that is what we want. The ship's designer makes the calculations and as a naval architect he or she would make sure that the stability is good at this stage. Then the plans are made for construction of the ship and the ship is constructed in the shipyard. This is where the real material comes into it. The ship gets built. Steel plates are put in place with frames, girders and angle bars put on board and all the other systems to make this ship properly. Then once it is finished the ship goes out of the shipyard and that is when we do the inclination test for the stability test. We are looking for a number of things in the stability test. Number one is the displacement and the weight of the ship. The weight of the ship has only been calculated on paper so far. We do the inclination test, we check out the draught of the vessel, and we look at the displacement of the vessel, and then we can say what the weight is. This is number one. At this stage one can say "It is spot on" or "There is a difference". If there is a difference then we should be alarmed. Number two also arises from the inclination test where we are able to find out the centre of gravity of the ship, which is very important for the stability. If the centre of gravity in the height and in the length of the ship is wrong then it is also a reason to be alarmed.