scope:

Introduction

1. The year 2018 edition of the Guide for Building and Classing Yachts consists of the nine (9) booklets as shown in Table 1. With regard to three booklets, Part 1, Part 2, and Part 7:

a) The purpose of the generic title ABS Rules for Conditions of Classification (Part 1) is to reflect the expanded contents of PART 1, as a result of including consolidated requirements for "Classification" applicable to all types of and sizes of yachts. Additional specific requirements are contained in Chapters 2 and 3 of Part 1.

b) The purpose of the generic title ABS Rules for Materials and Welding of PART 2 is to emphasize the common applicability of the requirements to ABS-classed vessels, other marine structures and their associated machinery, and thereby make PART 2 more readily a common "PART" of various ABS Rules and Guides, as appropriate.

c) The purpose of the generic title ABS Rules for Survey After Construction (Part 7) is to reflect the expanded contents of PART 7, as a result of including consolidated requirements for "Surveys After Construction" applicable to all types and sizes of vessels, barges and specific shipboard arrangements/systems, etc., as specified in Part 7, Chapter 1, Section 1.

2. The numbering system applied in the Rules is shown in Table 2.

3. The effective date of each technical change since 1993 is shown in parenthesis at the end of the subsection/paragraph titles within the text of each Part. Unless a particular date and month are shown

4. Until the next edition of the Guide for Building and Classing Yachts is published, Rule Change Notices and/or Corrigenda, as necessary, will be published on the ABS website - www.eagle.org - only, and will be available free for downloading. It is not intended to publish hard copies of future Rule Change Notices and/or Corrigenda to existing Rules or Guides. The consolidated edition of the Guide for Building and Classing Yachts, which includes Rule Change Notices and/or Corrigenda using different colors for easy recognition, will be published on the ABS website only when RCN and/or Corrigenda are issued.

5. The listing of CLASSIFICATION SYMBOLS AND NOTATIONS is available from the ABS website www.eagle.org for download.