scope:

This Guide focuses on five (5) aspects of vessel design and layout that can be controlled, measured, and assessed. These five (5) aspects are broken into two (2) major types in this Guide: accommodations design and characteristics of the ambient environment.

Accommodations criteria pertain to dimensional or physical aspects of spaces/areas where seafarers work, eat, sleep, recreate, and conduct routine activities.

The criteria associated with the MLC-ACCOM notation is applicable only to accommodation spaces where seafarers sleep, rest, dine, and recreate.

This Guide, particularly in Section 3, "Whole-body Vibration" and Section 4, "Noise", provides additional guidance related to seafarer work spaces. This guidance can be used if any voluntary ambient environmental testing is to be done in seafarer work spaces. This testing is recommended, but not required.