New Zealand, biofouling, hull, regulations Home Publications Articles New Zealand biofouling - Craft Risk Management Standard New Zealand biofouling - Craft Risk Management Standard Publications Steamship Mutual Published: June 14, 2018 Contact author Download article pdf Image This article covers an important change to regulations relating to hull biofouling in New Zealand.  It explains the regime and findings from the first few  weeks of its mandatory operation. On 15 May 2018 the Craft Risk Management Standard (CRMS) came into force.  CRMS sets out the requirements for management of biofouling risks associated with ships entering New Zealand Territorial Waters (within the 12nm limit). CRMS is monitored and implemented by the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI).  In the preceding four years, MPI operated a voluntary “clean hull” protocol which has seen some ships being found to have unclean hulls on inspection and in some cases ordered out of New Zealand Territorial Waters for cleaning.  As of 15 May 2018 the CRMS became mandatory.  Ships which do not comply with the CRMS risk being ordered to leave New Zealand ports and New Zealand Territorial Waters. At a recent briefing given by MPI, the point was made very strongly that the recently elected Government in New Zealand, which has the Green Party of New Zealand as one of its coalition components, intends to set a high bar on biosecurity risks.  The importance of ship operators having  in place measures to ensure a clean hull prior to the ship’s arrival in New Zealand was stressed. The CRMS regime CRMS draws a distinction between short-stay vessels and long-stay vessels with different fouling requirements for each category. A short-stay vessel is a ship in New Zealand 20 days or less and only visiting designated “places of first arrival” (which include all the main ports). Deep sea international trading ships will usually fall within the short-stay vessel category and are t