A voyage or voyage leg made without any paying cargo in a vessel tanks. To maintain proper stability, trim, or draught, seawater is usually carried during such movements.

Electric-driven pumps, usually vertically mounted and fitted with separate motor-driven priming systems. Close-coupled designs have the pump rotor mounted on an extended motor shaft.

Piping and pumping system arranged so that water can be drawn from any ballast tank or the sea and discharged to any other ballast tank or the sea.

Watertight compartment for holding water ballast.

1. Ballast Water Convention, 2004 -The International Convention for the Control and Management of Ships’ Ballast Water and Sediments, 2004.

The practical method to minimize the introduction of unwanted organisms from the discharge of ballast water. The exchange procedure shall be carried out in an “open ocean condition” at least 200 nautical miles...

Ships performing ballast water exchange shall do so with an efficiency of 95% of ballast water. For ships exchanging ballast water by the flow-through method...

Various measures to prevent, minimize and ultimately eliminate the risk of introduction of harmful marine organisms within ballast water. Ballast water management includes theballast water exchange...

Ships of 400 gross tonnes and above are required to have on board and implement a Ballast Water Management Plan approved by Administration.

Ships conducting ballast water management must discharge fewer than 10 viable organisms per cubic metre that are greater than or equal to 50 micrometers in minimum dimension...

Any method to kill, remove or render infertile, harmful or potentially harmful organisms within ballast water.

Ballast Water Treatment System (BWTS) is a system designed to remove and destroy/inactive biological organisms (zooplankton, algae, bacteria) from ballast water.

The procedure during which seawater ballast is introduced in specific tanks to achieve a desired stability, draught and trim.

A special link between a floating pipeline and hopper dredger.

A commercial shipping trade organisation headquartered in Copenhagen. BIMCO is one of the largest international organisations of ship owners in the world.

A contructed reservoir where water is pumped or siphoned from a river of variable quality or size.

A unit of pressure equal to 100 000 Pascal (14.5 PSIG).

The bar is a metric unit of pressure, but not part of the International System of Units (SI).

A charter in which the bare ship is chartered without crew. The charterer for a stipulated sum takes over the vessel for a stated period of time, with a minimum of restrictions.

Bare hand, or potential working, involves placing the worker in direct electrical contact with an energized overhead line.