The International Council of Marine Industry Associations (ICOMIA, founded 1966) is a non-profit international trade association that brings together national recreational marine industry associations and represents them at an international level. ICOMIA has currently 35 full members representing virtually all countries with an active recreational marine industry in Europe, North America, Asia and Australia.
ICOMIA publishes documents and guidelines to facilitate the growth of the global recreational marine industry. One of ICOMIA’s on-going projects is the Global Conformity Guidelines, which are produced in association with the American Boat and Yacht Council (ABYC),British Marine Federation (BMF), National Marine Manufacturers Association (NMMA) and International Marine Certification Institute (IMCI).
The purpose of the Global Conformity Guidelines is to assist boat builders who comply with either ABYC or ISO standard systems, but are looking to start exporting to countries using the opposite system. So far, ICOMIA has published seven guidelines including Fuel Systems, Powering and Windows, Portlights and Hatches in the ICOMIA Online Library. The final goal of the Global Conformity Guidelines is to resolve the differences between the two standards and achieve one global technical specification.
Equally important to mention are the annual ICOMIA industry statistics, which are produced annually with numbers from their global membership.
Other ICOMIA projects include the recent launch of the SCANTLINGS CALCULATOR, which uses a series of spread sheets in order to provide a calculation method to help and encourage builders to comply with ISO (Small Craft) Scantling standard 12215 Part 5. ICOMIA’s Technical Committee initiated a study (sponsored by the IMCI), and upon approval from ISO, commissioned Southampton Solent University to develop a series of Excel spread sheets designed to be used in conjunction with the ISO standard and specifically for use by self-certifying builders for whom 12215 Part 5 may be too daunting or time consuming. Another ICOMIA innovation is the KEEL-CHECKER; a tool for assessing whether keel designs are within the parameters of the new standard ISO 12215 Part 9, which recently has gone into Final Draft International Standard (FDIS) voting. Although the new standard has still a few months to go until publication, many organisations already require compliant keel designs.
In addition to publishing guidelines and other valuable documents, ICOMIA is directly involved with a number of international events. In partnership with Amsterdam RAI, the annual marine equipment trade show METS has become the global market place for equipment manufacturers.