The problem was the Moskva Maru ’s markings. The hull plates were so rusted that the official draught marks—those six-inch-high numbers near the bow, midship, and stern—were illegible. Scraping away the barnacles revealed only pitted iron.
Her client, a nervous man named Lars, paced the dock. “Abort, Anja. We can’t get the numbers.” iso 5488 pdf
She flipped to Section 4.2.3: Alternative measurement in cases of obscured marks. The text was dense. It described a method using a laser transit, a reference level, and the known distance between the keel and the main deck. It was a nightmare of trigonometry. The problem was the Moskva Maru ’s markings
“The standard doesn’t care about ‘impossible,’” Anja replied, licking her thumb and turning to Annex B. “It cares about uncertainty. ISO 5488 allows a margin of 0.5%. That’s one finger’s width on a ship this size.” Her client, a nervous man named Lars, paced the dock
Anja looked at the ship, then at the PDF icon on her tablet. She had downloaded as a digital backup, but the file was corrupted. The only complete copy was the physical one in her oilskin pocket.