There is a clear link between safety and maneuverability of ships. Maneuverability must be considered during the design stage already; minimum standards of performance must be included in the design process. All maneuvering performance criteria and measures should be simple, relevant, comprehensible, measurable and practicable. The maneuvering characteristics addressed in the (interim) maneuverability standards of IMO are typical features of the performance quality and handling capacity of the ship, which are considered to be of direct nautical interest. Moreover, they may all be reasonably well predicted at the design stage and they can be measured or evaluated from accepted trial-type maneuvers.