This paper, prepared as an introduction to the Session on Stability Standards: the Way Ahead, contains some notes and considerations of the author following the discussion of the item Revision of the Intact Stability Code at the recent meetings of the International Maritime Organization Subcommittee on Stability and Load Lines and Fishing Vessels Stability held in London in July 2002 and in September 2003. The origins of present Intact Stability Criteria are clarified and innovative recent experimental results are introduced to explain the unsatisfactory status of these criteria. The paper presents a plan of new Stability Criteria and discusses the foreseeable difficulties connected to their development also in the light of the analysis of previous attempts.
