for Marine and Ports, the department will have a methodical, dogged administrator who produces results.

In his 15 years as Bermuda's principal marine surveyor, Mr. Ross twice had to build the register from scratch.

When he came into the job in the mid-1970s, there were just a few commercial vessels totalling 1.8 million gross registered tons.

He was building the fledgling registry to respectable numbers when the boat people crisis in southeast Asia in 1970 virtually wiped it out.

Ships deserted the registry when the Island failed to provide resettlement guarantees for any boat people they picked up. Most of the vessels shifted to the United Kingdom whose guarantee was specific.

So Mr. Ross began again in the early 1980s. It was a process that pursued a fine and difficult line between maintaining the Island's attractiveness for ship owners and holding to a higher, UK-based standard on manning and operations requirements.

"We attempt to steer a midline making it not as restrictive as the UK but not like Liberia or Panama,'' the 54-year-old father of two said.

Mr. Ross added that Bermuda has put the brake on all-out, unrestricted growth that characterises some of the more notorious jurisdictions. Bermuda's more conservative registry regulations reflect the need to maintain its "image'' and to keep a high British content in officer manning levels.

"The content has always been a major restriction on growth,'' Mr. Ross said.

"But these are now being eased so the situation for growth is better.'' At last count, Bermuda's registry had more than 100 ships with a total of 3.3 million gross registered tons -- the 26th largest.

Mr. Ross's involvement in Island shipping issues has extended far beyond the registry. He was on the front line when the Island's economic well-being was threatened by a spate of ship groundings in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

There was the Tifoso in 1979 and the Aguila Azteca and Sealuck within weeks of each other in 1983.

As principal marine surveyor, Mr. Ross was one of the first aboard the stricken ships to assess damage, the pollution threat and specific gear to contain spillage.

"The Aguila Azteca contained a tremendous potential threat to the Island,'' he said. "She contained nearly 200,000 tons of heavy, nasty, thick crude (oil). With the prevailing winds, it would have come ashore.

"Only a small amount would have been needed to cover the shore. How do you clean it up? There was nowhere to store it. There was a hurricane in the area as well. The grounding could have destroyed the Island for two to three years.

So, in those circumstances, the decisions you make at the moment are fairly far-reaching.'' Bermuda survived the Aguila Azteca and the two groundings in 1983 and has since worked diligently to improve its oil pollution readiness.

Mr. Ross maintains that Bermuda will never be free of the threat of groundings.

"We had four cases last year where ships were on a potential collision course,'' he said. "We haven't had a major grounding since 1984, touch wood, but we're always at risk. It's not a risk you can remove. We're on the route between the Gulf and Europe. It runs in a straight line through the outer edge of the northern reef. All the groundings seem to end up in roughly that area.'' Mr. Ross says one aspect of his surveyor's job that he found interesting was keeping the Island up to date on changes to international shipping laws.

The local register is largely international in scope and "keeping it up to date is quite a task.'' In the past year, for example, he has initiated changes that will see local adoption of regulations governing the "rules of the road'' for ships passing each other.

Mr. Ross is well positioned to continue with the works of a department that has made significant strides in the past 10 years to improve nearly all aspects of its operations.

He played an integral part in many of the changes brought in by his predecessor Capt. Gilbert Hallam: the winning of Area To Be Avoided Status on international shipping charts, the strengthening of the Island's navigational defences through the erection and replacement of beacons, the modernisation of Harbour Radio and the re-building Marine and Ports' fleet of boats.

On Friday, Mr. Ross moves into Capt. Hallam's chair to oversee all department operations. It currently employs 144 people and possesses 16 boats ranging from the public ferries, to the pilot boats that guide ships inshore, to the search and rescue boat St. David. The department also has responsibility for administering boat registrations and moorings.

"It will be a less hands-on type operation,'' Mr. Ross said of the new post.

"It will involve more direction and looking ahead to the future.

"We've renewed the fleet, so it's a question of maintaining what we've got, at least until the turn of the century.

"It's also a question of maintaining effective services. We'll try to get the best use of our personnel. There's not much more we can do on the reefs. I can see some day that we'll have to modernise Harbour Radio again. There are big changes taking place in the world of communications.

"We have a sophisticated radar system at Harbour Radio, for example, but it will have to be replaced when electronics become unnecessary.'' MR. RON ROSS -- Bermuda's new Marine and Ports director.