The Japanese classification society, ClassNK, has announced that its register surpassed the 8,000 ship milestone, totaling 8,036 ships of 206,927,557 gross tons as of the end of August 2012.

More than 1000 ships have been added to the ClassNK Register in the past four years.

ClassNK claims to be the leading classification society for bulk carriers with nearly three times as many bulk carriers on it register as the next class society, but is also the leading class society for tankers and second for container carriers in terms of ship numbers.

In addition to newly built vessels, the large number of vessels transferred from other classification societies has propelled ClassNK’s rapid growth in recent years.