The sinking of the Estonia spurred renewed interest in the international maritime community to conduct a thorough assessment of RO/RO passenger ferry vessel operations. SNAME, in keeping with its Strategic Plan, formed an ad hoc panel to assess the safety of the Canadian and U.S. RO/RO passenger ferry fleets. This paper describes the international actions to improve RO/RO ferry safety and how the ad hoc panel interacted with this process to ensure that the proposed changes to international maritime rules were rationally based.