MaritimeBlog. Life Boats Safety
Reading articles concerned with the life boat safety difficult to disagree with authors enumerating various contributing factors to on-load release gear unsafe designs. But also difficult to see any light at the end of tunnel when considering the effect of such articles as a whole and, what is even more regretful, when observing the situation from the window of my master’s cabin.
Heaps of bureaucratic papers and port state control campaigns have, in my view, counter-productive effect because it put additional stress and burden on crews, which in some instances lead to situation when seamen would rather hide defects and malfunctions then repair them. The reasons are simple: financial exposure of the owners (which directly affects crews as well) from results of PSC, vetting, external audits, etc. is so great nowadays and trade conditions can be so intense that often there practically no way to cope with some technical problems, even with those which directly related to safety of ship. Finally, a merchant vessel is a commercial enterprise and it is built not to test or demonstrate the latest safety designs but to earn money. There is no safety for safety’s sake…
But main mistake, in my view, of various suggestions of on-load design improvements lies in that fact that first uselessness and secondly an accompanying danger of handling of the life boat has not been apprehended yet. Life boats came into the twenty first century from sail ships era in slightly modified form but for use in quite different surroundings. By now almost everything has been changed or modified in shipping industry, taking into consideration new size, propulsion, speed and technical ability of crew: laws, education, navigational aids, technical tools and requirements. Only life boats remains as clumsy rudiments of previous epoch.
There are very few successful attempts to abandon vessel in the life boats. The most recent one is of ‘MSC Napoli’, when crew managed to survive in life boat in force 9 gale. Success was a really notable one, but one shall not forget that ‘MSC Napoli’ was a large or even a very large vessel, with a huge freeboard (not less than 9 meters I suppose) and with all those containers on board evacuating crew must have had a very good lee, or at least one which could be described as a very good considering all the surrounding circumstances. The picture may be quite opposite if we consider small (less than 100m) or medium size (less than 180m) vessels, with freeboard between 2-4 meters (or less) in the first case and between 3-6 meters (or less) in the latter. Crew of the vessel of 100m length would have had no chance of escape in life boat in similar weather conditions. And it is not only because of smaller freeboard. Small or medium size vessels should have disastrous rolling when lying along those waves, which would make any disembarkation on the life boat practically impossible – life boat would never reach the surface of the water in the first place being smashed over the hull! Modern car carriers, for example, have life boats at the height of navigational bridge, that is 30 meters above water line, and I really like to see naval architect, who invented such design, going in this boat down even in moderate weather.
My second point is about suggestion to substitute the life boats of gravitational type for freefall life boats. I do agree with these authors, that on some vessels, I’m speaking about small and medium size vessels, release-hook method shall be abolished, but it shall be abolished together with the life boats itself, life boat of any kind. The simple explanation why freefall life boats have shorter list of accidents is that they 10 times less in the water then the ordinary life boats are! By SOLAS it shall be done twice a year but you may believe me or not, those life boats get into the water not often than 2-3 times in 5 years, and then ONLY in the best possible weather conditions. It has its own simple explanation. It might be relatively easy to go to the water inside the freefall life boat but it is 10 times as harder to get it back and this task becoming almost impossible when vessel rolls.
But, in my opinion, not only those facts above make freefall life boats same dangerous as those using release-hook mechanism. It is very seldom discussed that with years regular use of such boats causes structural damage to the hull of the boat. Hulls made of fiberglass develop microscopic cracks as a result of contact with sea surface, and the more such contacts the more cracks. These cracks are not easy to notice - such damage usually becomes visible in way of water accumulation in forward part of boat in stowed condition after heavy rain. Another unspoken subject concerned to freefalls is that danger which accompanies landing on water operation from 15 m height in bad weather conditions from immobilized vessel. In such a case freefall life boat shall have no advantage of lee side, as will be the case with life boat stowed from either side of the ship, therefore the boat will fall down in 5-9m waves with totally unpredictable effect of such impact.
It is obvious that nowadays life boats become an expensive and dangerous tool which although requires thorough maintenance but in fact is never used. Survival rules underlined by experience say that on medium to big size of vessels if there is no danger of capsising the best way of survival is to remain on board and wait for helicopter to rescue crew. In 99.9% of all other cases use of life rafts is the only option usually remains for crew, see for example MAIB Report on the investigation of the collision between mt Audacity and mv Leonis in the approaches to the River Humber on 14 April 2007, in the best possible conditions crew failed to lower down life boats and has to escape from the sinking bulker in the rafts. (click here if you cannot access file through the link below).
Read MAIB investigation report Audacity/Leonis
Leave your questions and comments here
Although author encourages visitors to leave their comments using this form, but should you be unable or unwilling to use it for any reason you can use mail address info@lawandsea.net for your feedback.