Web Alert: Safety concerns during lifeboat drills

The club is aware of a significant number of lifeboat related incidents leading to death and personal injuries over the past few years. Following a recent incident during routine drills (September 2016) which resulted in one fatality on board a cruise ship, renewed attention has been given by the shipping industry to safety consideration issues during lifeboat drills.
The club has produced a number of previous articles highlighting the issues including our last web-alert earlier this year. In an effort to reduce lifeboat accidents, the IMO has previously introduced mandatory requirements including the Life-Saving Appliances (LSA) Code in 1996, and more recently:

• Lifeboat on-board release mechanisms to comply with the LSA Code and SOLAS III/1.5, no later than by 1 July 2019
• Maritime Safety Committee 96 (MSC) resolution on ‘Requirements for maintenance, thorough examination, operational testing, overhaul and repair of lifeboats and rescue boats, launching appliances and release gear’ was adopted in May 2016 and is expected to enter into force in 2020

The club understands that in an effort to reduce lifeboat accidents, there is ongoing work at the IMO together with other industry bodies such as INTERCARGO which includes:

• Guidelines on safety during abandon ship drills using lifeboats
• Making the provisions of MSC.1/Circ.1206/Rev.1 (Measures To Prevent Accidents With Lifeboats) mandatory

The club further understand that during the Maritime Safety Committee 97 (MSC) session to be held in November 2016, there will be further discussions as to industry guidelines.

The club will continue to monitor developments and provide members with further updates.​