Guidance on the subject of measures to prevent accidents with lifeboats has been been updated and consolidated in guidelines approved by the Maritime Safety Committee of IMO at its 81st session last month. The Guidelines are designed as an aid to compliance with amended SOLAS regulations which come into force on 1 July 2006.
The amendments (adopted in May 2004) to SOLAS chapter III - Life-saving appliances and arrangements are intended to help prevent accidents with lifeboats during drills. They stemmed from work by the Sub-Committee on Ship Design and Equipment (DE) intended to address the unacceptably high number of accidents with lifeboats in which crew have been injured, sometimes fatally, while participating in lifeboat drills and/or inspections. The amendments to SOLAS regulations III/19 - Emergency training and drills and III/20 Operational readiness, maintenance and inspections concern the conditions in which lifeboat emergency training and drills should be conducted and introduce changes to the operational requirements for maintenance, weekly and monthly inspections so as not to require any persons to be on board, and servicing of launching appliances and on-load release gear.
Guidelines For Periodic Servicing And Maintenance Of Lifeboats, Launching Appliances and On-Load Gear and Guidelines On Safety During Abandon Ship Drills Using Lifeboats are appendices to an MSC circular which can be downloaded here .
See also related amendments to STCW Code
