Industry associations including INTERCARGO proposed and supported to issue MSC.1/Circ.1578 in Jun 2017 which addresses the risks associated with conducting drills on free-fall lifeboats through the “Guidelines for simulated launching of free-fall lifeboats”:
- Simulated launching carried out during drills is a means of training the crew in the free-fall release procedure of free-fall lifeboats without the physical activation of the release mechanism.
Realising that there is a need to test the release mechanism as the MSC.1/Circ.1578 (download here) has properly dealt with the safety concerns of crew injury during drill, IACS, joined by Industry associations, believes that a practical and effective approach without engaging crew onboard the lifeboat is to develop design and prototype test requirements for the arrangements used in the operational testing of free-fall lifeboat release systems without launching the lifeboat (equipment used in the simulated launching of free-fall lifeboats). Following this belief, a joint submission to MSC 101 (the 101st session of IMO’s Maritime Safety Committee, to be held in Jun 2019) will be made by:
