Organisation and alarms
Maintenance and inspections of life-saving appliances
Life-saving equipment has a fixed inspection rhythm: the crew checks it weekly and monthly, and once a year it goes through a thorough examination. The weekly and monthly inspections end with an entry in the logbook.
Key facts
- Before leaving port and at all times during the voyage, all life-saving appliances must be in working order and ready for immediate use.
- Every week the crew inspects the survival craft, the rescue boats and the launching appliances (including the hooks and the on-load release mechanisms), runs the boat engines for at least 3 minutes and tests the general alarm.
- If weather and sea state allow, lifeboats (except free-fall lifeboats on cargo ships) are moved weekly from their stowed position, without persons on board, as far as needed to show that the launching gear works.
- Every month the boats (except free-fall boats) are turned out from the stowed position without persons on board, if weather and sea allow. Independently of that, the life-saving appliances and the boat equipment are inspected monthly with a checklist: they must be complete and in good order.
- Once a year the lifeboats, the rescue boats and the launching and release gear go through a thorough examination and operational tests per resolution MSC.402(96).
- The ship carries maintenance instructions or an approved planned maintenance programme: checklists, a schedule, lubrication points, parts for periodic replacement and an inspection log.
Service intervals
- Inflatable liferafts, inflatable lifejackets, marine evacuation systems
- service at an approved service station every 12 months; where proper and reasonable, the Administration may extend to 17 months
- Hydrostatic release units (except disposable ones)
- inspection every 12 months, with the same possible extension to 17
- Boats, launching appliances and release gear
- thorough examination and operational tests at the annual survey (res. MSC.402(96))
- Winch brakes of the davits
- annual dynamic test with the mass of the craft without persons on board; at least once every 5 years with a load of 110% of the fully equipped and manned craft, witnessed by a surveyor
- Falls used in launching
- inspected periodically, renewed no less often than every 5 years and always when their condition deteriorates
- Marine evacuation system (MES)
- besides the annual service, additionally deployed from the ship no less often than once every 6 years
- Boat engines (weekly test)
- a total of at least 3 minutes, if the ambient temperature allows
Watch out
The crew records the weekly and monthly inspections in the ship’s logbook. The entry is the proof the duty was done.
How it looks in practice
- On board, the life-saving and fire-fighting equipment has its keeper: usually the third officer, and on ships with a single watchkeeping officer, that officer. They run the weekly and monthly inspections from checklists, with ratings to help.
From the deck: sea practice, not regulation. Details vary with the ship and the owner.
Legal basis
SOLAS III/20 and IMO resolution MSC.402(96).
This is not a legal text: when in doubt, the current wording of the Convention and the LSA Code decides.