Larger ships, new safety challenges
IMO is undertaking a global consideration of the safety issues pertaining to passenger ships, as the cruise industry giants vie for prestige and passengers -
Update: May 2006 - The Maritime Safety Committeee (MSC) at its 81st session in May 2006 completed its major work programme item on passenger ship safety, which has based its guiding philosophy on the premise that the regulatory framework should place more emphasis on the prevention of a casualty from occurring in the first place and that future passenger ships should be designed for improved survivability so that, in the event of a casualty, persons can stay safely on board as the ship proceeds to port. A number of amendments to the SOLAS Convention were approved for adoption at MSC 82 in November-December 2006.
It was noted that, with regard to the five pillars of the guiding philosophy for the Committee's passenger ship safety initiative, the following have been achieved since the work was initiated in 2000:
Prevention: Amendments to SOLAS and the STCW Conventions and supporting guidelines that focus on fire prevention, navigation safety, training and contingency planning.
Improved survivability: Amendments to SOLAS chapters II-1 and II-2 and supporting guidelines that focus on essential system redundancy, management of emergencies and casualty mitigation.
Regulatory flexibility: Amendments to SOLAS chapters II-1 and III and supporting guidelines that focus on promoting, through rigorous evaluation and approval procedures, the regulatory approval of new safety technologies and arrangements.
Operations in areas remote from SAR facilities: Action taken to develop amendments to SOLAS chapter III and supporting guidelines that will focus on reducing the time it takes to recover persons from survival craft and the water; supporting guidelines approved on external support from SAR Authorities, as well as guidance to assist seafarers taking part in SAR operations.
Health safety and medical care: Supporting guidelines that focus on establishing medical safety programmes and a revised Guide on Cold Water Survival.
Larger ships, new safety challenges
Royal
Caribbean’s flagship Voyager of the Seas is no ordinary ship. At 142,000
gross tons, she currently holds the title of the world’s largest cruise ship.
Imagine the Eiffel Tower in Paris tipped on its side, and you have some idea of her length.
With a capacity of around 1,800 crew and over 3,100 passengers, she can carry the population of a small town.
She boasts the highest “space-per-guest” ratio in the cruise market today and fully embraces the new concept of “the ship is the destination” with such innovative recreational features as an ice rink, a street fair and even an artificial rock-face for budding mountaineers.
Ships such as this
have broken the boundaries of convention in terms of their concept, their design
and their sheer size. So many things distinguish cruise ships from other ship
types but a key factor in their very conception is that they create their own
market.
Whereas containerships, for instance, are built in response to their owners’ perceptions of the market’s requirement, cruise ship owners create a concept and then set out to sell it.
Safety, of course, is a vital concern for passenger ship designers and operators. These vessels have the highest of profiles and their success could be undermined entirely if the public were to lose confidence in them.
Although it cannot
be denied that a number of incidents in recent years have indicated the vulnerability
of these ships, it is also true that overall, their safety record is good. By
and large, they avoid the worst excesses of the weather. Passengers demand that
they should do so and a typical power installation capable of providing 25-knots
enables them to outrun a hurricane.
But while the modern cruise giants have the power and speed to dodge the weather, they are particularly vulnerable to fire. Every passenger is a potential ignition source and the hotel services clearly have an inherent risk.
Prompted by a concern that the trend toward ever larger vessels could lead to new giants of the cruise world which might pose safety-related questions unforeseen by existing regulations, the then IMO Secretary-General William O’Neil took a personal initiative to raise the issue during the 72nd meeting of the Maritime Safety Committee (MSC) in May 2000.
As a result, the MSC agreed to undertake a global consideration of the safety issues pertaining to these ships and a working group on large passenger-ship safety began work at the next session of the Committee in November-December 2000, to review the current safety regime as it relates to large passenger ships.
What
emerged is from IMO was a plan for a body of work that will constitute one of
the largest ever investigations into the safety-related aspects a particular
ship type ever carried out. The guiding philosophy of the work hinges on the
following five elements.
- the regulatory framework should place more emphasis on the prevention of a casualty from occurring in the first place.
- future large passenger ships should be designed for improved survivability so that, in the event of a casualty, persons can stay safely on board as the ship proceeds to port.
- the regulatory framework should permit alternative designs and arrangements in lieu of the prescriptive regulations, provided that at least an equivalent level of safety is achieved.
- large passenger ships should be crewed, equipped and have arrangements to ensure the safety of persons on board for survival in the area of operation, taking into account climatic conditions and the availability of SAR functions.
- large passenger ships should be crewed and equipped to ensure the health safety, medical care and security of persons on board until more specialized assistance is available.
These five elements spawned a host of specific tasks and objectives, which have been built into a thoroughgoing review of the existing safety regime as it applies to these ships. Following work in the Radiocommunications, Search and Rescue (COMSAR), Ship Design and Equipment (DE), Fire Protection (FP), Safety of Navigation (NAV), Stability, Load Lines and Fishing Vessel Safety (SLF) and Standards of Training and Watchkeeping (STW) Sub-Committees between 2000-2004, the MSC agreed at its 79th session in December 2004 that as many of the issues discussed under the agenda item "Large Passenger Ship Safety" applied equally to all passenger ships, the agenda item should be renamed "Passenger Ship Safety". The Committee approved a revised work plan for passenger ship safety and the revised guiding philosophy, strategic goals and objectives.
The revised guiding
philosophy for future work on passenger ship safety is based on the premise
that the regulatory framework should place more emphasis on the prevention of
a casualty from occurring in the first place and that future passenger ships
should be designed for improved survivability so that, in the event of a casualty,
persons can stay safely on board as the ship proceeds to port.
The unique circumstances
of the cruise industry encourage ship designers to seek the key selling points
that will make their creation somebody’s dream holiday destination.
Passengers’ demands for comfort, space and sheer prestige, coupled with economies of scale, mean that the quest for size is likely to continue.
IMO’s work is aimed at ensuring that, while this buoyant sector of the shipping industry continues to expand and push at the boundaries of convention, the key issues of safe design and operation can keep pace.
Further Information:
Latest work - see summary reports of meetings
Information Resources on large passenger ship safety
Focus papers
Life Saving: Surviving Disaster at Sea
Search and Rescue and the GMDSS
Websites - see also IMO Library Directory of Maritime Links
Inclusion in the list does not mean that IMO endorses the information on the websites listed and use of the IMO logo is not permitted. Every attempt is made at ensuring the accuracy of the addresses but it should be borne in mind that these are often changed. We cannot guarantee the functionality of linked sites.
Cruise Log (with links) http://www.cruiser.co.za/
International Council of Cruise Lines (ICCL) http://www.iccl.org
